Advice on a UPS for my new dual 2.0

high-acidity · **Posted:** Tue Sep 28, 2004 10:06 am

Hi folks, well I finally done did it... ordered my dual 2.0 G5 yesterday, and ordered my memory today. Now I need to get a UPS, than I can have everything ready to assemble when the new member of the family arrives

I am looking at the APC Back-UPS RS 1000VA, any opinions?

- high-acidity -

(who I guess should sign in on the Introductions page sometime...)

dmchose · **Posted:** Tue Sep 28, 2004 2:26 pm

Never had any APC problems that were APC 's fault.Their managment software is behind the win platform, both APC and Apple point fingers at each other.I will say this, I have been hit by lightning, gone through some big power surges and sags and these units keep trucking till the run out of gas ;-)

I have never lost a box hooked up to one yet due to power infringment.
Don

high-acidity · **Posted:** Tue Sep 28, 2004 3:08 pm

Hi Don-

What size UPS do you use with your dual 2.0 setup? And is it APC?

- high-acidity -

Macaholic · **Posted:** Tue Sep 28, 2004 3:17 pm

I have one APC unit and it works great. But, the bulk of my UPS are Belkin. To me they seem less 'bulky' and more streamlined. Nice front panel controls and indicators. They get me through the Midwest thunderstorms and spikes without fail. Here is my Belkin unit of choice. Check MacMall, MacConnection, or even Newegg and you can probably find it for less than Belkin's retail price. It is sold out for a reason you know! :wink:

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=&Section_Id=76&pcount=&Product_Id=123044

Bmer · **Posted:** Tue Sep 28, 2004 3:39 pm

Mac, I have that same unit!! It's been working great. I let the computer run all summer through storms with no problems.

Hi-Acidity -- is "the earth moving under your feet" today?

http://www.steveharding.com/i_feel_the_ ... e-king.kar

dmchose · **Posted:** Tue Sep 28, 2004 3:56 pm

Hey back, I use a 725 Office. I would consider that as min. and I will replace it with a 1000 + back-ups/Smart-ups before the end of the year for more run time;just in case I am in the middle of posting on the G5 list when the lights go out ! The main thing is that is does a nice shut down for you in the event of power failure.I have also read that the Belkin has nice software.Our church has had to replace most of theirs in two y
years.They just seemed to quit.Our area does stress test these little UPS boxes ;-)

Today it seems, one needs to compare run time VS cost.Since nothing I do on computer is life or death and my job is not critical to the servers or other machines running,if they go down for period due to ACTS of GOD or my stupidity...oh well ;-)

Don

high-acidity · **Posted:** Tue Sep 28, 2004 4:21 pm

Heh, heh Bmer! Indeed, things are in motion that we would rather not see move

But the epicenter is south of us, in an area that is about 20 years late for this... the seismologists are having a field day. We are not really getting too much up here. At least not yet ... (cue in ominous music)

This is when it can be really fun to watch all the folks that just moved here in the last 10 years...

Thanks for all the recommendations. NewEgg has that Belkin for 129.99, that looks good, yes?

Macaholic · **Posted:** Tue Sep 28, 2004 4:35 pm

Yes. That is a good price. I have seen them as low as 99.99$, but you have to search quite a bit for sale deals. I've got 4 of them hooked up to my various machines and monitors. No failures or problems with any of them in 18 months of 24/7 usage. Just ask Sailfish about my 'collective'! :lol:

high-acidity · **Posted:** Tue Sep 28, 2004 4:46 pm

Oooooh, a Borg!

I found the Belkin at a place called Provantage for 99.95, 117.95 with shipping . Have you heard of these folks?

Shake it up baby!

Big Mac · **Joined:** Mon Aug 23, 2004 11:59 pm **Posts:** 2

I decided to go the cheap route since I saw that there was a $40 rebate for the Belkin 500VA. That was a mistake. When my G5 was connected to the battery backup outlet, any time it would get about 30% CPU usage the thing would overload and beep incessantly. And of course, Belkin was stupid enough not to provide a shutoff for the damn beeping. I think the UPS even caused some corruption in one of my applications, which started acting funky right at that time, forcing me to reinstall it.

high-acidity · **Posted:** Sat Oct 02, 2004 7:34 pm

Big Mac-

Could it have been overloading because the UPS was not "big" enough? I have ordered the 1200VA, so I do not anticipate any overloading problems.

Bmer · **Posted:** Sat Oct 02, 2004 9:17 pm

Ya, you need a UPS that is rated at 650W or more. I think my 1200 is rated at 670W.

high-acidity · **Posted:** Sun Oct 03, 2004 6:44 pm

I received the Belkin 1200VA from Provantage on Friday, installed it with my current system (G4 533) yesterday... after basically rewiring the outlets in the room I use as an office. This is an older house, and guess what, the outlets are not grounded. Well now two of them are :-)

Now I am ready for the G5 to get here... I may get it tomorrow, FedEx says it left Anaheim on Friday night.

Everything looks to be fine with the installation (yes, the 1200VA is 670w), but I have a question... is it enough to use the UPS options present in the control panel in System Preferences, or is there some additional benefit to installing the software?

Bmer · **Posted:** Sun Oct 03, 2004 7:57 pm

I didn't install the software because I'm always here if something goes wrong, but if you're away from the computer quite a bit, I would suggest you use it.

giantmike · **Posted:** Fri Oct 15, 2004 8:03 am

I get by just fine with my APC 725. It only delivers 400 W of power, but I have not had a single problem with that (the battery backup still worked fine when running Distributed.net full blast, of course, run time was down a bit).

As for the software issue, I think that is a moot point starting with 10.3. Panther includes provisions for UPSs inside the Energy Saver system preferences (you must have a UPS hooked up and connected via USB to see this option). It will allow you to set all the the normal energy saver settings, plus the ability to shut down when x minutes are remaining. The biggest plus is the ability to show the UPS status in the menu bar, so you can see if it is connected properly, and what percentage of charge the battery is at.