Power cuts killing PC

[SE14man]

I keep getting power cuts... or the whole town does rather. It's not doing the PC any good at all. Have gone through 3 PSU's in one month.

Someone mentioned a UPS it can run on.

Can someone pls point mei n the right direction as to what i'd need to be getting?

I dont need it to run that long on UPS.. about 4 hours UPS time if thats possible?

I was wondering what people would recommend for me (just being a home user on a home pc) what brand i would need and a good reliable one which is fairly cheap but sitll good!

Please let me know.

I'm in Australia too btw.

Cheers.

[guns1inger]

4 hours puts you into the higher-end of home/small business UPS units. Most are designed to give you 15 - 20 minutes or less. Enough time to get over a short outage, or to finish what you are doing and to shut down gracefully. These smaller units can be had for a couple of hundred at somewhere like Dick Smith or Officeworks. However something that will keep you running for 4 hours could set you back a couple of grand or more.

Try this page for UPS sizing. It will only give you APC models, but it will give you a clear picture of the size of unit you will need. http://www.apc.com/tools/ups_selector/

As an example, the best price for something to keep my modest rig up and running for up to 312 minutes (which also gives head room for growth and will power my external drives and router) is almost AUD$2500

Depending on the model, you might also have to have a 15 amp circuit and outlet installed in your home to power the beast.

[SE14man]

Oh wow thats SUCH a good site!

Thanks for that it has really helped me!

Seems that the way 2 go is APC Back-UPS RS 1200VA LCD 230V

Although Australia runs on 240V doesnt it? Wld there be an identical model to that out here that runs on 240?

Thanks very much indeed.

[edDV]

I get lots of power outages here but never lost a power supply.
My UPS only gives about 15 minutes. Then I start the generator (inverter output).

Here's the 230v/50 hz version.
http://www.honda-generator.co.uk/Honda_EU20i.html

Much cheaper than a 4 hr UPS.

[garryward]

If you go down the UPS genny route , I would If I kept having 4 hours outage , have a look at a genny with a LPG conversion the fuel doesnt go off , Petrol will wax if its not used for a long period it can be refueled whilst it is still running if you have the correct setup and the most important thing is you can run it longer on gas that Petrol as LPG is a cleaner fuel so you dont need to service the thing as much.

[fritzi93]

Three PSUs in one month? I would suspect voltage spikes doing the damage, not outages. Do you have a decent surge suppressor/protector?

[jman98]

For what it's worth, I have also had dead PSUs after losing power, but as I am not and do not claim to be an electrician or electricity expert, I can only report that it's happened to me. Whether the loss of power fried it or a spike got it I can't say, but I do have surge protection.

We have some decent UPS devices on our PCs at work. If you use Windows, any personal sized UPS you get may have a Windows driver that enables Windows to see it as an attached device via USB. I programmed mine to shut down the PC after 1 full minute without power. If you don't shut down your PC fairly quickly after a prolonged outage, it will use up the battery in the UPS to keep it running. We have unreliable power in our building and it's taken only a small number of outages to basically drain the battery in some of our desktop UPS systems.

[MJA]

any UPS with automatic voltage regulation Line conditioning will do the job.

here in the US you can get a nice one for home usage for less than $150 like cyberpower CP1500AVRLCD


edDV I was looking to buy a honda generator like like the EU1000I/2000I. way too much for that little bad boy

[classfour]

I'm running two: One for the PC, one for the monitor, etc.. Small 350 watt APC units that I picked up on sale at Office Depot a few years back. My power company is actually pretty reliable (it takes a major ice storm or someone hitting a pole to knock them out): Longest outage was 20 years ago when the entire eastern half of the US went down.

[edDV]

any UPS with automatic voltage regulation Line conditioning will do the job.

here in the US you can get a nice one for home usage for less than $150 like cyberpower CP1500AVRLCD


edDV I was looking to buy a honda generator like like the EU1000I/2000I. way too much for that little bad boy

The used market picks up off season. I got my nearly new EU2000is for $650 off Craigslist.

[MJA]

whats the chance of picking one with that price in my area.lol I guess I have to keep watching

[edDV]

$700-850 is typical for a low use model but not during peak winter.

[roger707]

Haven't heard anyone suggest this method. I use a standard small UPS, the type good for about 15 minutes.
I take out the small 12v 7AH battery and connect wires & run out to an external heavy duty 12V deep cycle
marine battery. To be honest I don't know what the run time is. It's has on one occasion run over your 4 hour
requirement. This is on a fully loaded PC + 19" wide screen monitor.

[MJA]

why is it so filthy? lol

[SE14man]

Thanks for the help here guys i iwll look into all of your suggestions.

Very helpful indeed.

You know you say i need a surge supressor/protector? Well would this be down to the fact my recordings from vinyl to PC have a very loud hum to them?

It seems to have always been the case.. When i normalise my recording from my stanton turntable going through a preamp to my pc i get a very loud hum. Would a supressor sort this out or is this something else it would need?

Thanks for your answers everyone.

[guns1inger]

Sounds like dodgy earth wiring.

I am wary of the ability of the regulators in second hand UPS units. We have an over voltage issue in our area where the voltage sits above the standard level, but within what the power companies call acceptable. The regulators tend to die long before the batteries wear out, simply because they in use constantly.

[Nelson37]

I have seen the deep-cycle 12-volt add-on used on several occassions, it seems to work well but I have never wired up one myself. Don't know of any consumer-grade unit that will offer four hours run-time, such units exist but not for reasonable prices.

APC is the only brand I recommend, not going to do the whole speech but they are IMO hands down the best.

[jagabo]

Do you really need 4 hours of runtime when the power goes out? If not, get a UPS that will get you 10 or 20 minutes of runtime. Then set your computer to hibernate when the battery gets low. When the power comes back on the computer will come up right where it left off. The exception would be network connections. If you were encoding a video with the input and/or output files on another computer the conversion will probably be aborted.