willisoften Posted March 26, 2004 Report Share Posted March 26, 2004 My local power supply is unreliable causing my machine to reboot at awkward moments. So I bought an uninteruptable power supply. A battery with some fancy circuitry as far as I can see. (Belkin) (Admittedly I probably didn't do enough research before paying for it.) Question: does it have to stay powered up all the time? I prefer to unplug everything at night and during overhead electrical storms (UPS or no). Will it stay ready to operate? The instructions are limited so some general operational hints would be welcome. Most searches for information seem to be resulting in companies who can sell me another one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banjo Posted March 26, 2004 Report Share Posted March 26, 2004 I run all of my computers through a UPS. I use them to protect against the frequent brownouts and momentary dips in our local power. I have APC units, but Belkin is a good brand as well. The UPS has a sealed lead/acid battery in it which is constantly charged whenever the UPS is plugged into the AC power.... even if the UPS is turned off. You should leave the UPS plugged in to ensure that the batteries remain charged. If you want to remove AC power from the computer at night, turn off the UPS. If you do unplug it, make sure to turn it off first or it will assume that it just had a power failure and yell at you. The UPS also has surge protection cirucuitry in it to protect your equipment against high voltage bursts from EMF hits during electrical storms. So, basically the UPS has varistors and suchlike for the high voltage bursts and the battery backup for low voltage dips. When the UPS senses that the power has failed, it uses the battery to power an inverter to create AC power for the computer. Most of the low cost UPS generate square wave AC rather than a sine wave. This is evidently optimal for the switching power supplies in the computers; I do not to understand the hardware details, but that is what I have been told by people who do. Anyway, don't plug your toaster oven into it. I usually turn off the computers and the UPS (but not unplug it) during bad electrical storms..... just to be extra safe. Banjo (_)=='=~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acuss Posted March 26, 2004 Report Share Posted March 26, 2004 Question: does it have to stay powered up all the time? no Will it stay ready to operate? yes i have the similar problem here, more or less i dont unplug at night, but i always unplug it when i go for more than 3 hours, im afraid of lightning and bad voltage stabilty in rainy season (i'm in indonesia). i dont know about your ups, but mine is apc, and quite happy with controller from apcupsd.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
static Posted March 26, 2004 Report Share Posted March 26, 2004 So the APC ups's work in mandrake? Will mandrake see it like a laptop battery on installation or did you have to install that controller yourself? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willisoften Posted March 26, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 26, 2004 So the APC ups's work in mandrake? Will mandrake see it like a laptop battery on installation or did you have to install that controller yourself? The Belkin unit came with Linux software though I haven't installed it yet. I chose it on price & Linux - it's the budget 800va (still a substantial investment with UK prices) and it said that Linux software was available from Belkin's site (it's on the CD). How well it works with Linux I don't yet know. My problem is that it came with a fairly sketchy instruction pamplet and never having owned or operated a UPS before it wasn't enough. So thanks to those who replied. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
static Posted March 26, 2004 Report Share Posted March 26, 2004 That's cool! Smart shopping... I could only find APC brand ups's around.. I figured having one is better than not due to my crappy electrical brownouts, etc. Even without the software I protected vs that anyway, I can shut 'er down m'self 'nyway! lol Let us know how the software turns out man! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willisoften Posted March 27, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 27, 2004 The software is pretty much the same as under windows pretty easy to install too. I've yet to configure it to start at boot and I want to configure it to give me access to the monitor as an ordinary user. It seems OK but it'll take a month and a powercut to really find out how well it works. I don't have time today - Bash scripting test on Monday, I'm not good at the terminal so I'm revising. Fun though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.