Dead UPS?
Dead UPS?
I have a UPS/Surge bar for my comp that's about 3 years old. It used to work, it would keep my comp on for about 5 minutes or so. Last couple times I had a thunder storm or something and the power would dip, my comp would restart, so is my UPS dead? Do they eventually just die out and need replacing?
-
FlyingPenguin
- Flightless Bird
- Posts: 33162
- Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:13 am
- Location: Central Florida
- Contact:
Far more likely that the battery is dead. Most UPSes act that way when the battery is dead. 3 years is all you can expect out of a UPS battery.
Not worth replacing the battery unless it's an expensive unit (batteries are usually around $30 and up). Not when you can buy a UPS on sale for $45 at Office Depot.
Not worth replacing the battery unless it's an expensive unit (batteries are usually around $30 and up). Not when you can buy a UPS on sale for $45 at Office Depot.
---
“The Government of Spain will not applaud those who set the world on fire just because they show up with a bucket.” - Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez
“The Government of Spain will not applaud those who set the world on fire just because they show up with a bucket.” - Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez
-
canton_kid
- Golden Member
- Posts: 1400
- Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2002 5:01 pm
- Contact:
I think the Belkin ups on the wifes system is around 6-8yrs old 
Never needed to replace the battery. Seriously amazed!!!!
I think it's because we rarely ever discharged it much, when power goes out we shut down the systems if not back up in a minute or two.
The deeper you discharge a battery the more harm you do to it. In renewable energy homes, solar or wind power, normally the battery banks are not intended to be discharge below 80% capacity. You can drain them way down if you want, but for longest battery life you stay 80% or above as much as you can. Also recharge soon as you can, batteries left discharged for awhile suffer more than those that are recharged right away. Course a UPS should start recharging soon as the power comes back on.
Drain batteries down to 50% or less and your doing serious damage with these little things in UPS's and not good for large ones either.
I think a big problem with those little UPSs is they don't really have enough battery to power the loads they are intend to be used with. A computer system that only runs 5-10 minutes on a UPS is killing the batteries by dischargeing them way to fast and too deep.
You can use larger batteries with a Ups normally, just wire them up as the proper voltage. Not that conveint though because they don't fit in the case. But it makes a great cheap long use backup if it was a good UPS to begin with. Just be sure to do it safely!!
My crappy power here has gone off for an hour or two when I can't shut down my system, like durring video encoding or capturing. Normal little UPS won't cut it for the time needed.
I have a rack mount UPS (got it cheap no batteries), 1750watt sinewave inverter, it runs off 4 12V batteries wired 24V about 230amps. Series parralel wired. 2 sets of 2 wired paralel double the amps and wire the 2 sets series to double the volts. I used good heavy wire and know what I am doing with batteries and such, hydrogen durring recharging etc.., my batteries are in a case outside and vented. Sealed Glass matts at that.
With this UPS system I can normally run over 2 hours and still be near or above 80% charge on my batteries. Depends how power hungry the PC is and if I need the monitor on etc..
Used batteries like new, not bad for less than $100 total for everything
Never needed to replace the battery. Seriously amazed!!!!
I think it's because we rarely ever discharged it much, when power goes out we shut down the systems if not back up in a minute or two.
The deeper you discharge a battery the more harm you do to it. In renewable energy homes, solar or wind power, normally the battery banks are not intended to be discharge below 80% capacity. You can drain them way down if you want, but for longest battery life you stay 80% or above as much as you can. Also recharge soon as you can, batteries left discharged for awhile suffer more than those that are recharged right away. Course a UPS should start recharging soon as the power comes back on.
Drain batteries down to 50% or less and your doing serious damage with these little things in UPS's and not good for large ones either.
I think a big problem with those little UPSs is they don't really have enough battery to power the loads they are intend to be used with. A computer system that only runs 5-10 minutes on a UPS is killing the batteries by dischargeing them way to fast and too deep.
You can use larger batteries with a Ups normally, just wire them up as the proper voltage. Not that conveint though because they don't fit in the case. But it makes a great cheap long use backup if it was a good UPS to begin with. Just be sure to do it safely!!
My crappy power here has gone off for an hour or two when I can't shut down my system, like durring video encoding or capturing. Normal little UPS won't cut it for the time needed.
I have a rack mount UPS (got it cheap no batteries), 1750watt sinewave inverter, it runs off 4 12V batteries wired 24V about 230amps. Series parralel wired. 2 sets of 2 wired paralel double the amps and wire the 2 sets series to double the volts. I used good heavy wire and know what I am doing with batteries and such, hydrogen durring recharging etc.., my batteries are in a case outside and vented. Sealed Glass matts at that.
With this UPS system I can normally run over 2 hours and still be near or above 80% charge on my batteries. Depends how power hungry the PC is and if I need the monitor on etc..
Used batteries like new, not bad for less than $100 total for everything
Canton_kid
spam bot food!
<A HREF="http://www.auditmypc.com/freescan/antispam.html">Anti-Spam</A>
spam bot food!
<A HREF="http://www.auditmypc.com/freescan/antispam.html">Anti-Spam</A>