Computer Ups & Voltage Regulator Problems I cant get it to work

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I have a 2.8 Dual core machine with a 17 inch monitor, 2 hard drives, a dvd burner, and a 350w power supply. I have an 800w rated UPS, which according to the paper is supposed to give me around 8 minutes of power during a blackout. This is more of an issue than for most people, as here we have an average of 8 power cuts a day during the 8 or 9 months of summer weather. The problem is that my UPS doesn't really help any, because in a power cut it will go off as well for a second, and then it comes back to life, but in that second my computer has gone off, and even though it reboots, i've lost data. The same thing because i have a voltage regulator which fluctuates constantly, but i thought the point of a regulator was to ensure a clean constant flow of power. mine works the opposite way. it dips so low that the computer/UPS shuts off, even if the power hasn't actually gone off. and the electrician says it's normal, but i'm not convinced. So:1). How powerful a UPS do I need for my computer specs, to where i get a good supply of power for at least 10 minutes.2). Is it normal for a UPS to go down for that second along with the house power?3). What's wrong with my voltage regulator?and a related question: The computer shop told me I would void the warranty on my wireless router if i plugged it into a circuit protected by a regulator or a UPS, that the adapter already functioned as a regulator, and that i would short it out by plugging it into one of those. True or False?Any advice is much appreciated.

[turbopowerdmaxsteel 0]

The problem is related to the power supply of your area, a common problem in the subcontinent nations. Quite often, the earthing provided by the electricity board isn't there at all. Switching heavy appliances on and off result in major voltage drops, which is often too much for the poor UPS to bear.

 

Getting rid of the problems is almost impossible, unless off course you plan to use a generator for the household power supply. However, you can surely reduce the number of bad shutdowns by following certain tricks that I discovered.

Reduce the load from the UPS by removing printers, speakers or any other hardware that are not vulnerable to power surges.

You might also remove the Monitor from the UPS considering that its a 17 inch one and you have a heavy dual core processor. Off course you'll not be able to see anything on the monitor during power cutoffs. Assigning the shutdown action to the power button is a good way out. Better still, use hibernate to save both time and your work.

Unless the voltage is too low for the Computer to operate, you shouldn't use additional voltage regulators. Most UPS these days have an in-built Automatic Voltage Regulator. When using the regulators, the fluctuations are amplified. A 5 Volt fluctuation may cause a 30 volt effect on the UPS. When the voltage in our area used to be extremely low, I used 2 - 3 additional regulators (connected in series) to get to the desired voltage output. But, just imagine the fluctuation in that case.

The bad shutdown probability is highly dependent on the load your CPU is in. When playing high-end games, you are most likely to get restarts. So, run your applications carefully. Play games at late nights or early mornings, when the overall load on the local transformer is low.

Upgrade to a single high capacity drive. It isn't worth to have 2 80 GB Hard Disks draining double power when you can get a 160 GB for just a modest amount of price.

I have had problems with a 550 watt SMPS on my 3.0 HT processor and 350 surely isn't enough for your system. Also choose the SMPS carefully, brand does matter.

I don't think these will completely solve your problem, but they sure can help decrease it. Edited April 7, 2007 by turbopowerdmaxsteel (see edit history)

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I never knew that about the UPS and regulator working against each other. I've asked electricians and they had no idea why. thanks. So since I run an office from my home, and there's a laser printer and a photocopy machine in addition to 4 computers, should I run separate wiring for the copy machine and possibly the laser printer? Because those are connected to the UPS as well, and every time i push the copy button the regulator fluctuates. And why would it do that? is it because the machine is demanding more power than is available in the wires? Because after a few copies, the computer power supply drops and it restarts. I know that having dual hard disks drains more power, but having had so many hard disks fail here because of power surges, I've gotten to having a redundant hard disk in each computer that i clone the 1st drive on to every week. I would do Raid, but these motherboards don't support it and not worth the extra hassle for software raid.

[turbopowerdmaxsteel 0]

Ideally, applications connected in parallel circuit should not cause a drop in voltage when one of them is switched ON or OFF. As I mentioned before, most places in the subcontinent nations have poor supply of electricity, be it the local transformers or the wirinngs themselves. These render the power supply a nightmare for computers. You should use seperate wirings for those machines. The lesser is the load on the UPS, greater is the chance that it will stay put on power cuts. I don't think the Hard Disk is as big a factor as the printers and the copier.