Active PFC Power Supply with Simulated Sine Wave PSU (Non Pure)

[s.amawaka]

Hi everyone, is it possible to use Simulated Sine Wave UPS (Non Pure/True Sine Wave) for Active PFC Power Supply? will it be risky? or no problem at all?

 

[Aeacus]

You might get simulated sine wave UPS running with Active PFC PSU but there can be some major issues since simulated sine wave UPSes aren't fully compatible with PSUs that have Active PFC. Here's what, how and why.

How do you know which PSUs have Active PFC and which ones don't?
Simple, every PSU that has 80+ certification has Active PFC.

What is Active PFC?
Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_factor#Power_factor...(PFC)_in_non-linear_loads

What can happen when using simulated sine wave UPS with Active PFC PSU?
When simulated sine wave UPS switches over to the battery power, one of 3 things can happen:
1. UPS displays error resulting PC to shut down immediately.
2. UPS shuts down resulting PC to shut down immediately.
3. UPS switches to battery power resulting PC to power off from UPS (PC stays on).

Why it happens?
Simulated sine wave UPS produces a zero output state during the phase change cycle resulting in a power “gap”. This gap may cause power interruption for active PFC PSUs when switching from AC power output to simulated sine wave output (battery mode).

What to do next?
As stated above, you can run Active PFC PSU off from simulated sine wave UPS but be prepared when you face issues with it. When issues do rise, your best bet would be returning the UPS and getting true/pure sine wave UPS. Or you can go with true/pure sine wave UPS off the bat.

Here's a bit of further reading about UPSes output waveforms (3 different in total),
link: http://www.minutemanups.com/support/pwr_un10.php

 

[brajacs17]

hi guys. recently I’ve built a new computer.
On short, I have a corsair rm1000x with pfc and and ups apc 1500v ( not purely sinusoidal ).

everything works smoothly for about two months. Until one day I’ve got the USB power surge error. It killed all my motherboard USB.

I need to add this:

I have a Scarlet 2i2 4th generation external sound card, and at the moment that was the one that might seem to cause of the problem. After all my usb went dead, managed to restart the PC, but still nothing worked. Remove my mouse and keyboard and plugged in in the front USB of the case.

After I input my windows password, I was still getting this USB power surge error. I’ve clicked on the error and I have to reset all USB drivers or something like this. So I removed all my USB from the back of the computer and start plugging it back one by one. Everything went smoothly until I insert the sound card again. Same error prompt killed all my USB again and killed my entire computer.

I’ve restarted it again, but I’ve got errors on the motherboard ( ram error )not even the bios would start anymore.

So I assumed the motherboard was cooked.
So I took out the motherboard and send it to warranty and after a few days they told me the motherboard it’s fine and they ship it back to me. Indeed I plugged everything back(cpu, gpu but not peripherals) and somehow my computer start but only reading one of my two RAM memories.

So next thing I sent the sound card to the warranty they’ve checked the card as well and everything looks fine again.

So I sent the RAM memories to warranty indeed one of them was broken. So today I got my new RAM , that I’ve got replaced by the warranty but I’m really scared to plug everything back in and start the computer and put all the USBs back inside.
Because I have no clue what caused all of this.

So here is my assumption, can the UPS actually cause all of this? Because the UPS is not a piercing so in my PSU have pfc?

also, I need to add this there was no blackout the UPS didn’t commute to battery or something. Also, my computer was really idling at that moment. Basically, I was on the desktop and nothing else was open.

Sorry, but my English is not really good. I’ve been trying to explain the best I could hope it’s understandable.

thanks.

 

[USAFRet]

hi guys. recently I’ve built a new computer.

Please start a NEW thread, instead of this 7 year old one.