Question electrical issues

[ragez0r]

hello, name is chris, from the french part of Canada but i moved to the Philippines, please forgive me if my english isnt UK pefect,

im in my 2nd appartment both of which had no ground, however this apartment i have a cable going from the back of the ups (grounding hole) to a metal beam inside my apartment, im told that the beams are all connected and technically go 1.5m into the ground although encased in concrete, so boom i have got ground, i also use a GFCI( never jumped) plug, and a 350 watt ups

system is an amd 7680 (apu)
HAD 16gb of ram i removed 1 stick because computer was on but screen was blank.. im using 8gb fury hyper x ddr3
psu antec 550 watts

monitor chiworld 27 inch lcd

and recently i had to remove 1 stick of ram because as stated above the monitor wasnt coming to life, so my question is, is this really the work of a mentally handicapped guy that tried to do the wiring because i sincerely doubt he was a certified electrician, or is this because of the amount of "static" in the lines or AKA dirty electricity
and also sometimes my monitor just goes blank until i unplug the hdmi plug from the mobo and put it back in, i tried windows key-ctrl-shift-B to reset video drivers, (oh sorry, i use windows 11) and although i see the screen flicker green for a moment.. the problem comes back after 10-15 minutes.. so as of this point i have no choice but to plug in my ups power in into a dc to ac inverter that is connected to 2 batteries that are connected in parallel and charge said batteries with a chinese smart charger that shows on its screen that it is pumping 130 watts or so, any suggestions ? did i overlook something ? and please dont tell me to hire a certified electrician, the moment anyone sees my skin colour the price goes up 10 fold and coming from a socialisat country, i try to keep my spending down to a minimum in order to have funds in case of a health emergency.

please help
aidez moi svp

 

[punkncat]

What happens when you take the UPS out and plug directly to the mains?

 

[helpstar]

which ups are you using? some don't provide a clean sinus ac to the psu and monitor and might trigger a bad behaviour of these.
which exact psu are you using in the pc?

 

[ragez0r]

wanted to ask an additional question, i have a power hungry msi gaming laptop back in my home country

will the same electrical problems be an issue ? it is a MSI GF65 thinUE that takes 130 or 180 watts to power on... of course i will continue to use the UPS.. the brick in the middle of the power cable is the largest ive ever seen nearly the size of a VHS casette

 

[ragez0r]

which ups are you using? some don't provide a clean sinus ac to the psu and monitor and might trigger a bad behaviour of these.
which exact psu are you using in the pc?

refurbished intex all i had to do was order a ups battery.. although it is parallel linked to a second ups battery to give me additional time during a ppower outage

 

[ragez0r]

What happens when you take the UPS out and plug directly to the mains?

nothing it stays powered on, occasionaly it beeps if i accidentally nudge the plug which is around my pretty feet

 

[ragez0r]

worth mentioning that the 2 ups batteries are connected together via alligator clips ???? and i unintentionally touched 1 of the alligator clips and felt a mild buzz, at this moment i feel nothing

 

[punkncat]

You really need a larger UPS in my opinion. I use one the size you have only for my modem and the base receiver for my cameras. I would recommend something larger than your power supply whether the system indicates it is using it or not.

 

[ragez0r]

As of this morning i cannot boot the system at all it says "cannot find operating system" which should be on my main and only ssd as for larger ups, i did check how much the ups pulls from the wall with a wattometer and i never saw it exceed 200 watts so 350 watts inverter or AVR built into the ups should be sufficient, will my msi suffer the same fate if i bring it over here ?

 

[Misgar]

i also use a GFCI( never jumped) plug, and a 350 watt ups

I have a sneaking suspicion you may have a 350VA UPS, which isn't the same thing as a 350W UPS. As such, your 350VA UPS is probably rated at less than 300W and hence may not be sufficient to power a desktop computer and large monitor simultaneously. Although you say the continuous power draw is only 200W, you also have to consider increased power consumption, which typically occurs during the first few minutes as the computer boots up. There may also be instantanous peak power demands which might "swamp" a low output UPS.

Add to that the fact that it probably isn't a "True Sine Wave" UPS, but more likely a cheaper "Stepped Approximation to a Sine Wave" (also known as a "Modified Sine Wave") UPS or worse still, a nasty "Square Wave" UPS and you're just adding to your problems.

ATX computer power supplies prefer a nice clean AC mains waveform (true sine) and may not function reliably when fed with a stepped approximation to a sine wave. Some people insist you must always use a pure sine wave UPS with computer powers supplies (with good reason), but pure sine wave UPS are more expensive than approximation/modified sine wave UPS.

The image below shows a 120V 60Hz mains supply, but if your mains is 240V 50Hz, like mine, just double the voltage scale in your head and substitute 50Hz for 60Hz. The red line shows the output from a stepped approximation UPS. The blue curve shows an ideal pure sine wave, more suitable for an ATX PSU.

Next there's the battery capacity. Many low output UPS come with a very small internal battery, typically rated at 12V DC 5A or 7A. This battery is sufficient to keep the UPS running for a only a few minutes at full rated power, which might give you enough time to close all applications and shut down Windows.

Typical run times for a cheaper UPS running at full power are 2 to 3 minutes. At half power you might get 5 to 10 minutes. At quarter power or less, 20 to 25 minutes.

If your UPS battery is several years old, its capacity will be reduced and you might have less than 1 minute of offline power available, before the battery is exhausted.

At the very least, I'd dump your 350VA? UPS and buy a 600VA or higher unit. It will be more suitable for running a small desktop computer system and provide longer run times. For a more powerful computer or adding a laptop to the equation, consider a 900 or 1000VA UPS.

as of this point i have no choice but to plug in my ups power in into a dc to ac inverter that is connected to 2 batteries ... and a Chinese smart charger

I'm a bit confused as to why you're charging one inverter (in the UPS) from a second inverter (connected to 2 batteries) and then charging this combination from a third device (Chinese smart charger). I'm sure it provides a working solution, but it's hardly the most efficient way of doing things. You'll be losing power (wasted heat) at each stage.

What you're describing is a specific type of (usually very expensive) "Always Online" UPS. In this situation, mains power enters the online UPS and charges the internal batteries. At the same time, power from the same batteries is fed to a DC-to-AC sine wave inverter and used to power your computer system.

The inverter in an always online UPS (as its name implies) runs all the time, so there is no brief switch over time when the mains fails, as happens with cheaper offline UPS, where the inverter only starts when the mains fails. The "For bypass" line in the diagram below allows you to switch over manually to (unprotected) mains and continue powering your system, when you take the UPS offline for servicing, e.g. to replace the batteries.

You may not have a very stable mains supply where you live. Modern ATX PSUs are designed to run on any mains voltage in the range 100V to 240V AC, 50 or 60Hz. It shouldn't matter if the mains is 105V, 155V, 195V, 235V, etc. What's more important is the supply should be "clean" (no spikes or glitches) as opposed to "dirty" with lots of noise and surges created by heavy duty machinery nearby.

If your mains occasionally drops well below 100V (85V or below) or rises above well above 240V (255V and above), you should run your computer from a UPS all the time. I've measured mains voltages as low as 55V AC and as high as 330V AC in hotel rooms when on vacation. When a hotel generator started up at 300V, all the lights in the room exploded. Good thing my laptop PSU wasn't plugged in.

To sum up, there are four types of UPS to consider:

1). Square wave - avoid like the Plague, they may permanently damage your equipment
2). Stepped approximation (modified sine) - may work but could cause problems
3). True sine wave offline - much better choice, but more expensive than stepped
4). True sine always online - best choice, but pricey