Question I have several problems before buying a UPS

[honey.maris79]

So I've been considering buying a UPS, as I want my computer to last in the long run. I bought my computer three years ago during the pandemic, as online classes in my high school were pretty much the norm. I've been doing well since then, but I live in the Philippines and the electricity here likes to play sick jokes were it'll suddenly go out be it power outages or maintenance with any warning whatsoever. I bought my computer three years ago and I've been using it for online classes, gaming, and rendering large gigabytes of game footage in Premiere Pro using OBS for recording.

Here are my specs:
CPU: Ryzen 5 2600
Motherboard: MSI B450M Mortar Max
RAM: 2x Kingston 8gb 2666mhz DDR4 Fury Black
SSD: Adata 256gb XPG SX6000 Pro PCIE NVME M.2
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB (ST2000M008) & Seagate Barracuda 1TB (ST1000D010)
PSU: EVGA 600w 80+ Bronze Non Mudular Power Supply
Case: NZXT H500
GPU: MSI GTX 1650 Super Aero ITX OC 4G GDDR6
Monitor: Philips 227E

Other stuffs plugged into my pc:
Microphone AT2005USB
PS4 Controller
USB Ringlight
Anker USB Hub
Logitech C922 Webcam

Here are the problems:

1.) The outlets in our house are all pretty much like this one right here and are not grounded. I've been using a surge protector with a cheater's plug that is plugged at the wall outlet, and embarrassing as it may seem, I've recently just found out that surge protectors need grounded outlet to work properly (It's miracle I'm still alive). Unfortunately, our renovated house is old fashioned and it was renovated using the usable parts from our older house, so most of the wiring is old as well.

Here is the picture of our wall outlet

https://imgur.com/iuCMsnB

View: https://i.imgur.com/iuCMsnB.jpg

2.) It is more recommended to use a pure sine wave UPS for PSU that has APFC, but they're really expensive for me . But I've read and from my understanding in a EVGA forum that all power supplies can support simulated sine wave just fine, so long as that the simulated sine wave UPS is from a reputable brand like APC and such.

3.) Someone recommended me a Cyberpower UPS 1050va/630w called UT1050EG and UT1100EG which has 1100va/630w. I went and look through the product details and it said "This UPS model is not applicable for PSU Computers". So I decided to chat Cyberpower directly, and they told me to get CP1500EPFCLCD UPS instead, which is too expensive, and is overkill for my barely mid computer. Also, there were some people who bought and reviewed the UT1050EG AND UT1100EG said both of the UPS were working with their computer just fine. So the whole thing was just confusing for me.

Picture of the UT1050EG AND UT1100EG

https://imgur.com/THYh8Vv

View: https://imgur.com/THYh8Vv


4.) I just want to able protect my computer from voltage spikes and all that crap, and save my progress be it on my class or when I'm playing games and safely shutdown it without any worries. I want this computer to last since it already took a hit several times before, causing one my ram channels or perhaps the ram sticks to malfunction which made made my computer power down randomly back then. I fixed it by removing the two ram sticks which is why I'm only unly using 16gb now instead of 32gb. That was two years ago, and my computer didn't hav any problems since then, but the electricity here is just so unpredictable, I want to make sure my computer's component won't suffer in case it happens again.

That's pretty much it. I could use some of your opinions regarding this since I didn't really get much from Reddit.

 

[Aeacus]

So I decided to chat Cyberpower directly, and they told me to get CP1500EPFCLCD UPS instead, which is too expensive, and is overkill for my barely mid computer.

Great UPS. 👍 True/pure sine wave, line-interactive topology.
I have very same ones in use for me as well, times two (each backing up their own dedicated PC). Though, mine are 1300VA/780W ones.

2.) ... But I've read and from my understanding in a EVGA forum that all power supplies can support simulated sine wave just fine, so long as that the simulated sine wave UPS is from a reputable brand like APC and such.

Yeah.... No.

When looking for an UPS, there are 2 things to look out:
1. Output waveform (square wave, simulated sine wave and true/pure sine wave)
2. Design (stand-by, line-interactive and online)

From here you can read about the differences between output waveform,
link: https://www.kstar.com/indexproblem/17355.jhtml

And here are explanations about the UPS design,
link: https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1272971

Waveform and design
For PCs, line-interactive UPS would be more than enough since PSUs can easily handle the 2ms to 5ms transfer time of line-interactive UPS.
As far as output waveform goes, true/pure sine wave UPS is best used. While simulated sine wave UPSes are cheaper than true/pure sine wave UPSes, PSUs with Active PFC aren't compatible with simulated sine wave. You might get simulated sine wave UPS running with Active PFC PSU but there can be some major issues. 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 (e.g 80+ Bronze or 80+ Gold) has Active PFC.

What is Active PFC?
Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_factor#Power_factor_correction_(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, your PC can run 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 simulated sine wave UPS and getting true/pure sine wave UPS. Or you can go with true/pure sine wave UPS off the bat.

Wattage
As far as UPS wattage goes, you need to consider the power draw of your PC and monitors. Maybe speakers and wi-fi router too if you plan to plug those into the UPS as well. Though, printers, scanners and other such hardware (full list on your UPS manual) don't plug to the UPS since their startup power draw is way too much for UPS to handle and you can fry your UPS.

Taking PSU's max wattage as a baseline is good idea since it will give your UPS more headroom and you can get longer runtime out of your UPS. Since your PSU is 600W (a low quality PSU, which is a shame 😒 ), at least one monitor is added on top of it. Depending on the monitor size, they use between 23W to 52W. For more accurate power consumption, i need to know your monitor make and model so i can look up it's power consumption. Wi-fi routers don't consume much power. For example, my Cisco EPC3940L consumes 12V at 3A which means 36W.

Good UPS brands to go for are CyberPower, TrippLite and APC. While there are other UPS brands as well, those three are the best out there.
Note: The more powerful UPS you have, the longer UPS can keep your PC running before it's battery is empty.

I just want to able protect my computer from voltage spikes and all that crap, and save my progress be it on my class or when I'm playing games and safely shutdown it without any worries. I want this computer to last since it already took a hit several times before, causing one my ram channels or perhaps the ram sticks to malfunction which made made my computer power down randomly back then. I fixed it by removing the two ram sticks which is why I'm only unly using 16gb now instead of 32gb. That was two years ago, and my computer didn't hav any problems since then, but the electricity here is just so unpredictable, I want to make sure my computer's component won't suffer in case it happens again.

With what i said above, and also what CyberPower suggested for you, i'd suggest that you look into the same UPS as i have, the 1300VA/780W one,
specs: https://www.cyberpower.com/eu/en/product/sku/cp1300epfclcd

It isn't overkill for your setup and also costs less than 1500VA/900W one CyberPower suggested for you.

There is also 900VA/540W UPS from the same series,
specs: https://www.cyberpower.com/eu/en/product/sku/cp900epfclcd

This won't give you wattage headroom and would only last few minutes during blackout. Perhaps too short of a time to safely save all your work and shut down PC normally, especially when you don't happen to be behind PC. But it would be the cheapest option within the CyberPower PFC Sinewave lineup.

The 1300VA/780W unit, which i have, can last easy 10 mins during blackout. Even more when we don't do heavy tasks with our PCs. That's ample time to save all our work and safely shut down the PC, even when we doesn't happen to be at PC when blackout occurs.

It is more recommended to use a pure sine wave UPS for PSU that has APFC, but they're really expensive for me .

It seems that you've greatly underestimated the cost of a proper, good quality UPS. Since UPS'es job is to keep your PC running when there's blackout by supplying good and stable electricity to your PC, they also cost a lot of money.

For example, i payed €230 Euros for one of my CyberPower CP1300EPFCLCD (1300VA/780W, true/pure sine wave, line-interactive) UPS and i have two of them in use, one for Skylake build and another for Haswell build (full specs with pics in my sig). That makes ₱13742.19 Peso in your currency, per one UPS.

Since your PC is expensive, it's not easily replaced. Like it or not, if you want the protection, it's not going to be cheap. Though, if you want cheap and good UPS, you need to buy 2x UPSes; the cheap one and the good one.


I'll end my reply with one possible scenario;
Let's say you cheap out on UPS and get a simulated sine wave UPS. You buy it, haul it to your home, spend time and effort to hook it up and when blackout comes, UPS fails to keep your PC running, either switching itself off or switch over time is too long for PSU to handle. Then what? You have an UPS that is useless for you, with your money spent.

Can you return the bought and used UPS to get your money back? If not, then you have hunk of an UPS, that has little value and you still need to come up with money to buy proper, true/pure sine wave UPS. This will end up costing you far more time, effort and money, than going with true/pure sine wave UPS off the bat.
But your call; if you have time, effort and money to spend on that lottery with the hopes of "maybe it works", then go ahead.
I don't buy my hardware based on hope (if it works), but based on guarantee that it will work as advertised.

 

[honey.maris79]

Great UPS. 👍 True/pure sine wave, line-interactive topology.
I have very same ones in use for me as well, times two (each backing up their own dedicated PC). Though, mine are 1300VA/780W ones.


Yeah.... No.

When looking for an UPS, there are 2 things to look out:
1. Output waveform (square wave, simulated sine wave and true/pure sine wave)
2. Design (stand-by, line-interactive and online)

From here you can read about the differences between output waveform,
link: https://www.kstar.com/indexproblem/17355.jhtml

And here are explanations about the UPS design,
link: https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1272971

Waveform and design
For PCs, line-interactive UPS would be more than enough since PSUs can easily handle the 2ms to 5ms transfer time of line-interactive UPS.
As far as output waveform goes, true/pure sine wave UPS is best used. While simulated sine wave UPSes are cheaper than true/pure sine wave UPSes, PSUs with Active PFC aren't compatible with simulated sine wave. You might get simulated sine wave UPS running with Active PFC PSU but there can be some major issues. 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 (e.g 80+ Bronze or 80+ Gold) has Active PFC.

What is Active PFC?
Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_factor#Power_factor_correction_(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, your PC can run 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 simulated sine wave UPS and getting true/pure sine wave UPS. Or you can go with true/pure sine wave UPS off the bat.

Wattage
As far as UPS wattage goes, you need to consider the power draw of your PC and monitors. Maybe speakers and wi-fi router too if you plan to plug those into the UPS as well. Though, printers, scanners and other such hardware (full list on your UPS manual) don't plug to the UPS since their startup power draw is way too much for UPS to handle and you can fry your UPS.

Taking PSU's max wattage as a baseline is good idea since it will give your UPS more headroom and you can get longer runtime out of your UPS. Since your PSU is 600W (a low quality PSU, which is a shame 😒 ), at least one monitor is added on top of it. Depending on the monitor size, they use between 23W to 52W. For more accurate power consumption, i need to know your monitor make and model so i can look up it's power consumption. Wi-fi routers don't consume much power. For example, my Cisco EPC3940L consumes 12V at 3A which means 36W.

Good UPS brands to go for are CyberPower, TrippLite and APC. While there are other UPS brands as well, those three are the best out there.
Note: The more powerful UPS you have, the longer UPS can keep your PC running before it's battery is empty.



With what i said above, and also what CyberPower suggested for you, i'd suggest that you look into the same UPS as i have, the 1300VA/780W one,
specs: https://www.cyberpower.com/eu/en/product/sku/cp1300epfclcd

It isn't overkill for your setup and also costs less than 1500VA/900W one CyberPower suggested for you.

There is also 900VA/540W UPS from the same series,
specs: https://www.cyberpower.com/eu/en/product/sku/cp900epfclcd

This won't give you wattage headroom and would only last few minutes during blackout. Perhaps too short of a time to safely save all your work and shut down PC normally, especially when you don't happen to be behind PC. But it would be the cheapest option within the CyberPower PFC Sinewave lineup.

The 1300VA/780W unit, which i have, can last easy 10 mins during blackout. Even more when we don't do heavy tasks with our PCs. That's ample time to save all our work and safely shut down the PC, even when we doesn't happen to be at PC when blackout occurs.



It seems that you've greatly underestimated the cost of a proper, good quality UPS. Since UPS'es job is to keep your PC running when there's blackout by supplying good and stable electricity to your PC, they also cost a lot of money.

For example, i payed €230 Euros for one of my CyberPower CP1300EPFCLCD (1300VA/780W, true/pure sine wave, line-interactive) UPS and i have two of them in use, one for Skylake build and another for Haswell build (full specs with pics in my sig). That makes ₱13742.19 Peso in your currency.

Since your PC is expensive, it's not easily replaced. Like it or not, if you want the protection, it's not going to be cheap. Though, if you want cheap and good UPS, you need to buy 2x UPSes; the cheap one and the good one.


I'll end my reply with one possible scenario;
Let's say you cheap out on UPS and get a simulated sine wave UPS. You buy it, haul it to your home, spend time and effort to hook it up and when blackout comes, UPS fails to keep your PC running, either switching itself off or switch over time is too long for PSU to handle. Then what? You have an UPS that is useless for you, with your money spent.

Can you return the bought and used UPS to get your money back? If not, then you have hunk of an UPS, that has little value and you still need to come up with money to buy proper, true/pure sine wave UPS. This will end up costing you far more time, effort and money, than going with true/pure sine wave UPS off the bat.
But your call; if you have time, effort and money to spend on that lottery with the hopes of "maybe it works", then go ahead.
I don't buy my hardware based on hope (if it works), but based on guarantee that it will work as advertised.

I know that UPS are expensive. I was just asking to be sure if there is a compromise for budgets and stuff since I'm not familiar with this. My situation as a student is poor to say the least that spending a huge amount money just like that is not easy. That and the fact there are other variables to consider before buying an expensive UPS itself, like the availability of it in the Philippines.

I apologize if my whole post was ignorant and came off as assuming then. It seems you didn't like it by your tone alone, but it seems you just know better. In the meantime, I'll wait for answers from other people here to address the other problems listed here.

 

[Aeacus]

I apologize if my whole post was ignorant then and came off as assuming. It seems you didn't like it by your tone alone, but it seems you just know better.

Everything to do with power delivery is a serious business. It is not the part where to cheap out on or go with budget route. This is so, because if you do cheap out and power delivery device fails (PSU, UPS etc), there have catched fire, burned down entire houses and even lives have been lost.
For example: https://www.thesundaily.my/archive/...wer-supply-unit-computer-updated-LTARCH461974

Good quality hardware is built with utmost care with plenty of safeguards in them, to prevent exactly that - catastrophic hardware failure with loss of life. Though, good quality hardware costs more to make and thus is also more expensive to buy.

Or let's put it this way; would the loss of your home and relatives be less worth to you than e.g ₱6000 Peso? Since i estimate that the simulated sine wave UPS should cost about that much money less, compared to proper true/pure sine wave UPS.

Also, as i mentioned above, your PSU is low quality. Sure, it was cheap to buy and it works, but question here is: for how long?
The lower the PSU build quality - the higher the chance of PSU dying catastrophically - and the higher the chance of PSU frying everything it is connected too (aka your whole PC). Linked article above told what cheap PSU is capable of.

Since PSU is part of power delivery and it powers everything inside your PC, it is the most important component inside the PC. Due to that, never cheap out on PSU. And same is with UPS as well.

Yeah, i may come across as unpleasant but if you understand why (loss of life is a serious thing), then you may understand why i'm that frank with this.

I know that UPS are expensive. I was just asking to be sure if there is a compromise for budgets and stuff since I'm not familiar with this. My situation as a student is poor to say the least that spending a huge amount money just like that is not easy. That and the fact there are other variables to consider before buying an expensive UPS itself, like the availability of it in the Philippines.

In your situation, best option would be buying a laptop. Since when main power fails, laptop has internal battery to keep it going. And for student, good office laptop is enough for school work. You can do even light gaming with one.

Dedicated (hardcore) gaming is better to be left for future date, once you have proper UPS to back up your desktop PC.