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UPS Battery Backups & Surge Protectors?

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 12:16 am
by andy4499
I have some questions on surge protectors and wonder if someone could help me.

I need to buy 3 of these items, but not sure what to go with battery backup of surge bars. I have never had electricity hit my house and knock out anything yet. So if someone that has had this happen to them or knows about these items. Could you please give me some advice on this? Like what wattage to look for on a UPS, best place to purchase, ect?


This is what will be running on them.

1. Living room:
55” LCD TV, Gaming systems, 7.1 Surround sound, blue ray player satellite.

2. Bedroom
50” older style big screen, 5.1 surround sound

3. Dining Room
Computer, 2 printers, phone on AT&T internet (phone line)

Re: UPS Battery Backups & Surge Protectors?

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 12:42 am
by Amphiprion
At the absolute least, everything should be running with some sort of surge protection. You don't necessarily need a battery backup for the home theater setup or the one in the bedroom, but I highly (read: highly) recommend one for your computer. The better ones are the models that feature auto-shutoff software when switched to DC power. They will initiate a process that will safely turn off your computer when the backup comes on after a certain period of time. That keeps you from losing temporarily cached data, which can corrupt some important things, when you aren't around. At the very least, it will prevent it from immediately killing the power while you are on your computer, which causes the same kind of issues. So, my vote is 2 robust surge protectors (including cable line protection) and one mid-grade battery backup, say 500-650 watts, for the computer (unless you have some monstrous gaming rig).

Re: UPS Battery Backups & Surge Protectors?

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 10:49 pm
by 29nanomob
the ups. amps times volts equals wattage. look at the plugs and lables and add up the amps. AxV=Watts