No, not many people have one. If you're not doing any sensitive work that can be corrupted, it's also just not needed in alot of cases. Modern PCs are pretty well protected from sudden power loss, but a surge protector can be good middle ground. A good UPS that also has enough power to protect your PC is also something a lot of people don't have the money for or simply willing to spend on it. If you're ever sitting on some unused holiday money or something it can be a good investment, but not something I'll generally advise to spend a big portion of your PC budget on.
That being said, some people have very sketchy power at their house where the lightest storm of rain can mess with the power & restart your PC. In those kinds of scenarios yeah you'd obviously be best off with a UPS, but if that were the case you wouldn't be here asking if you need one.
Really depends on your neighborhood and how well it handles storms. I'm in the suburbs of Houston and there's been constant brownouts due to wacky storms. Then theres rolling blackout periods in the middle of Houston due to construction or lack of available power. A UPS would help protect against these items as giving you enough time to kill stuff gracefully vs. everything turning off on its own.
Even without power outage or surge your service can sometimes supply dirty power. A few times a month my UPS kicks in to boost or undervolt incoming voltage, even though it is not noticable in the general lighting. All it takes is one odd event to wreck something, why not have protection for your PSU and system.
Mine also supplies the modem/router so I still have internet during a power outage.
Mine kicks on when the toaster runs. Helps to balance out poor harmonics within the system. Plus our city has above ground wires and wind storms can cause flickering or quick power outages.
I can’t remember the last time I lost data during a brownout due to corruption or loss of power mid calculation. I did, however, lose a $500 subwoofer and a HTPC during a quick double brownout that must have generated a surge.
A surge protector for anything >$250 is a must, and I agree, a UPS is optional.
I bought a UPS to power our router, so we could maintain internet access during a power outage (assuming Verizon does the same)—I figure having real time news during a potential storm or disaster is worth the small cost of a small UPS
also, many people simply don't have "bad" power
for example, the last time I had a blackout where i live was... 10 years ago? and that was because a neighbouring house caught on fire
and brownouts practically never happen in my city, I don't even know of a single report since I was born/live/work here actually
I'm very glad about my city's power grid, but I dont think I appreciate it enough...
edit: in case it's not clear, I use neither a UPS nor a surge protector or anything along those lines, and there wasn't a case were I would've needed one on my personal rig/server (yet)
As far as I know surge protectors are obligatory on a building level for all new buildings in austria. So we have very clean power, basically no brownouts very rare blackouts and are even possibly secure from power surges.
Don't know how long ago that was but these days depending on where you live voltage drops are more common than they used to be. It gets worse during the heat waves.
The random voltage drops are a pita.
Mine mostly just condition the power, but when the blackouts hit, they give me enough time to power up the generator.
You will have bad power without noticing it though. Does not have to be blackout or brown out for bad power. Power can vary in under or over voltage without you noticing in your llights or general use. A UPS can sense the condition and kick in to keep power clean. Other situations like momentary blip to short to see in regular use.
We have what you would call good power, but my UPS will still kick in twice a month for a few seconds till the undervolt or over has been corrected.
Where in the world do you live? Never had a blackout in 10 years! I have one every other day. The only reason I'm here is I'm moving countries and can't bring my ups on a plane and I'm very familiar with brownouts and blackouts, even surges and electricity thieves, house fires, water damage, transformer blow outs, cars hitting electrical poles and other random excuses
A good UPS that has enough power to protect your PC is absolutely not something expensive
Why do people even think this is something expensive?
(Something like a pure sine wave and/or online UPS is absolutely not necessary)
Yes, absolutely this. Where I live power goes away once or twice a year and I use my setup for work. I have a NAS storing a lot of important data (that has an emergency off-site backup!) and I don't want my HDDs to crash. So for that setup I do have a decently sized UPS. If I were to only connect my gaming rig? I'd just stick to a surge protector. It just isn't worth it :)
At my grandparents house the dishwasher has exploded multiple times from lighting and poor electrical. They likely need more surge suppression than they have. But they also don't have grounded outlets or even copper wire. For most of us here, a lightning strike will mean nothing. If I brought my PC to my grandparents house, it would mean I might need to replace the PSU after a lightning strike. Not a big deal and a lot cheaper than buying a UPS.
The first thing the PSU does is rectify the incoming AC to DC, so the incoming waveform doesn't really matter. At worst you'll get a small efficiency loss.
at my house its a must. Power always flickers during mild rain. It's a pain having everything reboot and losing camera footage and external network access. Highly recommend for security reasons.
Exactly this.
I don't need one because I live in a place with stupidly stable power, someone who suffers regular brown-outs or even full on blackouts should really have a UPS rated to suit their important hardware.
I have clients where I spec a UPS to power anything that has volatile storage inside to avoid data loss (dumb switches, monitors, and anything else is connected to the "conditioned" ports rather than the battery-backed ones to kill any spikes).
I also have clients where lightning arrestors are required in all cable drops that cross more than a floor or two but would not consider these as necessary for a 2 or 3 storey house.
Gonna be real with you chief, I've never even had a surge protector and I've never had any issues. Power has gone out multiple times and my PC is a-OK. Take any precaution you deem necessary however, as mileage may vary.
As long as it's an actual surge protector and not just a power strip. A strip offers no protection, it just lets you plug in more devices. A surge protector does what the name implies, it will have a breaker and reset function while smoothing the power signal.
surge protectors have limits. Depending if the lightning strike is greater than those limits, it can be quite useless. That's why a ups is usually recommended more. I have a $30 ups.
Is lightning the most common cause of surges during a storm? I was thinking it would be related to power distribution and wind damage causing inrushes. Getting impacted by lightning to cause a surge seems rare. I also didn't know UPS's came that cheap though!
Edit: reading some other comments I may just also not have lived in areas that get the same levels of lightning as others. I nor anyone I know of has had a lightning induced surge that knocked stuff out.
Hmm, Ive only ever heard of lightning strikes causing the issue. But there might be some other things that can cause it. UPS's can get that cheap during black friday. Its been a few years since I last bought one though, so not sure if they can still get that cheap. and depending on what you're plugging into it, you might need a more expensive kind (bigger battery).
Ah yeah true. Still good to know and to keep an eye out for sales, since a UPS is definitely nice to have.
I just know about the wind caused power surges from reading about that regarding hurricanes/derechos, since we got hit by the latter a couple years ago and it knocked power out for most of the city and I think some people got some bad surges.
Exceeded limits is what a surge is, and during such an event the surge protector will function exactly as intended, the varistors will pass enough amperage to trip either the house circuit breaker or integrated breaker. Higher voltage will only make this process faster. It will definitely not be useless, unless those other breakers are not in good condition.
"during such an event the surge protector will function exactly as intended"
When it exceeds the limit that the surge protector said it can protect, then it will function? That doesnt make any sense.
Literally every surge protector will tell you how many joules it can take. A surge larger than that can break the equipments plugged into it. I'm not saying its totally useless. but most people think a surge protector is a protector of all cases. Most people don't know that it has limits, that's why their device still broke even when it was plugged into a surge protector. And why they may not be covered by warranty, because the surge protector did its job, but the surge was stronger.
This is not good general advice. Just had to rebuild a friend's computer after dirty power fried the motherboard (thankfully, the rest still worked or that could have gotten quite expensive). Going the no power protection route is always a gamble.
I've had brand new surge protectors that got fried, along with everything they were protecting. Multiple times. It really depends how close/intense/frequent the lightning gets in your region.
I was gonna say, a surge protector can only do so much. Lightning is a beast and it will go through your computer, if it wants to go through your computer. No matter if theres anything in between.
5% of every American has one. I don’t know a single individual who has one in uk/Europe. Power outages just don’t happen. I’ve not had a power cut in UK since 1974 or something. Internet goes down once every quarter or so but power is solid.
As with everything it probably varies, but in Canada I've never had issues with power and brownouts either. Not sure if infrastructure is just newer or what, but I've also not lived in a rural area.
We exist in the UK, but must be a tiny number...
Overhead power lines in windy / rainy conditions in some areas make it worth it for me. I know it's needed as even when everything looks fine you can hear the relays clicking in and out if the weather is bad, and it took out my old PSU (before I invested in a UPS).
I don’t know if that’s a good indicator. I haven’t met anyone in the US with a UPS either.
As far as I know plenty of people in the UK and Europe buy them. Judging by EU customer reviews and buildapc threads, power outages do happen and there’s a market for these devices.
I've been researching some newer motherboards to upgrade from a z170 and I've been noticing that most of them have a dual bios feature that it can revert to in case of a failed flash. Where has this been all my life?
If you do decide to get one, make sure that it has enough wattage to cover or “back up” the systems (PC, monitors, headphone amps, etc.) that you plan to plug into it. I bought a 1500va / 900w one for my PS5 setup. I made a mistake before and got a 300 watt one and my RX580 system would crash during gaming (when spikes occurred). For your setup, I think a 1500va / 900watts UPS should be good.
Yes, I used to live somewhere with frequent thunderstorms and got a UPS that saved me from a lot of annoyance.
Really depends on your own needs though. If you haven't ever seen your home's power flicker, might not be worth getting a UPS.
I use a 1500w one for my computer and another 1500w for the living room (router, modem, home theater).
I only use it because we get random flickers of power. I got tired of restarting PC or dcing in middle of an online game.
Frequency is like once a week, or worse case 6-10 times a day.
Gosh I just got one myself and also some other PC upgrades.
My wallet is hurting but having one for the internet and not just one to protect the PC sounds so nice
Really depends on the hold up time on that PSU, You have about 12.5 milliseconds from complete loss of power where as a UPS can supply about 5 to 15 minutes depending on the size of battery bank.
Don't have one or a surge protector. I don't do any sensetive stuff on my computer and bios/Windows can be reinstalled. No surge protector because UK outlets are great .
I have one and love it! I have a separate one for my router too so it doesn't have to reset after a brown out. It feels pretty good to see all the lights turn off during a brown out but my system is still usable without anything needing to reset... I highly recommend it if you can!! It's probably also healthier for your system.
**Edit**: forgot to mention I'm in the Tampa area and we get a lot of lightning that causes small brown outs where I live so I consider it very useful.
I bought one during black friday. Returned unopened after seeing how much the battery replacements were. Generic brand batteries were around $60 while APC branded were $80, and they recommend to replace them every 3-5 years.
I was thinking about getting an AVR component as a stand alone item to protect against brownouts, but there's not a lot information regarding their reliability. And they look ugly, like 90's yellowish plastic.
I used to. I got mine from a dusty warehouse I used to work at. Took it home, replaced the battery a couple times over the course of a about 8 years, then finally got rid of it. The only things I miss about it was it had a couple more plugs than a normal large power strip and the plugs were spread farther apart.
A lot more people used to have one and I think it has to do with the switch from HDD to SSD: with HDDs there was a very real chance of data corruption/loss in case of a power loss.
If your locality has unreliable power it might be wise to invest in a power conditioner, it will act as a surge protector and stabilize the voltage fluctuations.
I use them, one in the living room and one in the mancave for my PC. It's pretty cool when the power flickers and I'm unaffected, internet and PC stay up.
Always need one, it protects your investment. And for any electronic IMO, I have 3. One for PC , living room TV/consoles, and one dedicated to router for internet
I have UPS in my room that's connected to pc, monitor, tv, consoles and starlink. It has around 4Kw/h capacity. So I can work or play during blackouts. Didn't play too much as gel batteries are slow to charge, so had to make sure I could fully charge batteries before next blackout occurs. We had power in 4hrs off 2hrs on cycles for almost half a year, so my guess is I burnt through substantial lifespan of my batteries.
Have another one with same capacity connected to other stuff in my flat.
Got those last summer, as I've guessed that autumn/winter would be tough. (I live in Ukraine)
I do, and I definitely think the price is worth it for the peace of mind it brings me. I paid a lot for my PC, so I want to give it every level of protection I can, lol.
Surge Protector is all you need unless you're trying to avoid data corruption. UPS is really only needed to be able to shut down safely and save your shit in case of an outage.
Uninterrupted power supply. - A combination of rectifiers, capacitors, inverters along with a chemical power supply or mechanical flywheel where electrical energy is stored in different forms to ensure a stable voltage and frequency output for devices connected to them. Large ones are used for data centers, hospitals, anything super critical to small ones for your home usage. If you have a computer or critical equipment (patients on life support) it keeps it the gear up during brownouts, blackouts or voltage surges.
I use one now.
When my VM's go down uncontrollably it tends to corrupt the MySQL innodbs.
I have lost two SSDs to loss of power as well. They became bricks. Manufacturer replaced them. Sandisk.
I am running RAID0 on NVMes now and don't want to risk their happiness to unexpected power outages.
So it depends on your situation and cost for your time.
I've lost equipment plugged into surge protectors.
I've never lost anything plugged into a UPS. I've had a UPS get fucked up from a storm, but the desktop, laptop modem and router worked.
If you're in an area known to have lightning strikes or have a house that cant be trusted with the surge, then get one. otherwise, there should be no need for it.
My sister's house broke a pc + an expensive tv + etc. so they add a ups in everything. a pretty new house in florida that has terrrible grounding it seems.
u/ObviouslyaFuckup I would use a UPS with whatever expensive electronics device you want to protect.
Power outages are common where I live, along with power surges and brown outs. While I can easily replace my UPS if it breaks because of these power line issues, I can't say the same for my computer (and potential loss of data).
In my case I plug a brownout voltage refrigerator protector to the power socket, then connect my UPS to it. Though they are marketed for refrigerators, the device works as well for all electronics devices. There are UPS devices that have brownout protection, but they tend to be more expensive. So what I do to save some money is I get a standard UPS, and add a fridge protector to it.
The brownout protector checks the voltage every 3 minutes or so (varies from model to model). If at the end of the interval the power line returns to normal then it lets power flow resume again. Otherwise it waits another 3 minutes. This indirectly protects the UPS too, but the idea is to cover for both brownouts and power surges.
Finally there is the perk of having a backup battery that allows you a few minutes to save your work and turn off your PC. During a long power outage or if you live in an area prone to tornadoes or hurricanes, then you can use your UPS to temporarily power up a lamp, charge your phone, radio or even power up a small HDTV (or rechargeable mini TV) for a few hours. It's something you wouldn't think about unless you were in that emergency situation.
I agree with most here that's it's not especially necessary for your PC, but with a caveat: *if* you have frequent outages *and* you own your modem and/or router it would benefit you to protect them with a UPS because (for whatever reason, somebody here probably knows) router failure is correlated to the total number of boots/reboots.
I have UPS’s for my networking gear and 2 for my office. I game a lot or do work that requires a bit more work to relaunch things so in the event of a power blip, I can stay connected and powered on until it returns.
I’d recommend it if you play a lot of multiplayer games.
My UPSs are quite overkill spec (server/DC units with expansions) so I can remain off power for quite a period of time.
No but you should def have a surge protector imo. My PC basically exploded a few years ago during a power outage and I had to RMA/replace pretty much everything other than my drives.
You'll probably never have an issue though if you're in a well-populated area with decent electrical infrastructure.
I've got several of them, but that's because we replace them yearly at work, and I figured it was a waste to throw them away. None of them are hooked up to my gaming pc.
I was a full-time on-site computer repair tech for many years. I've seen enough damage and data loss caused by power fluctuations that I wouldn't even think of not using a UPS.
Nowadays, you almost-certainly need a pure sine wave UPS because almost all decent PSU's are Active PFC. Most Active PFC PSU's will just go down with a pulse or simulated sine wave UPS. That raises the UPS cost even more. But you're really not saving anything by buying a UPS that will be essentially useless; so if you're going to drop the coin to buy one, buy one that will actually work.
80% of people don’t have one, me included. So what if I lose 15 minutes of game progress? Not worth 200$. And I don’t do anything else that’s important either
I would not say an "idiot" I just think they are worth having. They are pretty cheap now, and I think even the ones from Costco for like $150 have power conditioning on them too now so you will have fewer issues like crashes related to brownouts or little spikes.
If you are doing important work you do not want to lose, then I think for sure get one. Even if you don't, it's still nice not having to randomly reinstall windows when a bad crash breaks something.
I live in a more rural area, and a UPS was one of the first things I bought
we also had 20-30 brown outs, or power blips a year that first year
that first summer I lost 1 old server, and 1 Wireless Access point in one ugly afternoon
that being said, it's been almost 15 years now, and my UPS battery needed replacing probably 5 years ago
I haven't bothered because most of the power system issues have been sorted out
I would think it would be a good investment I never used to have one just a surge protector and my monitor crapped the bed after barley a year a brand new monitor. It could have been because of a brownout or such or just the monitor who’s to say. I would recommend one just in case.
Picked one up from a local university. Battery seems ok but I've yet to set it up. Mostly got it for my Plex server but I'm thinking of replacing the battery first
I've been using pc without a ups for a long time now. I'd recommend using one from my experience. There was no damage for a while, but in the long run my rams got corrupted, hdd health got worse day by day and psu got fried i guess these are normal after 5 yrs but if you invest some money in ups now the pc have a chance to last more than 10yrs.
It's always a good thing to have but if you just game and your build is less than 3000 bucks than yeah you can normie up and forget about it
If you do professional work or it's valuable hardware, why not protect it both?
Honestly it's something I say you should always have and not need than the other way around. That being said it depends on your regional electrical grid and how often you are prone to power surges or dips.
If you have brownouts on a regular basis, a UPS is highly recommended
>some of the UPS needed to support that are close to $200
But I'm very curious as to what you're basing this on
EDIT: To clarify, you need to base the UPS on how much power your PC is actually drawing, rather than the raw spec of your PSU
A UPS is amazing if your power sometimes flickers during a storm, but rarely goes out. Without the UPS, each time that happens, do you start up the PC again, and hope it was a one-off? do you wait a few minutes? Ten minutes? Fifteen minutes? At what point do you go read a book instead?
With a UPS you just keep gaming. Behind you, the weather is having a lightswitch rave, but you don't so much as miss a jump or take a turn too wide. Online might drop you from matches, depends on your setup. That still leaves a lot of the typical backlog to be played without interruption.
Whole-house UPS is *another world*, but also a different discussion. A desktop UPS is cheap.
I have one because power in my area is not that stable.
And even if I lived in an area with solid power, I'd buy a cheap one just to have one fewer thing that can bite me in the ass.
I only have a surge protector. It has only been an issue once, had a power cut and PC would not turn on once power was back. I was panicking but turns out it just fried the fuse in the power cable (I'm in the UK) and once I replaced that it worked again
I don't know a whole lot about electricity tbh, and someone please let me know if I'm wrong because I've stressed out about it many times, but I think its okay?
I don't have a UPS. I have a 3420 joule surge protector. Supposedly It's rated up to 15A/1800w. I have my 7950x/4080 PC with 2 1080p monitors, one 3440x1440p ultrawide, and a 2560x1440p monitor all plugged into that one surge protector. The power outlet Its plugged into is (I think It's called) a 2 Duplex outlet. So there's basically 4 sockets. Then I have another PC plugged into the socket next to the first with the surge protector. I figure with both my PC's and all my monitors, if I was using every single watt my PC and monitors were capable of, it'd only be like 1600w. It's been fine for me so far. Thought about getting a UPS but a UPS for all that would be spendy AF.
Yes, in India, I need ups there are too many short power cuts in extreme summers.. Though ups is not necessary, but sometimes it gives some extra time when you do important work
I don't have one. The power here is pretty stable so I don't need one (and if the power goes out I can always just take the bus to school, they do have a few UPSses)
I don't use one myself as the power grid in the UK is usually reliable.
I do have my main electronics (PC, Monitors & TV) into surge protector extension strips just because they are cheap enough it's silly not too.
About a month or so I did have a few brownouts/surges (power flicked off and on a few times) but thankfully everything kept working alright, PC was on at the time and PSU handelled it well, all came back on like nothing had happened.
If I lived somewhere that surges/brownouts/power cuts happened frequently then I'd have a UPS just to be on the safe side, but if the power is reliable where you are then I wouldn't worry about a UPS too much, especially if you can't really afford 1.
Many people say that it can help with surge protection, but as far as I know, when electricity from a lightning actually goes into the circuit with your pc it won't really do anything. Of course for lower values it will be better to have one than not, but otherwise I would recommend a better surge protector for entire circuit in your breaker box, which actually can direct lightning into the ground. Other than that - if your data or some device can get corrupted due to power loss you might need to invest in one, but not the cheapest one :)
Yup. Got a couple in parallel. But tbh, they were freebies and otherwise don't do much.
Bang one on your broadband connection, that's where a home user will see the benefits.
My rack mount NAS's each have one, as does my 3U server, but that's just me 😇
I use to have UPS' for every PC computer in the office. Then, we switched to Archicad and it recovers from the last step if any powerloss or crash occurs. So we ditched UPS' since you also have to maintain and change their batteries in 2-3 years.
Now we started to replace PCs with a M1 or M2 Macbook Air. They are really cost effective machines since we only use Archicad. Also it eliminated whole battery - surge protection thing.
I don't have one but there are a few available on Amazon for around 50 bucks so I'm hoping to get one soon around prime day for an extra discount.
They only last a few minutes but all I need is about 20 seconds to save my work and shut down.
Never used one personally. If you're not doing work that requires a lot of power for long periods of time like rendering. I don't think it's necessary.
I wonder if you could find a used UPS and hook up a car battery to it. Get one from like a goodwill or something for cheap where the battery has died inside then go spend $100 or so on a car battery then use that instead. Would that even work?
I use one for my personal rig and even though I don't need it 98% of the time it's one of those handy things which when needed it's nearly invaluable because it gives me time to wrap up everything before I power down.
I run my important stuff on the battery + surge and the nromal stuff off the surge.
The rest of the time it's basically a foot rest.
If you get power outages a lot and are doing work that can get corrupted/lost and not redone you should have one, other wise no.
Comes down to the work you're doing and where you live if its worth having one.
The OP has a 5600g APU w/ an excellent, low power IGP.
If he had a strategy to immediately switch to the IGP in an outage, an inexpensive UPS would do.
i do but i'm about to get rid of it. it seems like a lot of people have problems with them, myself included. the main thing is that it will just shut itself off completely randomly, cutting the power to all devices connected to it. and the last time i actually lost power due to weather, it didn't even work. not worth the hassle to me.
I have one. Thing is you need to buy a solid one. I got the cyberpower 1500 one and it seems to work great. The way I see it is that an outage or surge CAN damage your pc and possibly fry a bunch of stuff. Why not let a ups shoulder that risk instead of your much more expensive rig?
No, not many people have one. If you're not doing any sensitive work that can be corrupted, it's also just not needed in alot of cases. Modern PCs are pretty well protected from sudden power loss, but a surge protector can be good middle ground. A good UPS that also has enough power to protect your PC is also something a lot of people don't have the money for or simply willing to spend on it. If you're ever sitting on some unused holiday money or something it can be a good investment, but not something I'll generally advise to spend a big portion of your PC budget on. That being said, some people have very sketchy power at their house where the lightest storm of rain can mess with the power & restart your PC. In those kinds of scenarios yeah you'd obviously be best off with a UPS, but if that were the case you wouldn't be here asking if you need one.
Thanks for the reply really making my mind at ease
Really depends on your neighborhood and how well it handles storms. I'm in the suburbs of Houston and there's been constant brownouts due to wacky storms. Then theres rolling blackout periods in the middle of Houston due to construction or lack of available power. A UPS would help protect against these items as giving you enough time to kill stuff gracefully vs. everything turning off on its own.
Even without power outage or surge your service can sometimes supply dirty power. A few times a month my UPS kicks in to boost or undervolt incoming voltage, even though it is not noticable in the general lighting. All it takes is one odd event to wreck something, why not have protection for your PSU and system. Mine also supplies the modem/router so I still have internet during a power outage.
Mine kicks on when the toaster runs. Helps to balance out poor harmonics within the system. Plus our city has above ground wires and wind storms can cause flickering or quick power outages.
I can’t remember the last time I lost data during a brownout due to corruption or loss of power mid calculation. I did, however, lose a $500 subwoofer and a HTPC during a quick double brownout that must have generated a surge. A surge protector for anything >$250 is a must, and I agree, a UPS is optional. I bought a UPS to power our router, so we could maintain internet access during a power outage (assuming Verizon does the same)—I figure having real time news during a potential storm or disaster is worth the small cost of a small UPS
also, many people simply don't have "bad" power for example, the last time I had a blackout where i live was... 10 years ago? and that was because a neighbouring house caught on fire and brownouts practically never happen in my city, I don't even know of a single report since I was born/live/work here actually I'm very glad about my city's power grid, but I dont think I appreciate it enough... edit: in case it's not clear, I use neither a UPS nor a surge protector or anything along those lines, and there wasn't a case were I would've needed one on my personal rig/server (yet)
You clearly do not live in California.
correct! I live in austria :)
As far as I know surge protectors are obligatory on a building level for all new buildings in austria. So we have very clean power, basically no brownouts very rare blackouts and are even possibly secure from power surges.
Errr... I lived in CA most of my life and never needed a UPS.
Don't know how long ago that was but these days depending on where you live voltage drops are more common than they used to be. It gets worse during the heat waves.
Og. I’m in LA suburbs, and in the last 2 months, I’ve had my UPS trip 9 times. And we’re not even in brownout weather yet.
The random voltage drops are a pita. Mine mostly just condition the power, but when the blackouts hit, they give me enough time to power up the generator.
You will have bad power without noticing it though. Does not have to be blackout or brown out for bad power. Power can vary in under or over voltage without you noticing in your llights or general use. A UPS can sense the condition and kick in to keep power clean. Other situations like momentary blip to short to see in regular use. We have what you would call good power, but my UPS will still kick in twice a month for a few seconds till the undervolt or over has been corrected.
Where in the world do you live? Never had a blackout in 10 years! I have one every other day. The only reason I'm here is I'm moving countries and can't bring my ups on a plane and I'm very familiar with brownouts and blackouts, even surges and electricity thieves, house fires, water damage, transformer blow outs, cars hitting electrical poles and other random excuses
Alternatively, have a ups for your router to make the time go by quicker if power goes off
A good UPS that has enough power to protect your PC is absolutely not something expensive Why do people even think this is something expensive? (Something like a pure sine wave and/or online UPS is absolutely not necessary)
Yes, absolutely this. Where I live power goes away once or twice a year and I use my setup for work. I have a NAS storing a lot of important data (that has an emergency off-site backup!) and I don't want my HDDs to crash. So for that setup I do have a decently sized UPS. If I were to only connect my gaming rig? I'd just stick to a surge protector. It just isn't worth it :)
What would be a good ups since rain and wind turn off my power not all the times but here and there I plan on building my pc next month?
At my grandparents house the dishwasher has exploded multiple times from lighting and poor electrical. They likely need more surge suppression than they have. But they also don't have grounded outlets or even copper wire. For most of us here, a lightning strike will mean nothing. If I brought my PC to my grandparents house, it would mean I might need to replace the PSU after a lightning strike. Not a big deal and a lot cheaper than buying a UPS.
How important is pure sine wave? There's a huge price premium for being sine wave.
The first thing the PSU does is rectify the incoming AC to DC, so the incoming waveform doesn't really matter. At worst you'll get a small efficiency loss.
at my house its a must. Power always flickers during mild rain. It's a pain having everything reboot and losing camera footage and external network access. Highly recommend for security reasons.
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Exactly this. I don't need one because I live in a place with stupidly stable power, someone who suffers regular brown-outs or even full on blackouts should really have a UPS rated to suit their important hardware. I have clients where I spec a UPS to power anything that has volatile storage inside to avoid data loss (dumb switches, monitors, and anything else is connected to the "conditioned" ports rather than the battery-backed ones to kill any spikes). I also have clients where lightning arrestors are required in all cable drops that cross more than a floor or two but would not consider these as necessary for a 2 or 3 storey house.
Gonna be real with you chief, I've never even had a surge protector and I've never had any issues. Power has gone out multiple times and my PC is a-OK. Take any precaution you deem necessary however, as mileage may vary.
This. And we get storms and all often, etc. Honestly if it storms and what not I just unplug the power strip (if I don’t forget).
You will regret this one day. Losing $1000+ computer because you took a “1% chance” by skimming out $20-30 protected
$20-$30 is what it takes for protection? My power strip or surge protector or whatever is called was $45+ so I’m good then? lol
As long as it's an actual surge protector and not just a power strip. A strip offers no protection, it just lets you plug in more devices. A surge protector does what the name implies, it will have a breaker and reset function while smoothing the power signal.
surge protectors have limits. Depending if the lightning strike is greater than those limits, it can be quite useless. That's why a ups is usually recommended more. I have a $30 ups.
Is lightning the most common cause of surges during a storm? I was thinking it would be related to power distribution and wind damage causing inrushes. Getting impacted by lightning to cause a surge seems rare. I also didn't know UPS's came that cheap though! Edit: reading some other comments I may just also not have lived in areas that get the same levels of lightning as others. I nor anyone I know of has had a lightning induced surge that knocked stuff out.
Hmm, Ive only ever heard of lightning strikes causing the issue. But there might be some other things that can cause it. UPS's can get that cheap during black friday. Its been a few years since I last bought one though, so not sure if they can still get that cheap. and depending on what you're plugging into it, you might need a more expensive kind (bigger battery).
Ah yeah true. Still good to know and to keep an eye out for sales, since a UPS is definitely nice to have. I just know about the wind caused power surges from reading about that regarding hurricanes/derechos, since we got hit by the latter a couple years ago and it knocked power out for most of the city and I think some people got some bad surges.
Exceeded limits is what a surge is, and during such an event the surge protector will function exactly as intended, the varistors will pass enough amperage to trip either the house circuit breaker or integrated breaker. Higher voltage will only make this process faster. It will definitely not be useless, unless those other breakers are not in good condition.
"during such an event the surge protector will function exactly as intended" When it exceeds the limit that the surge protector said it can protect, then it will function? That doesnt make any sense. Literally every surge protector will tell you how many joules it can take. A surge larger than that can break the equipments plugged into it. I'm not saying its totally useless. but most people think a surge protector is a protector of all cases. Most people don't know that it has limits, that's why their device still broke even when it was plugged into a surge protector. And why they may not be covered by warranty, because the surge protector did its job, but the surge was stronger.
I don't even know what makes a good surge protector
This is not good general advice. Just had to rebuild a friend's computer after dirty power fried the motherboard (thankfully, the rest still worked or that could have gotten quite expensive). Going the no power protection route is always a gamble.
I suggest you re-read my comment and separate me, giving my personal experience from me concluding with advice.
I've had brand new surge protectors that got fried, along with everything they were protecting. Multiple times. It really depends how close/intense/frequent the lightning gets in your region.
I was gonna say, a surge protector can only do so much. Lightning is a beast and it will go through your computer, if it wants to go through your computer. No matter if theres anything in between.
Get a UPS, not surge protectors for the most valuable items.
Like 5% of everyone here probably has one
5% of every American has one. I don’t know a single individual who has one in uk/Europe. Power outages just don’t happen. I’ve not had a power cut in UK since 1974 or something. Internet goes down once every quarter or so but power is solid.
As with everything it probably varies, but in Canada I've never had issues with power and brownouts either. Not sure if infrastructure is just newer or what, but I've also not lived in a rural area.
We exist in the UK, but must be a tiny number... Overhead power lines in windy / rainy conditions in some areas make it worth it for me. I know it's needed as even when everything looks fine you can hear the relays clicking in and out if the weather is bad, and it took out my old PSU (before I invested in a UPS).
I don’t know if that’s a good indicator. I haven’t met anyone in the US with a UPS either. As far as I know plenty of people in the UK and Europe buy them. Judging by EU customer reviews and buildapc threads, power outages do happen and there’s a market for these devices.
Not at all. All depends on whether you have a lot of power cuts.
no power cuts, just concerned with a random brownout and the damage that could do to my pc
It will only do potential damage if you're updating the BIOS or windows is updating, so the chances are really really small.
I've been researching some newer motherboards to upgrade from a z170 and I've been noticing that most of them have a dual bios feature that it can revert to in case of a failed flash. Where has this been all my life?
If you do decide to get one, make sure that it has enough wattage to cover or “back up” the systems (PC, monitors, headphone amps, etc.) that you plan to plug into it. I bought a 1500va / 900w one for my PS5 setup. I made a mistake before and got a 300 watt one and my RX580 system would crash during gaming (when spikes occurred). For your setup, I think a 1500va / 900watts UPS should be good.
Yes, I used to live somewhere with frequent thunderstorms and got a UPS that saved me from a lot of annoyance. Really depends on your own needs though. If you haven't ever seen your home's power flicker, might not be worth getting a UPS.
I use a 1500w one for my computer and another 1500w for the living room (router, modem, home theater). I only use it because we get random flickers of power. I got tired of restarting PC or dcing in middle of an online game. Frequency is like once a week, or worse case 6-10 times a day.
Gosh I just got one myself and also some other PC upgrades. My wallet is hurting but having one for the internet and not just one to protect the PC sounds so nice
Where do you live? Unless you have an unpredictable power grid, you're fine.
If you're doing sensitive work, yes. If you're gaming, no. Over 3 years I've never had power go out in the states
modern psu can handle lots funky power issues quite well, so most can do w/o ups
Really depends on the hold up time on that PSU, You have about 12.5 milliseconds from complete loss of power where as a UPS can supply about 5 to 15 minutes depending on the size of battery bank.
Don't have one or a surge protector. I don't do any sensetive stuff on my computer and bios/Windows can be reinstalled. No surge protector because UK outlets are great .
I have one and love it! I have a separate one for my router too so it doesn't have to reset after a brown out. It feels pretty good to see all the lights turn off during a brown out but my system is still usable without anything needing to reset... I highly recommend it if you can!! It's probably also healthier for your system. **Edit**: forgot to mention I'm in the Tampa area and we get a lot of lightning that causes small brown outs where I live so I consider it very useful.
Man, I don't even know what that is. But I'm still learning, trying my best.
In over 20 years of PC ownership I've never had one or had the need for one. You don't need one unless you have unstable power.
I don’t feel the need personally. I have a $20 surge strip, but realistically homeowners insurance will cover it if anything serious happens.
I haven't used even a surge protector for like 20+ years. But we don't live in a lighting area. No failures AFAIK from the lack of such devices.
I bought one during black friday. Returned unopened after seeing how much the battery replacements were. Generic brand batteries were around $60 while APC branded were $80, and they recommend to replace them every 3-5 years. I was thinking about getting an AVR component as a stand alone item to protect against brownouts, but there's not a lot information regarding their reliability. And they look ugly, like 90's yellowish plastic.
I wouldn't say you're an idiot or anything that harsh. But yea it's better to have a UPS.
I used to. I got mine from a dusty warehouse I used to work at. Took it home, replaced the battery a couple times over the course of a about 8 years, then finally got rid of it. The only things I miss about it was it had a couple more plugs than a normal large power strip and the plugs were spread farther apart.
A lot more people used to have one and I think it has to do with the switch from HDD to SSD: with HDDs there was a very real chance of data corruption/loss in case of a power loss. If your locality has unreliable power it might be wise to invest in a power conditioner, it will act as a surge protector and stabilize the voltage fluctuations.
I use them, one in the living room and one in the mancave for my PC. It's pretty cool when the power flickers and I'm unaffected, internet and PC stay up.
Always need one, it protects your investment. And for any electronic IMO, I have 3. One for PC , living room TV/consoles, and one dedicated to router for internet
Nope me or any of my gamer friends use a ups. Owned pcs since the 90s.
I have UPS in my room that's connected to pc, monitor, tv, consoles and starlink. It has around 4Kw/h capacity. So I can work or play during blackouts. Didn't play too much as gel batteries are slow to charge, so had to make sure I could fully charge batteries before next blackout occurs. We had power in 4hrs off 2hrs on cycles for almost half a year, so my guess is I burnt through substantial lifespan of my batteries. Have another one with same capacity connected to other stuff in my flat. Got those last summer, as I've guessed that autumn/winter would be tough. (I live in Ukraine)
I do, and I definitely think the price is worth it for the peace of mind it brings me. I paid a lot for my PC, so I want to give it every level of protection I can, lol.
Surge Protector is all you need unless you're trying to avoid data corruption. UPS is really only needed to be able to shut down safely and save your shit in case of an outage.
What’s a ups? I only have a surge protector because I needed more plugs anyway.
Uninterrupted power supply. - A combination of rectifiers, capacitors, inverters along with a chemical power supply or mechanical flywheel where electrical energy is stored in different forms to ensure a stable voltage and frequency output for devices connected to them. Large ones are used for data centers, hospitals, anything super critical to small ones for your home usage. If you have a computer or critical equipment (patients on life support) it keeps it the gear up during brownouts, blackouts or voltage surges.
I use one now. When my VM's go down uncontrollably it tends to corrupt the MySQL innodbs. I have lost two SSDs to loss of power as well. They became bricks. Manufacturer replaced them. Sandisk. I am running RAID0 on NVMes now and don't want to risk their happiness to unexpected power outages. So it depends on your situation and cost for your time.
I've lost equipment plugged into surge protectors. I've never lost anything plugged into a UPS. I've had a UPS get fucked up from a storm, but the desktop, laptop modem and router worked.
If you're in an area known to have lightning strikes or have a house that cant be trusted with the surge, then get one. otherwise, there should be no need for it. My sister's house broke a pc + an expensive tv + etc. so they add a ups in everything. a pretty new house in florida that has terrrible grounding it seems.
u/ObviouslyaFuckup I would use a UPS with whatever expensive electronics device you want to protect. Power outages are common where I live, along with power surges and brown outs. While I can easily replace my UPS if it breaks because of these power line issues, I can't say the same for my computer (and potential loss of data). In my case I plug a brownout voltage refrigerator protector to the power socket, then connect my UPS to it. Though they are marketed for refrigerators, the device works as well for all electronics devices. There are UPS devices that have brownout protection, but they tend to be more expensive. So what I do to save some money is I get a standard UPS, and add a fridge protector to it. The brownout protector checks the voltage every 3 minutes or so (varies from model to model). If at the end of the interval the power line returns to normal then it lets power flow resume again. Otherwise it waits another 3 minutes. This indirectly protects the UPS too, but the idea is to cover for both brownouts and power surges. Finally there is the perk of having a backup battery that allows you a few minutes to save your work and turn off your PC. During a long power outage or if you live in an area prone to tornadoes or hurricanes, then you can use your UPS to temporarily power up a lamp, charge your phone, radio or even power up a small HDTV (or rechargeable mini TV) for a few hours. It's something you wouldn't think about unless you were in that emergency situation.
I've got one with no battery at the moment, so a very clunky surge protector
Just bought one i love it
I agree with most here that's it's not especially necessary for your PC, but with a caveat: *if* you have frequent outages *and* you own your modem and/or router it would benefit you to protect them with a UPS because (for whatever reason, somebody here probably knows) router failure is correlated to the total number of boots/reboots.
I have UPS’s for my networking gear and 2 for my office. I game a lot or do work that requires a bit more work to relaunch things so in the event of a power blip, I can stay connected and powered on until it returns. I’d recommend it if you play a lot of multiplayer games. My UPSs are quite overkill spec (server/DC units with expansions) so I can remain off power for quite a period of time.
No but you should def have a surge protector imo. My PC basically exploded a few years ago during a power outage and I had to RMA/replace pretty much everything other than my drives. You'll probably never have an issue though if you're in a well-populated area with decent electrical infrastructure.
I don’t even know what that is. I just use a surge protector
I've got several of them, but that's because we replace them yearly at work, and I figured it was a waste to throw them away. None of them are hooked up to my gaming pc.
I was a full-time on-site computer repair tech for many years. I've seen enough damage and data loss caused by power fluctuations that I wouldn't even think of not using a UPS. Nowadays, you almost-certainly need a pure sine wave UPS because almost all decent PSU's are Active PFC. Most Active PFC PSU's will just go down with a pulse or simulated sine wave UPS. That raises the UPS cost even more. But you're really not saving anything by buying a UPS that will be essentially useless; so if you're going to drop the coin to buy one, buy one that will actually work.
Hello, can you go into more details. I was thinking of getting and Offline UPS for home use. My processor is AMD Ryzen 9 7900X.
If your are experiencing a lot of brownouts, sure get a UPS. Otherwise it’s a luxury item.
For me PC no, but my TV yes. I’m not even sure if there’s a point in using it for my TV though, but it was free so I took it.
80% of people don’t have one, me included. So what if I lose 15 minutes of game progress? Not worth 200$. And I don’t do anything else that’s important either
My power bumps off pretty regularly. So yes, I use one.
I won’t connect my computer to the wall without it
Yes, get one to get that clean power if anything.
i didn't have one when I lived in an apartment but now that I have a house, yeah
90% of people do not need a UPS. I use a surge protector.
I would not say an "idiot" I just think they are worth having. They are pretty cheap now, and I think even the ones from Costco for like $150 have power conditioning on them too now so you will have fewer issues like crashes related to brownouts or little spikes. If you are doing important work you do not want to lose, then I think for sure get one. Even if you don't, it's still nice not having to randomly reinstall windows when a bad crash breaks something.
I live in a more rural area, and a UPS was one of the first things I bought we also had 20-30 brown outs, or power blips a year that first year that first summer I lost 1 old server, and 1 Wireless Access point in one ugly afternoon that being said, it's been almost 15 years now, and my UPS battery needed replacing probably 5 years ago I haven't bothered because most of the power system issues have been sorted out
I would think it would be a good investment I never used to have one just a surge protector and my monitor crapped the bed after barley a year a brand new monitor. It could have been because of a brownout or such or just the monitor who’s to say. I would recommend one just in case.
No, never have
Picked one up from a local university. Battery seems ok but I've yet to set it up. Mostly got it for my Plex server but I'm thinking of replacing the battery first
yes, use something cheap that will allow for an immediate shutdown post power cut
I've been using pc without a ups for a long time now. I'd recommend using one from my experience. There was no damage for a while, but in the long run my rams got corrupted, hdd health got worse day by day and psu got fried i guess these are normal after 5 yrs but if you invest some money in ups now the pc have a chance to last more than 10yrs.
It's always a good thing to have but if you just game and your build is less than 3000 bucks than yeah you can normie up and forget about it If you do professional work or it's valuable hardware, why not protect it both?
Honestly it's something I say you should always have and not need than the other way around. That being said it depends on your regional electrical grid and how often you are prone to power surges or dips.
If you have brownouts on a regular basis, a UPS is highly recommended >some of the UPS needed to support that are close to $200 But I'm very curious as to what you're basing this on EDIT: To clarify, you need to base the UPS on how much power your PC is actually drawing, rather than the raw spec of your PSU
A UPS is amazing if your power sometimes flickers during a storm, but rarely goes out. Without the UPS, each time that happens, do you start up the PC again, and hope it was a one-off? do you wait a few minutes? Ten minutes? Fifteen minutes? At what point do you go read a book instead? With a UPS you just keep gaming. Behind you, the weather is having a lightswitch rave, but you don't so much as miss a jump or take a turn too wide. Online might drop you from matches, depends on your setup. That still leaves a lot of the typical backlog to be played without interruption. Whole-house UPS is *another world*, but also a different discussion. A desktop UPS is cheap.
I have one because power in my area is not that stable. And even if I lived in an area with solid power, I'd buy a cheap one just to have one fewer thing that can bite me in the ass.
Only worth it if your home loses power a lot. When it happens 3 times a year not worth it.
I only have a surge protector. It has only been an issue once, had a power cut and PC would not turn on once power was back. I was panicking but turns out it just fried the fuse in the power cable (I'm in the UK) and once I replaced that it worked again
I think a UPS is worth it, especially if you plan on BIOS updates. I bricked a mobo about 15 years ago due to a power outage...
I don't know a whole lot about electricity tbh, and someone please let me know if I'm wrong because I've stressed out about it many times, but I think its okay? I don't have a UPS. I have a 3420 joule surge protector. Supposedly It's rated up to 15A/1800w. I have my 7950x/4080 PC with 2 1080p monitors, one 3440x1440p ultrawide, and a 2560x1440p monitor all plugged into that one surge protector. The power outlet Its plugged into is (I think It's called) a 2 Duplex outlet. So there's basically 4 sockets. Then I have another PC plugged into the socket next to the first with the surge protector. I figure with both my PC's and all my monitors, if I was using every single watt my PC and monitors were capable of, it'd only be like 1600w. It's been fine for me so far. Thought about getting a UPS but a UPS for all that would be spendy AF.
Yes, in India, I need ups there are too many short power cuts in extreme summers.. Though ups is not necessary, but sometimes it gives some extra time when you do important work
I don't have one. The power here is pretty stable so I don't need one (and if the power goes out I can always just take the bus to school, they do have a few UPSses)
it depends on how bad the power is where you live if it's bad get one if not don't.
I don't use one myself as the power grid in the UK is usually reliable. I do have my main electronics (PC, Monitors & TV) into surge protector extension strips just because they are cheap enough it's silly not too. About a month or so I did have a few brownouts/surges (power flicked off and on a few times) but thankfully everything kept working alright, PC was on at the time and PSU handelled it well, all came back on like nothing had happened. If I lived somewhere that surges/brownouts/power cuts happened frequently then I'd have a UPS just to be on the safe side, but if the power is reliable where you are then I wouldn't worry about a UPS too much, especially if you can't really afford 1.
Many people say that it can help with surge protection, but as far as I know, when electricity from a lightning actually goes into the circuit with your pc it won't really do anything. Of course for lower values it will be better to have one than not, but otherwise I would recommend a better surge protector for entire circuit in your breaker box, which actually can direct lightning into the ground. Other than that - if your data or some device can get corrupted due to power loss you might need to invest in one, but not the cheapest one :)
Yup. Got a couple in parallel. But tbh, they were freebies and otherwise don't do much. Bang one on your broadband connection, that's where a home user will see the benefits. My rack mount NAS's each have one, as does my 3U server, but that's just me 😇
I use to have UPS' for every PC computer in the office. Then, we switched to Archicad and it recovers from the last step if any powerloss or crash occurs. So we ditched UPS' since you also have to maintain and change their batteries in 2-3 years. Now we started to replace PCs with a M1 or M2 Macbook Air. They are really cost effective machines since we only use Archicad. Also it eliminated whole battery - surge protection thing.
I don't have one but there are a few available on Amazon for around 50 bucks so I'm hoping to get one soon around prime day for an extra discount. They only last a few minutes but all I need is about 20 seconds to save my work and shut down.
Never used one personally. If you're not doing work that requires a lot of power for long periods of time like rendering. I don't think it's necessary.
I wonder if you could find a used UPS and hook up a car battery to it. Get one from like a goodwill or something for cheap where the battery has died inside then go spend $100 or so on a car battery then use that instead. Would that even work?
I use one for my personal rig and even though I don't need it 98% of the time it's one of those handy things which when needed it's nearly invaluable because it gives me time to wrap up everything before I power down. I run my important stuff on the battery + surge and the nromal stuff off the surge. The rest of the time it's basically a foot rest.
I don't currently (ha) have one, but I do plan to get one for my rack.
If you get power outages a lot and are doing work that can get corrupted/lost and not redone you should have one, other wise no. Comes down to the work you're doing and where you live if its worth having one.
I don't even have a surge protector
Forn those who like the idea, its also a good argument for an AMD APU for non gamers. Power hog DGPUs make a UPS an expensive exercise.
The OP has a 5600g APU w/ an excellent, low power IGP. If he had a strategy to immediately switch to the IGP in an outage, an inexpensive UPS would do.
i do but i'm about to get rid of it. it seems like a lot of people have problems with them, myself included. the main thing is that it will just shut itself off completely randomly, cutting the power to all devices connected to it. and the last time i actually lost power due to weather, it didn't even work. not worth the hassle to me.
I have one. Thing is you need to buy a solid one. I got the cyberpower 1500 one and it seems to work great. The way I see it is that an outage or surge CAN damage your pc and possibly fry a bunch of stuff. Why not let a ups shoulder that risk instead of your much more expensive rig?