An Excellent UPS - the CyberPower 1500AVRLCD
My old Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) was getting a bit old, and and only provided a few minutes of run time for my primary computer. I began researching to find the best UPS out there, in the $200 range. I settled on the CyberPower 1500AVRLCD, which set me back just under $200 with shipping. It is rated at 900W and 1500VA, which means that it will keep my 2.4GHz Core 2 Quatro computer running for about 30 minutes during a power outage.
As you can see from the pictures above, the CyberPower 1500AVRLCD has 4 battery backup and surge protected outlets, and 3 surge protected only outlets. It also offers surge protection for telephone and cable connections. The USB and serial port connections allow for the included software to shut down the computer before the two (user replaceable) rechargeable sealed lead-acid batteries built in to the CyberPower 1500AVRLCD are drained.
The CyberPower 1500AVRLCD functioned as I expected during testing, and reliably kept my computer running. Since it worked exactly as advertised, there is not much more I can say here, so this is a case where no news is good news.
One of the nicest features of the CyberPower 1500AVRLCD is the LCD display on the front of the unit. As I expected, it tells you whether it is operating on battery or AC power, if the Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR) has been activated to protect your computer from excessive or insufficient line voltage, etc. But the best feature of this LCD display is that it show the wattage being drawn by the computer and other attached equipment. While stand alone meters that provide this ability have been around for years (such as the Kill-A-Watt meter) it is nice to have this built in to the UPS so that there is no need to unplug and replug the computer just to measure its power usage. Its also nice to see how processor load changes power consumption. For example, I learned that my 2.4 Kentsfield computer draws about 160 watts at idle, and about 210 when the CPU is under full load. This power consumption information is also used to automatically calculate the electrical load % used, and the run time in the event of a power failure.
If you’re in the market for a great UPS in the $200 price range, you can’t go wrong with the CyberPower 1500AVRLCD.
Tags: computer
