If you run a server you know that uptime is a big deal, many things can cause downtime and one of them is a blackout. If the power goes out in your house and you are running for web design or hosting service your customers will not be able to access your site making you look like a bad company. If you cant even keep your own website up and running why would you be able to keep theirs up and running? There is a simple solution for power outage problems and this solution is a UPS which is an Uninterruptible Power Supply. Simply put even when the power goes out this unit will be able to power your computer equipment hopefully long enough for the power company to fix whatever problem might be going on.
There are two kinds of uninterruptible power supplies that are used, a standby UPS and a continuous UPS. A standby UPS runs the computer off of the normal utility power until it detects a problem. If the power fails the UPS kicks on an inverter and runs the computer off of the UPS’s battery. In a continuous UPS, the computer is always running off of battery power and the battery is continuously being recharged. When the power fails there is no switch over time the computer simply keeps running off of the UPS
There are a few things that a UPS can be useful for because we all know that’s problems can go wrong at anytime for any reason. A UPS can save you from a lot of work and problems if any of the below were to happen.
- Voltage surges and spikes – Times when the voltage on the line is greater than it should be.
- Brown outs – Times when the voltage on the line is less than it should be but not totally out.
- Black out – When the power totally goes out
- Frequency differences – Times when the power is oscillating at something other than 60 Hertz
The Belkin UPS is a standby unit because it only kicks in when you have a voltage spike, brown out, black out, or a frequency difference. It will provide you power for up to 45 minutes depending on what all you have running on it and how charged the unit it. The software which we will look at more later is compatible with Windows 95 – XP and all NT are included. all of the other features we will look at more later in the review but you can take a gander at the list which is off the Belkin site below for an good idea.
- Provides up to 45 minutes backup time.
- Battery capacity load: 800VA (450 Watts)
- Bulldog Plus software is compatible with Windows XP, 95/98, 2000, NT
- Provides 6 Outlets: 4 battery backup outlets w/surge protection and 2 outlets w/surge protection only
- Serial and USB Port
- 1 In, 1 Out RJ45/RJ11 jack with surge protection
- Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR)
- Comes with a $150,000 Connected Equipment Warranty
- Comes with a 3 Year Product Warranty
When the Belkin UPS first arrived at my door the first thing surprised me was the weight of this thing, its heavy! I figured it would weigh a good amount however i didn’t think it would end up being 31 pounds. After I got it in the house I took it out of this shipping box to find a nice glossy box with lots of reassuring information and a lady smiling at me. The back of the box has a lot of the technical information as far as what it does and what kind of features it has.
I went ahead and worked this little giant out of the box and took a good look at it. On the front of the UPS there is an On/Off/Test button which does just that. There are also some symbols and LEDs so that if there is a problem or you need some troubleshooting information you will let you know what’s up. The back of the UPS has ports for your rj-11 cable for your phone or internet line then you have a USB and serial port which are used to connect the UPS to your computer, next to that is a little red LED which lights up if you don’t plug it into a grounded line. Below that are 6 plugs the top 4 are battery backup along with surge protection and the bottom two are for surge protection only. There is also a button to reset everything.
The UPS comes with the rj-11 cable for your internet or phone line, a USB cable so you can connect your computer to your UPS and you can also use the serial port to do the same thing but the USB is much better because all you have to do is plug it in and away you go. I like that Belkin provided the legacy support of the serial port because some old servers may not have USB ports and would be unable to use this UPS.
I have never used any UPS before and that being the case I was really interested as to what could weigh 31 pounds inside of this thing so I went ahead and opened it up. Because I am a telecommunication major and not an electronic engineer I don’t know what exactly everything in here is but I am pretty sure about some of it. The 2 big blocks there are the batteries and the yellow wrapped thing is the inverter, there are also some fuses, mosfets and other things which I don’t know exactly do what. I do know that I was really careful and made sure not to touch a thing because this thing can hold a lot of power and probably could kill you so I wouldn’t recommend opening yours up.
The UPS also comes with a registration form and a manual which is really pretty well detailed and should be able to tell you what you need to know without being confused. The UPS comes with Bulldog Plus Shutdown Software which we will look at next, it is the software manager for your UPS.
Because USB is much easier, faster, and newer than serial I went ahead and used that method to connect the UPS to my computer. Right when I plugged the UPS in the little box poped up and installed everything and away I went. As you can see it installs a HID UPS Battery and USB Human Interface Device, it really was really nice to just be able to actually plug and play without any struggles.
The software that comes with the UPS is version 3.2.5 and you should upgrade to the new 3.2.10 version. after patching it all up I started up the Bulldog Service then the Bulldog Monitor the service just gets it running and the monitor lets you watch everything and see what is going on.
At the bottom of the window there are seven buttons that will switch screens and tell you different information. The first one is the main screen which is above, then there is a tree button which has a tree layout of all your information, as you can see in the picture below this is model # F6C800-UNV, firmware revision 03, it is a line interactive type of UPS which means it is the standby kind which we talked about earlier and it has a 800VA rating. There is also a tree for your system, input, output, battery, and status.
The Time section of the program tells you when the battery was last replaced, when it will need to be replaced which will be in August of 2005 so that means that this UPS will last you three years which in computer hardware aspects is a long time. It also tells you when tests are going to run which you can setup in the configuration part of this software. It is nice that this feature is included because it makes it more automated so that you don’t have to worry about it so much because it will do it for you.
The status section has a lot of different status LEDs which will light up according to how your UPS is performing and if there are any problems. The only one that was on during idle was the one for buzzer alarm which is when the power does fail that it will let you know. Some of the status LEDs are not going to be used as they are grayed out. This is another feature which I find really essential to the good operation of a UPS because you will constantly know what is going on and why.
The is a diagram of how everything is laid out from the perspective of the inside working of the UPS, this screen shot is from when there is power to the computer and the UPS is just idling. As you can see it goes from the AC input to the charger and battery as well as the output, we will see later what it looks like when the power goes out.
The scroll and network parts just show you the history of what the UPS is doing and the network one for me didn’t show anything I am guessing if you are using more than one UPS you can see what it is doing remotely. There is also a meter button at the top of the program which displays the battery voltage, battery level, input frequency, and input voltage, as you can see the battery voltage is at 25.1v, the level is 60%, the frequency is 60.1Hz which is what it is supposed to be and the voltage is 117.2v which is a little higher than 110v which a normal wall socket is but it is within tolerance levels.
There are a few ways to test your UPS, there are 2 diagnostic tests within the Bulldog software one is a 10 second test and the other is a deep battery test. The 10-second test is to just test to make everything works right and switches over fast enough. The deep battery test is to get deep down into the battery and make sure that it is holding a charge well. I ran both tests and during both the main screen of the software changed the test result was test in progress and the AC source was battery.
The status part of the software also changed, the red LED for the test in progress light up and stayed on until the test was over. This little UPS when it kicks over to battery power has a low humming sound to it which is nice because you can actually hear it doing something.
After testing this out with the diagnostic tools it was time to see what this thing could actually do. I will be using the following test bed to test out the UPS, take in mind my system specs are very high and will draw a lot of power.
- 21″ Nokia 445 Pro monitor
- Logitech Z-560s
- EPoX 8K3A+
- 300w Zalman PSU (review to come)
- GEIL 256MB PC3500 (review to come)
- 3D Power Geforce 3
- Sound Blaster Live! Value 5.1
- 80GB Maxtor ATA133 HDD
- Pioneer 16x slot load DVD
- Plextor 40x12x40 CDRW (review to come)
- Thermalright SLK-800 w/ 80mm fan (review to come)
I turned off the power to the power strip that the UPS was plugged into and instantaneously the UPS kicked on and went away. Right after I did this a woman from my speakers said “Power failed the UPS is operating on battery power.” this message sounded every few minutes, I like that they have included this in the list of features because if your power does go out and you are not in the room where it does fail you will hear this and find out what is going on. The diagram section of the software changed with this test the same as it did with the ones from the software, as you can see the power is now going from the battery through the inverter and into the hardware plugged into the UPS. The status page also changed having only the AC Fail red LED being light.
The UPS is supposed to operate for 45 minutes but when I tested it only lasted for 10 minutes, I know this is much less than what it is supposed to do but I also have a 21″ monitor, speakers, and a fast system attached to this little thing which sucked it dry very quickly.
If you are going to be using this UPS you are probably going to be using it for a server in which case there will probably be little tiny speakers and a monitor, which means the UPS will last much longer. When the power was depleted from the UPS it let me know that it was going to be shutting down, then it saved all of my programs and shut down my computer.
When my computer was off the UPS continued to beep letting me know that it had been shutdown. I ran the test later and if the power is restored to the UPS before it is depleted the woman comes back on the speakers and says “power restored, utility power restored.”
Conclusion
This was my first time ever using or testing a UPS, I know a lot about them but had never used one. I am happy to say that my first experience with one couldn’t have been better. This little UPS has a ton of features and does a great job at what it is supposed to do. A lot of the time software is a big problem with a lot of hardware making the hardware itself not as good as it really could be.
Belkin clearly knows this and made sure that this software worked really well, did a lot, and was easy to use. Installation and use of this UPS is so simple that anyone can do it even with no previous experience or much knowledge in the area. The only negative aspects to this UPS is the fact that is quite heavy and if you are going to be hooking up high end hardware to it like I did it isn’t going to last for 45 minutes.
The price tag on this little unit is just over $100. Overall I am going to give this UPS a 9/10 and award it the OCmodshop seal of approval because it is a great product.