Adam Russell wrote:
> I was told (by someone who should know) that I should buy a UPS to protect
> my computer from damage due to brownouts. He sent me to the APC website and
> said I could find what I needed there. So I used their how-to-choose tool,
> and found one and went to frys and got it. When I got home the guy told me
> it wasnt good enough. He says I needed something over 1000W since I have a
> 1kW power supply in the computer. But the high end home model UPS on the
> APC site is less than half that (model LS 700 is 410W). Even the highest
> wattage business model is only 865W. Is he pulling my leg? Also he said
> that when I plugged into the 330W model that I got at frys I may have
> damaged the computer. Is this true?
>
>

What sort of computer is this with a 1KW power supply in it? There are
only two manufacturers that make such a beast and one of those only
started selling it within the past couple of months. Look at a price of
$400+ for such a power supply all by itself. I'll wager that this
"someone who should know" has no clue as to how big a UPS you should
have. You need a UPS big enough to support your computer and your
monitor for a short period during a power failure and the rating of your
power supply says nothing about how much power it is actually drawing. I
have a relatively big computer with 2tB worth of hard drives, an
overclocked processor, and moderate graphics system that, together with
its 17" LCD monitor draws a grand total of ~200W. And realistically that
is how much the UPS needs to supply. The 600W APC it is plugged into is
far more than it will ever need.

--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com