![]() Those details about system hardware were available from system information tools (e.g., Speccy), supplemented if necessary by more specialized tools (e.g., MiniTool Partition Wizard), Google searches, and my old receipts. The others allowed me to specify (to varying degrees) the motherboard, CPU, Thermal Design Power (TDP: I went with their 90% recommendation), RAM (including FB DIMM, which was apparently not used in anything newer than DDR2), video card (if any), and other devices. Among these, the Cooler Master calculator did not seem to be working. MakeUseOf (Enticknap, 2021) said the five best calculators were from OuterVision, Cooler Master, Be Quiet, Power Supply Calculator, and PCPartPicker. ![]() For me, it seemed that, other than inspecting product labels and literature, the most accurate and informative approach would be to use a power supply calculator. So I couldn’t use a simple choose-your-system power calculator. I had built my system from scratch, in the sense of ordering motherboard, CPU, RAM, and other components according to the best combination of power, features, and price. But even these few examples varied enough to suggest that this was not going to be an exact science. and APC’s UPS Selector > Home Office > Configure by Device > PC/Workstation > Desktop Computer estimated a power draw of 100W. For instance, TrippLite listed a large number of desktop PCs, with specific model numbers, to identify the wattage required, and likewise for monitors and a few other categories of devices Kohler’s kVA Load Calculator asked “Do you know your load and load characteristics?” No > “Is it IT or Non IT?” IT > Typical workstation volt-amps (VA) = 200, etc. If the user’s manual didn’t specify a power usage figure, several of these websites could help. The calculators that asked what devices I was connecting would probably be most convenient for those users who had a stock system - a computer bought straight off the rack and not significantly modified. But maybe that solution won’t work in every situation. I will describe how I worked through that process - but I will also mention that, for me, the more accurate solution was to buy a Kill-A-Watt device (below), and let that tell me how much power I was really using. Some required me to state a number of watts some asked what kind of devices I would be connecting some went both ways. To estimate my power consumption, I ran a search and looked at several different UPC power calculators. So the question was, how much UPS power did I need, to keep my desktop running for, say, seven minutes (i.e., five to wait and see two to shut down)? I might eventually decide to allow a minute or two above or below, but that seemed like a reasonable starting target. I decided that a five-minute wait-and-see period should be long enough to see whether it seemed likely that the power outage would continue for a while. A Spiceworks discussion offered a variety of thoughts on how long I should wait before shutdown. I wouldn’t want to go through the hassle of shutting down and starting right back up again if that wasn’t necessary. The budget solution was to choose a UPS just big enough to let me decide whether this seemed to be more than a momentary outage. If I wanted a UPS that would keep the desktop running forever, I would have to pay for it. ![]() Of course, I could tell Windows to go ahead with a sooner hibernation or shutdown, if I saw no reason to keep using the UPS battery’s reserves. ![]() ![]() How-To Geek (Burgess, 2019) illustrated that PowerChute would let the user set the number of minutes that the computer would continue to run before automatic shutdown or hibernation commenced. (See SuperUser for information on Linux.) For example, the User Guide for APC PowerChute 3.1 explained that, after a specified number of minutes, PowerChute would initiate hibernation or shutdown in response to a prolonged power problem. It seemed that most UPS vendors included software that could send a hibernation or shutdown signal to Windows when the power went down. Reactions in General, and to the CyberPower Unit Specifically As discussed in another post, this was part of a larger inquiry into longer-lasting alternate sources of computing power. This post describes how I decided which UPS to buy, some key points about its software, and how it worked out in testing. But recent, recurrent power outages, crashing my desktop computer system and taking my work down the tubes, had convinced me that it was time to get another. My last uninterruptible power supply (UPS) was dead and buried. ![]()
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