USB - needed or not?

My 1998 Uninterruotible Power System Became a nuissance - every 15 mins or so it beeps. The manual says that those double beeps mean the battery needs replacement. I'd rather replace the USB than its acid-lead 15 lbs battery, but my question is: do I need UPS at all? I can use $5 surge protector (in case the power supply in my PC doesn't have a fuse); I live in New York City, visible power interruptions are exceedingly rare and what will happen if one occurs when I am in the middle of typing this question? Not a major catastrophe...

yurka--I think you answered your own question.
If you are in the middle of some program (like word, spread sheet or email processing) you will lose whatever data you have entered (including posting a reply here). It is the same as if you shut your PC off at the tower before you have been able to "Save" things. If you do not mind that, then I guess you do not need a UPS.
As you note you should have a surge protector to protect your computer equipment from being fried. However, I doubt a $5 surge protector is going to give you the protection you need--especially the power surge that might occur when the power goes back on. Calculate the volt-amps used by all your equipment and buy a surge protector accordingly.
Not all equipment need be connected to a UPS, but all should be connected to a surge protector. That includes your HI-FI gear, your cordless telephone, etc.
I checked out the cost of a new battery for my APC UPS recently. It was about 40% of the cost of new UPS.

If you dont want to replace the battery have a look at the software and see if you can change the "battery installed date" or whatever its called on yours.

my question is: do I need UPS at all?

Depends on your circumstanses.Do you have high priority mission critical hardware/software or need to keep a system live no matter what?
If not then you could manage without provided the voltage to your property is stable and not prone to brown/black outs [short/long interuptions].

I can use $5 surge protector

My opinion for what its worth are that these have a placebo effect and you would get more benefit from the $5 spending it on a beer or two :D

Do I NEED to replace the battery? Do I need the UPS in the first place? I don't design anything.

Like most components the batteries have a useful lifespan.In UPS cases the manufacturer tends to err on the side of caution and ask the end user to replace it at preset intervals to prevent premature failure during critical power outages.As I said before its all down to individual circumstance and the reliability of the mains supply.

yurka--I think a UPS with a non functioning battery will still serve as a surge protector. You have my answer about whether you need the UPS function already. The choice is really yours.
But, in my opinion, you certainly do need a robust surge protector. I do not think 104456 meant you do not need one--just not a $5 job. I have had a few electronic items not connected to a surge connector get fried when we have thunderstorms or power outages.
But maybe others will offer differing comments.

I am probably very behind times, but if these litle spherules/waves aka "electrons" are the same as they were in my youths, i. e. pre-PC age, in the worst case nothing will be fried except the primary winding of the transformer/adapter (fires can begin this way, actually :-) ). My surge protector is rated at 90 j and the only thing hooked to it midi-tower desktop (100w?). Cordless phones are so cheap now that I'd gladly replace mine with a latest model.

One bad shutdown that scrambles your hdd is all it took for me.

250,000 Volt powerlines slapped together when one broke. UPS saved all but the one not on it. I could not recover anything and had to do a clean install.

Had not backed up that days work to cd, so I lost it.

As for your real high j. item, if you were to dig into it, it probably has a 240V mov in there and that is not good either.
Which at best makes it a extention cord.

Best bet:

ups, surge protector , equipment

Shall we say, Learned the hard way!

IMHO, if one runs a desktop PC, one needs a UPS. Otherwise, as Train notes, one nice blink could hose your entire Windows setup, not just the file you're working with. The best surge suppressor made won't help with blinks. (I'm talking about hard drive related issues in this instance, not hardware-based power issues.)

Of course, I also feel everyone should also use imaging software and have at least one complete system backup image. This gives insurance against power supply issues, hard drive failures and much more... :)

HAN--Please educate me.
I agree with you that a UPS is the way to go to prevent a shutdown which would damage open programs.
However, I would have thought that a proper surge protector would protect the equipment from a surge (off or on).
So I am saying there are two different issues. UPS (protecting data) vs. surge protector (protecting equipment).
1) A UPS protects the new data to the extent you can Save during an orderly shutdown even if the power is off.
2) A properly sized surge protector should protect your equipment, though if the PC is shut down, you will lose the new data in open programs if the power goes off. What difference would that be from just shutting down by turning OFF on the tower?
I certainly agree that backups are highly desireable. But if the backup equipment is hosed (because it is not connected to a surge protector) I suspect a backup is not going to function.

yurka--My comments here and in earlier posts assume that your UPS includes a surge protector. I think that is almost a given today, but in earlier UPS units it may not be the case.

Jim: Hopefully, this doesn't ramble too much... :)

I personally tend to define surges as over voltages. Certainly if one looks at surge suppressor ratings, this seems to be the case. While this may not be technically/totally true, if one proceeds on that theory, sustained under voltages or actual power interruptions are not handled by surge suppression alone. Thus the need for some kind of protection from those types of power issues.

IMO, the best overall option is a UPS (although a voltage regulator can be useful for brownouts.) A good quality UPS protects against all potential power events. And as you note, most UPS's also support orderly shutdown of connected computers. A BIG bonus!

I tend to not separate risk of data loss from risk of hardware damage when it comes to electricity. IMO, either one or both are up for grabs in any given situation. Voltage issues can affect the hardware (first and foremost, the computer's power supply) and if that happens, any part inside the PC can be negatively affected. Of course, if the electricity supply incident is serious enough, i.e. a complete interruption, risk of data loss is high because files can be corrupted if the hard drive operation is less than expected by the OS or running program(s).

As for "hard" shutdowns, no matter the method, I am always uber nervous about shutting down Windows in any way other than the regular way. How many horror stories of unbootable PCs have we heard about because they weren't shutdown properly?

As for backups, again IMO ;) , system images or data backups should always be stored in a safe form and safe location, so that they will be available for system restorations. If not, then yes, as you note, they would do you little good. In my case, I normally use portable USB hard drives for my images. They are stored in a separate room, away from my PCs. I also store DVD copies of images outside of my home.

Hope this helps. :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Welshjim

[B]HAN[/B

My comments here and in earlier posts assume that your UPS includes a surge protector. I think that is almost a given today, but in earlier UPS units it may not be the case.

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If you walk down the aisles and take careful note, there are a lot of UPS units that DO NOT have a surge protector " per se" in them even though they do help smooth the the electricity.
Quite a bit of difference the clamping in a UPS and the surge protector sold in stores. Also real hard to explain the difference also. :(

Thank you all!
I call the manufacturer. The unit is (was) second best sold in the US. It has surge protector and the batteries (2) can be replaced for ~$47 + S&H. They can be disconnected as well, and then I have to prey that I don't have something like Excel spreadsheet open when the power goes off. I don't believe that sudden power stoppage would damage anything because: sometimes I shut off my PC at home with power switch; nothing happens. At work IT people instruct me to restart PC, in case the previous user forgot to log off. When I asked, they told me that switching power off could damage old computers, modern machines are not harmed as a result. I plugged UPS into my $5.99 surge protector, for no reason.
UInrelated question (and probably inappropriate too: when I start Windows XP Pro, I am prompted for password. I don't have one, so I click OK, the box dissapears and W loads. Is there a way to get rid of this annoying unnecessary box?

yurka--To make the logon window go away,
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstr...xppassword.htm
Or use TweakUI for XP
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/d...powertoys.mspx
Click on the + net to the LogOn line in the tree--then AutoLogon. Follow directions.
P.S. when you turn the power on or off at the tower you are not causing a voltage surge. When the power goes off because of a problem at the power company there may be a surge, especially when the power comes back on. Similarly when lightning strikes near you.

I (naively?) thought that two in line surge protectors are plenty. I don't know how exactly the load is protected. I see two diffennt ways: 1. Protector shuts the electricity off or 2. Protector "shaves" the peak"-the highest voltage- and leaves the base, so the electricity supply is not interrupted.
I realize that by being cheap I take risks. As a rule, I periodically save important data to a 4GB flash memory that I download it on Internet "drive" next day at work. So, if the lightnig ruins my HDD, I will by a new one and reinstall Ws. All major 3d party programs and their passwords are always on the flash drive.
P.S. Thanks a million!
TweakUI installed in a second (I clicked on Install button and next thing I saw was "Finished"! Then I enabled Autologon.
Typing this took more time then downloading TweakUI, installing it and enabling Autologon.