Power Outage

[Wheresatom]

So I went out of town this weekend like most weekends during the school year, and the remnants of Hurricane Hanna came through while I was gone.

I got home late last night and my bedroom was disturbingly quiet and cool. The power had gone out early Saturday morning while the storm was blowing through. I lost almost 48 hours of folding time. The power outage was actually just a deep flicker...Great.

Part of me wants a UPS, but the other part just doesn't know if it is warranted. Any advice on this? Do they cause any other problems other than what they solve? How much power do you loose in it? I mean, it has to charge and everything, it must put off a little heat and waste a little electricity right?

 

[FLECOM]

my smartups 1400 uses about 30w while floating the batteries...

you should check and see if your motherboards have a "last state" option in the bios that makes the machine boot back up automatically after an outage

 

[oraldlight]

As a loose rule of thumb, UPS's are good for MAYBE a hour or two. They are more for the 'flicker' or momentary outage to permit a gracefull shut down (presuming the PC and UPS communincate).

Given the extremity of this scenario (how often do you get a hurricane ripping through town?) a UPS would do little if any good since usually, if the power goes out, as in this scenario, there's agood chance the internet is out as well. Sure you can go crazy and UPS the pc, router, modem, etc... but outside the house goes down, and you loose conenctivity.

Realisticly, bridging the gap for a few hours is all I would honestly expect form a UPS. Even then, the question of how much UPS is needed arrises and prices shoot upwards quickly.

Take it in stride. You lost 48 hours of productivity. BUT, you still have a PC, and home. It sounds like you got off lucky.

 

[jljenkins28]

My sympathies. At least I only lost 12 hours of production. But I can say that my UPS's have saved me from many a flicker. And to me, that is worth any extra electricity that it might use.

 

[Xilikon]

oraldlight is right, be thankful that you have a home and the computers that you can fire back in action. Personnally, I don't have a UPS since around here, outages happen only 1 or 2 times a year and I would rather lose a few hours than buy the UPS (with my farm, I will need at least 4 and this will cost a lot).

 

[Wheresatom]

Very good advice indeed oraldlight. I am lucky to have no property damage coming from this incident.

The outage was just a flicker. None of the clocks in the apartment even reset, it was enough for my roommate to notice the light in her room going dim for a split second and the back to normal. I figure that type of thing is what a UPS is best for.

Up until a few months ago, I was having a power blip like this about once every 2 weeks too. That was a real pain, one or two of my clocks would reset, but not the others (discounting battery backups) but the computer would always turn off. Oh well, its true, with nothing that is more sensitive than folding going on, it would probably be pertinent to just roll with the punches.

Cheers.

 

[jws2346]

Part of me wants a UPS, but the other part just doesn't know if it is warranted. Any advice on this? Do they cause any other problems other than what they solve? How much power do you loose in it? I mean, it has to charge and everything, it must put off a little heat and waste a little electricity right?

My $0.02 USD cents worth of opinion says that having a battery backup is a "no brainer". The area I live in is fortunate that it's not in the path of any natural type disasters (ie hurricanes, violent storms, etc), but it does have it's occasional problems with power "blips" (ie lights dimming, jerkoffs playing with main circuit brackers in our buildings basement, some moron overloading the main curcuits during "prime time" time, ie air conditioners, fans, in hot weather, etc) and then you can always count on some drunk or otherwise impaired person running into a light pole.

Like I said above, I have problems with my power very rarely and when it does happen, besides the occasional storm or some idiot hitting a light pole, I don't go without electrical power very long (sometimes just a millisecond, but enough to screw up my 24/7 folders) So what I did (for 2x Q6600's GPU2 and WinSMP, but now WCG 24/7 boxen) was go to Ebay, purchase a used TrippLite 850 battery backup, purchase new batteries for it (I'm "anal" 'bout things like that, the original bats may have been OK) and I've been trouble free for some time.

IMHO the two things that a dedicated DC'er should buy are a Kill-o-Watt meter and a battery backup (you use the kill-o-watt meter to see how big a battery backup you need)

BTW I don't think any battery back up, unless it's the size of "Mount Olympus" or costs a "zillion" dollars can keep your boxen "up" for more than a short time. If I was in an area where I had a lot of electrical problems I would use a back up generator of some kind

Just my inflated $0.02 USD cents worth.

Keep on DCin'

 

[oraldlight]

BTW: I have two UPS's. 1 is for the modem/router/firewall, 2 is for the file server. I've been half-ass trying to multiplesx the communication link to shut down all the other pc's no little luck.

The firewall/router/modem allows communication amounsth the machines (my cable modem is SUPER sensitive to power). The file server has RAID and it dow not even like the idea of imperfect power...

As for the other pc's, while I would like to ahve one on each (350-500watts shold suffice for most) cost and 'visual ugliness" have prevented me fom accomplishing this. Besides, where do you draw the line for which electronics? Ultimately, I would be better off building a generator to power the townhome more consistently- NOT HAPPENING!

 

[capreppy]

My box died while I was on business in Des Moines, IA a couple of weeks ago. Lost 25K of production over 3 days. Sucks, but those are the breaks.

Do I want a UPS, yes. The issue right now is money. I'll probably pick one up in a couple of weeks.