Battery Backup APC vs. Belkin

Hello! I can't advise you as to brand however they both will likely work fine IF you buy one large enough. Having one that is too small and allows the voltage to drop too far during a shutdown is about as bad as not having one in the first place. Though many swear by the device I personally don't use one because I'm not the frequent victim of power outages. Tom

You should be in good shape with any of them, I run my G5 2.5 Pual Processor on a Back-ups ES 500va.

It's not a heck of a lot of runtime but it does have USB connection that will hibernate the computer if power is out too long and you're away.

I'll also tell you that since I closed the loop, and got a Belkin battery back-up unit with ethernet surge supression, to protect my network from surges coming in from the cable modem over the ethernet line, I;ve only had one hardware failure in the last two years or so... It was the hard drive in my Replay TV. which I replaced myself, and It's still going strong.

hi timotheus I have a apc unit and as an experiment I pulled the plug out from the wall socket but the computer switched off as well. I have the 550va 330w model.. any advice on settings? would be grateful for any help
John

My experiences with both Belkin and APC.

Get an APC.

The belkin I had had to be disassembled to change the battery that they did not have a battery for that model.

I bought an APC. I found that after a couple of system updates it did not shut down the computer. They worked with me for weeks on a solution and were very helpful. The battery that they sent me to help resolve the problem was an extremely easy plug and use type of thing.

We found out that it did not shut down as the supplied software was not compatible with the later Mac OS updates. The told me to uninstall power chute. It turns out it comflicted with the mac power saver shutdown option.

Do no install power chute for Macs. Use the native power option under energy saver in system preferences. Select setting for and pick the UPS option. Then there are three shutdown options to use. I use the first by checking it and selecting one minute.

You will need to use the USB cable that comes with the APC unit.

The battery level will also show up. The battery level drops very fast even thought it had plenty of minutes left on battery. I have gone over nine minutes with my RS 800 unit and it did not run out of power. I have onlt the computer and monitor on battery backup.

The level drops to zero in about one minute but this is bogus and it will go much longer on battery. I pull the plug and this is how I test the unit. I do not know if APC has noted this problem with the Mac in their APC UPS boxes. They will not undate their software as fast as apple. It is not needed use the Mac OS options and it should work OK.

I have no idea if Leopard has made any difference in the native power option.

hi army dave
many thanks for your input-just going off to bed now but will uninstall powerchute and report back tomorrow and let you know what happened-sounds like this could be the conflict thats giving me no battery back-up