Recommendations for a UPS

[sammykun]

D'oh! I should have posted this here first, instead of the peripherals section.

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Soooo...we're storming pretty bad here in Hawaii right now. On Friday, the power went out in my area; when I got home from work, my comp was dead. I've since determined that my processor is out, as well as my motherboard. I'm still not sure what the status of the other items in my box are, but we shall see. Thankfully, my monitors still work!

I just now placed an order for a new setup (Athlon 64 +3200, some sort of MSI board that's red in color, and a gig of Corsair TWINX ram). This turned out to be pretty pricey for me, and since I now live in fear of the god of electricity, I feel I need something more adequate than a surge protector to protect my investment.

I actually have two questions, but the main one is: can anyone recommend a good/reliable battery backup thing that I could use? I know of the APC products, but I never really knew how well they performed. Anyone care to tell me any stories that would convince me of getting any model of these UPS things?

Second question: After this unfortunate event, should I replace my power supply? I checked the power supply in a friend's machine, and it seemed to have survived the whole "fry my computer" thing. However, someone had warned me that even though it had survived the blackout, the internal components of the power supply could be slightly damaged now. I don't want to risk putting this nice new setup of mine on a faulty device; can anyone validate these claims?

Thanks in advance!
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[orion7144]

What PSU do you have? My APC hooks up via a USB port and can safely shut down the PC on loss of power or stay on.

 

[sammykun]

It's an Aspire ATX-AS500W power supply. I just don't want to part with it because it's transparent and has cool blue lights in it

Which backup unit do you have? I just saw this one on sale at Compusa for the week:
Back-UPS ES500

Not sure about it, though. It's appealing because it's cheap...but that makes me wary now.

 

[DaveSimmons]

My Belkin has worked well for over a year, it's a 1,000 or 1,200 (I forget) since I also have a development / music server and wanted at least 10 minutes runtime. I don't know the exact runtime since I've always shut down after about 15 minutes.

 

[orion7144]

Originally posted by: sammykun
It's an Aspire ATX-AS500W power supply. I just don't want to part with it because it's transparent and has cool blue lights in it

Which backup unit do you have? I just saw this one on sale at Compusa for the week:
Back-UPS ES500

Not sure about it, though. It's appealing because it's cheap...but that makes me wary now.

Get the CS version.. Check on the Hot deals section or chubby wallet. They are alwasy running specials on it. It is a better unit.