Customer Reviews

APC BE500R Back-UPS 500VA for Home/Office Computers

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

After losing a computer to a power surge, I purchased the APC BE500R Back-UPS for my new computer. I am runninig a 3.2Ghz Tower PC with a 17" LCD Monitor, I have approx. 15 minutes of Battery Runtime on my system, & the software that is very easy to install & manage, saves any open programs that I am running & safely shuts down my computer when the battery gets to within 5 minutes of running out of power if I am away from it. Money Well Spent! You don't need to spend a fortune on Larger units unless you want a longer runtime on Battery.

If you work in an office with a data center and a generator, then plug your computer into your office power supply... But if you don't, and you value the data on your computer (as well as the computer itself), you absolutely need a backup power supply. This one is excellent for the price (less than the cost of a good replacement battery for a laptop).

Because it's a battery backup system, it protects your computer from both high voltage spikes AND low voltage problems. I live in NYC, and the power is pretty steady, but every now and then there is a momentary flicker in the power supply that wreaks havoc on the data on my computer. Laptops have a backup battery built-in, but when this happens to a home computer, all sorts of nasty things can happen. If the CPU doesn't get fried then the data on your computer can become corrupted, the OS can freeze, or crash, or...like Frankenstein, get a mind of its own.

PROS -
Some nice features with this unit include: there is a usb connector and software that allows your computer to monitor the voltage, the amount of charge on the battery, keep a record of power problems, and to tell your computer what to do in case of problems...automatically.

Also, the battery pack is removable, so eventually you can replace the battery pack rather than the whole thing.

CONS
- It's a small battery so don't expect to work on your computer thru a blackout. It's designed to give you enough time to save your work and shut down...and NOT to work off the battery.
- It's heavy and bulky - weighs a ton - but still fits under the bottom shelf of my desk.
- There are 8 outlets, but only 4 that connects to the backup battery (which doesn't matter because the more things you plug into the battery backup, the quicker it will run out during a blackout - you want to just plug in the essentials to the battery: CPU, Monitor, and maybe an external drive or a printer).

This is a great product. I bought it after losing my old computer to intermittent power one more time than I was able to revive the PC. The new APC BE500R Back UPS has work flawlessly since I installed it several weeks ago, and has already intervened for 3 power losses and 19 instances of noisy power. The APC control panel says I have 45 minutes of Estimated Battery Time with my Compaq Presario and 19" flat panel monitor. I think I will get another BE500R for my television and VCRs....

You should note that all the APC BExxxR products seem to be pretty much the same except for the size of their battery. The bigger the battery, the more time that the power supply can keep your computer going with the power out. These products also surge protect your cable and telephone lines. I actually have a BE 750, which has 5 each protected and unprotected outlets.

When I first installed the product, I installed but then removed the associated APC software. I figured the Windows software was good enough to do the job. Well, it is and it isn't.

This strategy worked fine for the quick outages, but didn't work when the power once went and stayed out. After that, the UPS would only scream at me whenever I tried to turn it back on. I couldn't boot because the UPC would turn itself off. I tried everything. Finally I plugged the hardware into the wall and reinstalled the APC software.

I used their software to change the sensitivity to low, and only then was able to get it to restore its battery. Once the battery recharged, I reset the sensitivity back to high where it has stayed ever since. I think the unit is overly sensitive when the battery is completely depleted.

In normal operation, the UPS kicks in 10-15 times per month. Normally these are just short term events that most hardware doesn't even see. But when the lights flicker, this UPS always does its job. I have my primary CPU, monitor, modem, and router on the UPS and it works really well. I also have another CPU on this UPS, but that doesn't count because it's off most of the time. I use the surge suppressor outlets for my printer and for a few other devices that are off most of the time.

Even though this is a fine product, I'm thinking of getting the smaller APC BE350 to protect my wife's computer. You don't get all that much backup time anyway, and here the short power glitches happen much more often than failures. When the power really fails, it's pretty much time to shut down anyway.

At my house, during rain storms, there will often be a quick flash of the lights as a branch somewhere falls on the power lines. That type of event would always cause my PC to turn off, and I could loose quite a bit of work or even problems on the hard drive. This little device has keept that from happening for some time. I am very pleased. The battery that is in it does not keep the best "time" estimates for battery life, but knowing that the short spikes or loss of power will not cause me issues makes it worth the price.

First of all why do you want a power UPS? There are some very good reasons. (1) You never want your machine to go down incorrectly because of a blackout. (2) You want to work with clean power only. (3) You want to monitor your PC power. (4) You want to prevent your PC from being damaged due to a power problem like a lighting strike and want surge protection. The first rule about UPS is to never trust the insurance claim. Get your PC insured elsewhere. These companies have a tendency not to support their insurance claims. I have a PC running some very high specifications with over six USB devices, LCD monitor, printer and Ethernet equipment, with everything on at the same time. I have never gone above 325W of usage and average between 250W and 300W when managing a high spec game and doing lots of background tasks. Even though I have a 400W Power Supply Unit (PSU) I will be upgrading to a 500W PSU because it is better quality model. The way I can monitor how many Watts I use is with UPS software and hardware. So the question you need to ask is how many watts you will be using. The short answer to this is you don't know until you install the UPS and software that tells you how many watts you use because that appears to be the only way you can monitor your wattage at this time. You need to estimate what it is. I would say a high-end domestic PC (not a server) would use 300W max if it has one of every device you can think off turned on. As soon as we add things like another PC, or several printers, or several monitors, then we can start to overload a 325W UPS. This brings us to the first thing we need to learn about any UPS - Overloading and balancing. The overload feature is a warning system that turns on when you have overloaded the UPS capacity. Overloading does two things. It can in theory eventually damage the UPS and it voids the warranty. Most UPS are 325W but there are 800W - 1000W and even greater models out there for home networks that use more than one PC setup but to be honest you are probably going to get a UPS per PC setup rather than expensive bigger UPS for a network. So check the UPS rating. What UPS you choose depends on how much you want to load on it. Next thing you need to check with the UPS is if it comes with a USB connection. If it does this is a big plus because it means you can control it from your PC and the UPS comes with software. Now if the UPS has this feature then you can do loads of stuff like turning off UPS sound alarms, controlling how your UPS handles a blackout, how long it uses the battery before shutdown or hibernation, if it sounds an alarm or not, if it run self tests, data collection and monitoring, notifications and sensitivity settings. If the UPS does not come with a USB connection and software then you probably should be looking for an UPS designed for computer use rather than a UPS for non-computer equipment. Most UPS have LED indicators that tell you the status of the unit. The next thing to understand is that testing your UPS is not done by breaking it out of the box, connecting it to the mains, plugging your PC in and then turning off the house's power with the circuit breaker. You must charge the UPS first! So read the instructions. Usually you must attach the battery to the UPS (plug it in firmly!) and wait before using it. Then perform the test using the software first! Then you can consider trying to simulate a blackout in your home to see if the PC stays up. Usually a UPS is programmed to shutdown your PC if the blackout lasts for a few seconds. Nearly all UPS models with a USB connection can be customized for the shutdown event or how long the PC should hold for on the UPS battery. Most UPS devices allow you to connect a modem phone line into the device and then run a phone line into your modem. This is important because power surges on a UPS that do not have this protection can damage a PC through the unprotected phone line running into the modem that usually runs to the PC somehow. This is nasty problem with the degree of security that a UPS can provide. If it doesn't have this function then it is not going to provide 100% surge protection with a PC that is on-line. Networking a UPS PC to another PC without UPS can also increase the risk of surge protection problems. It is not recommend that you network a UPS PC to a non-UPS PC unless surge protection and the warranty are not an issue. One last thing is that some UPS have input regions on the UPS for surge protection and other input regions are not surge protected. Also with some models the batteries need to be replaced after a few years if you end up using them a lot. This is everything you need to know about an UPS before you choose one. It is basically now about downloading the technical specs of the UPS and making sure it provides you with what you need. The two top brands are APC and Belkin.

I like this item so much, I just ordered another one to use on my TV, Satellite receiver and my surround sound system!

This one works so well with my PC and all of my PC accesories. I don't know why it took me so long to figure out I needed this..lol..

There is a problem with the electric is this area. Myself and my neighbors have little split second flickers that are really a pain in the rear, and knock EVERYTHING off. And then I have to reset EVERYTHING again before I can use it. Sometimes no sooner than I get everything reset and the PC booted back up, another split second outage with screw it all up again.

Now, with this nice little item, my PC never skips a beat during the little outages. I LOVE IT!..lol..

Do yourselves a favor, and buy one!. Better yet, buy 2 or 3 of them. You'll be glad you did, especially if you have electrical storms or regular outages. It has made my life much less stressful..lol...

I bought this as a desktop PC backup.

A year after installing it, power went off one day when I was at my PC. I thought I would have at least 10 minutes of backup based on my PC and monitor wattage, but the UPS gave out in about two minutes, before I had finished up and shut down. Useless.

Then, 4 months after the warranty expired, the beeper sounded constantly, and the power led flashed, indicating the battery was in need of replacement.

The bottom line - Spent $70 for a UPS that never did its job the one time I needed it and failed just after two years. No more APC UPS for me...

Living in an area with a lot of electrical interuptions and surges, this product protects all my important electronics. Easy to use and very reliable.

When I ordered this unit I thought it looked like a power strip in the photo. When it arrived, I was really surprised to see how big and heavy it was! That said, it seems to work fine, and the controlling software seems helpful and unobtrusive.