Customer Reviews

Belkin F6C1100-UNV 1100VA Battery Backup with Multi-Computer Connections

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Good price for the performance.

Unpacked it. Plugged it in. Connected it via USB to my Mac mini. Charged it for a full day. Tested unplugging it and tweaking the Energy Saver system preferences for about an hour. Did a final test by using the Mac mini with it unplugged for about 40 minutes and the charge level was still well above 60%. Haven't thought about it since.

Never thought about using the supplied software.

Things that could be improved:

1. It always reports 100% level in the Energy Saver panel when plugged in so you can't tell how far along it is in recharging.

2. It's charge percentage reading drops down sharply to the high 80s for a little while after you unplug it and then totally levels out after a minute or two. So I had to tweak the Energy Saver setting to only shutdown based on a hard percentage instead of time because the time estimate is really pessimistic for the first minute or so due to the rapid initial drop off.

Belkin UPS products use monitoring and shutdown software called Bulldog Plus. Since the software is at the center of how we interface with the product, this review focusses specifically on the software. To start, the software runs on Mac and PC. It does not run on Linux (which a majority of enterprise clients use). This lack of compatibility may suggest that this product line is consumer-grade rather than industry or enterprise-grade. With compatibility issues out of the way, my review follows:

BULLDOG DOESN'T LET YOU SLEEP
The software doesn't recognize when the computer (my experience is with a Mac) goes to sleep. Should a power outage occur while your system is asleep, Bulldog does not wake your computer and handle things as it would during normal mode: quit applications and shut down safely. Instead, you'll continue to run in sleep mode until the battery runs out. Second, under normal working conditions when you manually wake from sleep, Bulldog automatically launches to tell you that it no longer is monitoring your system. That is, after waking from sleep mode, Bulldog can no longer detect your load levels, nor provide you with other stats as it normally does. In effect, the software fails as soon as the system goes to sleep once. It only works when your computer is first turned on. Any variation from this, and the software is, by design, largely useless to you. If your computer is asleep when a power outage occurs, the UPS will continue to provide power from it's battery, but the Bulldog software will no longer do what you expect from a "protective" product (with no less a protective name). Wouldn't your "bulldog" wake you when something goes awry?

I called Belkin and spoke with a "product manager" for Bulldog. He said his team hadn't figured out how to interface with OS X's sleep function, and so he recommended (if I want continued protection from Bulldog) that I never "sleep" my computer, instead opting to either leave it on or shut it down every time I left it alone. Is that a solution?

POOR IMPLEMENTATION OF PREFERENCES
The application doesn't use a typical preference pane, instead it separates four preference windows which you access from menu bar drop downs. This effectively hides this tool's settings all over the place, making it difficult for us to, for example, stop it from prompting us with alerts every minute (a default feature in one of these window's settings) when we approach the load level. You can see in my TIP below that to make an adjustment, you have to go all over in the menu items to locate and modify related settings. This is the kind of software that illustrates how important it is to follow Apple's GUI guidelines: preferences in one window please!

ALERTS COULD BE MORE USEFUL AND LESS AN ANNOYANCE
To alert you that your system is approaching the battery's total load level, a loud sharp tone comes from Belkin's UPS speaker. This will continue to fire off whenever your load level dips below, then dips up again past that load level. How do you turn it's volume down? (I live in a small apartment - I don't need to hear it from the neighbors, or as it was intended, from the other side of the house...) Well, you cant change the loudness. No setting for that. It's also difficult to figure out how to get it to stop firing off (and waking your girlfriend in the next room: "Hey, what's going on in there?").

MULTIPLE LAUNCHES OF THE SAME APPLICATION
Oddly, though, it may have sprung open multiple versions of the same application, one window behind the other, and changing the settings in one while another duplicate application is launched effectively prevents your changes from being completely recognized. To see this multiple application launch in action, set both your Load Warning Level and your Load Critical Level to 45%. Then toggle on your Enable Notification Messages leaving it's default settings at 60 seconds. Every sixty seconds, each of the two warning dialogs launches a new application. Brilliant.

TIP: FIVE STEPS TO KILL SOME OF YOUR ALARMS AND ALERT WINDOWS:
1. From the menu bar item: System>Event Actions> Deselect the "Enable Notification Messages" radio button.
2. From the menu bar item: System>UPS Property...> Change "Load Warning Level" to 150%.
3. From the menu bar item: System>UPS Property...> Change "Load Critical Level" to 150%.
4. From the menu bar item: Control>UPS Audible Alarm Off> toggle this (it will provide no confirmation).
5. Quit Bulldog.
Launch Bulldog again and confirm that your 1-3 steps took. They WONT take if you had two Bulldog applications launched when you made changes. This ONLY prevents the alarm and alerts from firing off once every minute (you will still get messages if you cross 150%). This does not, however, prevent Bulldog from making noises each time you cross 100%. That's a setting you can't control. If this keeps occurring, consider getting a UPS rated for higher than your current voltage rating.

FAIR WARNING FOR THOSE CONSIDERING ANY UPS
I bought a 750VA UPS from Belkin. This is not enough if you're a professional editor, designer, or coder with a large monitor. I have to keep my 30" monitor's brightness turned down in order not to set off the fire engine tone from the UPS. My system is a G5 Quad (the last of them built, with 2.5GHz per core), with 8 Gigs of RAM. If you're editing video, importing CDs into iTunes or using Aperture or Photoshop, then you probably need a much higher VA UPS. If you're doing mostly email, browsing the web, and own a monitor smaller than 30" (or are using a laptop) then the 750VA may be fine for your needs.

Handles equipment up to 650 watts. This is a good price for the capacity.

The third I've owned - I change them every year whether needed or not! You never know when one might die on you.

I do not use the software.

The unit takes the line power into the battery, and then your computer runs off the battery. So there's no direct connection between what is happening to the power at your wall outlet, and the power provided by the unit to your computer. Therefore the voltage and cycles to your computer are kept within reasonable limits. This prolongs the life of your computer.

If the power goes down, you have several minutes of grace to save and shutdown your computer. I do not believe manufacturer's claims related to backup power time; the most you can expect is 15 minutes or so, and this unit does that by my experience. A loud alarm goes off for blackouts (not needed!), but also for significant (20 volts) under-voltage situations that you may have never known about. Also, surge and spike protection is really great.

Ideally, one would use the software, and program automatic shutdowns for certain situations, allowing the user to be away without worry. However the software runs as an annoying TSR so I do not use the software at all, and shutdown the computer when away. I do not think this unit is meant to be used for servers and the like. There is no way you can connect a laser printer to this unit - too many watts.

However the unit does handle a 450 watt power supply and LCD monitor without trouble. That's why I have it - it protects the $4k expense of a power book or similar.

I had my server correctly connected to the Belkin 1100VA UPS for over a year. Suddenly, one afternoon, during a time when the server was not being accessed by anyone (and there were no apparent electricity problems), the power on several of the UPS outlets stopped working, so naturally our server was not getting power. When I unplugged the server from the UPS and plugged it into the wall outlet, the server would not boot up.

The computer tech used tools to try to repair the server, but the hard drive was beyond repair, it wouldn't even show up on any of his tools (you could see the drive, but there were no partitions).

To make a long story short, he had to reformat the drive (there doesn't appear to be any hardware problems). I've had to re-create my entire database/server set-up (not fun).

To Belkin's credit, they did replace the UPS (otherwise NO stars!), but of course no one can replace last data! Thank goodness for back-ups, but I feel very nervous about the fact that I completely lost all data on this server (something that hs never happened to me before), when it was connected to a UPS which is supposed to protect it from these types of diasters!

I had to conclude from this incident that if my server had NOT been connected to this UPS, I would not have lost the data. However, I also had to conclude that this was a fluke (therefore, I got a replacement, fortunately, they replaced it with a better class product becuase this one was out of stock).

I hope someone can learn something from this experience, though I'm not sure what!

This review will be pretty short, I have had the unit for almost a year now and it has gone above and beyond. Several power outages and a lightning strike and my Plasma, 400 DVD Changer, and sound system are still alive and kicking. Two of the outages ran the batteries to zero and quick check shows that i have only lost .3 percent of the battery output which is awesome.

This thing worked fine for a year, then, as another user posted, it just powered all of its outlets down--for no reason. Everything else in the room remained powered up. Fortunately, I use this UPS just for routers and external drives. My computer and more important components are protected with a superior APC backup.

This is the second UPS I've bought from Belkin, and the second to barely make it to a year. I should've learned my lesson the first time.

I bought the 1100VA about 10 months ago. About 6 months of supporting my server, I kept finding my server and UPS shut down for reason I could find.
None of the other UPS units (APC) reported any power outages.
It kept shtting down after shorter and shorter times in operation.
Now, even with a very light load, if I unplug incoming power, it shuts off.
I went to the Belkin website to see about a replacement under the warraty, but all they said that the 1100VA is no loger available.
No recorse and no recommendations.
I thought I was buying a quality product.
I will not be inclined to buy another Belkin UPS and I can't recommend that anone else should.

I bought this in January 2006 and used it as battery backup for an Apple PowerMac G5.

Using a Watt-Miser, I measured the power used by the PowerMac at about 350 watts and this product provided enough power for an orderly shut-down. That is, until September 2008 when storms knocked out power in my area for 8 days. Once power was restored and the Belkin fully charged, it would no longer provide backup power.

I am still in the process of getting Belkin to honor their 3-year warranty, but I was told by Belkin Support that they no longer produce this product. I will update this review once my warranty experience is complete.

Belkin's Bulldog software for Mac OS X is also unreliable -- if this product is used with an Apple computer, just use the built-in UPS monitoring found in System Preferences.

The item was received undamaged, in very acceptable delivery time and functions as advertized.Belkin F6C1100-UNV Battery Backup with Multi-Computer Connections (1100VA)

As far as the hardware is concerned Belkin's UPS works like it should. But if you're an Intel-Based Mac user, you can pretty much say goodbye to the software. Belkin's "Bulldog" software is so counter-intuitive you'd be happy just to get it running, much less modify the settings. Over half the time, the "Agent" that monitors the UPS stops responding and then hogs up to 40% of your CPU. Mind you, this is supposed to be the software that automatically shuts down your computer in the case of a prolonged unmonitored power failure. On the plus side, you can run this UPS without the software and rely on the the Hardware beeping as to how much power time you have in the event of an outage. Of course, this won't help if you aren't near your machine. I'm honestly surprised that Belkin has essentially duct-taped this software as newer versions of OSX and new Macs are produced. I would recommend against any of Belkin's UPS's since they all use the same crummy software.