Customer Reviews

Belkin F6C550-AVR 550VA Battery Backup with Surge Protection

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Before buying any UPS, do some homework. It's not as simple as reading the watts sticker on your computer. Get to know what volt-amps means and decide if you need lots of battery run time or not. I believe many people end up buying too much UPS capacity (which is fine if you can afford it) because mfgrs' "wizards" are not very accurate. This unit, with its fairly low rating, is fine for my needs:

My requirements are to protect my equipment from surges and sags, to give me enough time to save and shut down when the power fails, and to run my DSL modem and WiFi base station for a few hours off and on during an extended outage (we get hurricanes on Cape Cod). I do not need server-class UPS backup, meaning automated shutdown and lengthy run time.

This unit works great for all of the above. It would not run my iMac G4 for very long beyond an emergency shutdown, but that's fine in my case.

The supplied (and downloadable new versions) of Bulldog software are terrible, however. I did not downgrade the unit's star rating for that because you don't need it.

On my Mac, Bulldog only served to display annoying false warnings and would lose connection with the UPS whenever the computer sleeps. Don't even bother installing it.

I've had mixed success with this UPS. If I unplug the UPS from

the wall, it switches to battery back-up just fine. However,

there have been several cases when the power flashed off for

a fraction of a second during a storm and the UPS went into

overload, the computer immediately shut down and I lost all

my work. I bought it to handle that latter situation and so it

has not been very useful to me. I e-mailed Belkin tech support

about this and they... well they never responded.

I just returned my Belkin F6C550-AVR. I liked the form factor (tall with plugs on top) and the price/feature tradeoff looked great. I bought it and followed all the directions to a tee. But there was more to the story:

1) Smell - the chemical smell this thing gives off when charging is noxious. It gave me a headache. I'm not exaggerating.

2) Wasteful - Even when nothing is plugged into it and it's fully charged, it draws 18 watts, as measured by my Kill-A-Watt. That's like leaving a CFL lightbulb on 24/7.

3) Software - The software installs under the name "Automatic Power Management Software". The Belkin website calls it "Bulldog v2" I call it "Bulls#!t". It was apparently written in China by people who know nothing of common UI idioms. It eats up too much space on disk. It is buggy. For example, the "load" was shown as 22%, which made me think it was sized with plenty of headroom. Then I unplugged it to test it, and the load reading jumped up to 43%. Oops. Furthermore, it does not tell you the really useful info: how many minutes remain, what's the current charge level of the battery, What's the current input voltage, etc. What's worse is that it has an administrator password, which gives you access to change things, but the login didn't work! It would accept my blank password (as per the manual) but then would immediate revert back to "read only" mode. So many of the features were not accessible. And did I mention the UI sucked?

So what did I do? Like a good engineer, I researched the alternatives and bought the CyberPower CP850AVRLCD. A little more expensive but *much* more usable, and higher capacity too. It only draws 7 watts when turned off, it doesn't stink up the room, it has a beautiful LCD screen which gives you status, and the software actually works. Plus it gives you status on the useful info, so you actually will know the thing is wearing out before you have your next outage.

To be fair, some people might like the Belkin unit. The mechanical design isn't bad and the price is right. And the software, while half-baked, attempts to include enterprise functions which would be great if you could get them to work. In short, if you plan to use it in the garage or server closet where the smell doesn't matter, you don't mind fighting with the software, you don't care to know the status of the unit, and you're OK with wasting 18 watts constantly, then this could work. Otherwise, I'd look at CyberPower, APC, and Tripp-Lite. Good luck.

I own three Belkin Battery Backups, two are the older model that have the plugins on the back. This model has the plugins on the top which is a plus because these things are HEAVY. It's also a step up cosmetically being streamlined as opposed to boxy. I don't use the "Belkin Bulldog" software that comes with them because neither myself or my wife do much word processing although I would say that the software is simple to use and is a step up from the APC stuff that never worked for me. I never could get Windows to recognize the APC and one of them actually failed. This software installs easily and runs inconspicuously in the background, but I don't need it so uninstalled it. It serves as a reliable battery backup during power failure that happens regularly as we live out in the desert and there are a lot of storms. I wish there were more plugins (only four battery backup/surge protector and two surge protector only) but a couple of triple splitters solves that.

When the power goes off and the back-up battery runs down, the unit shuts down and does not re-start when power comes back on. This leaves everything plugged into it also without power until you return and reset the unit. This makes it pretty useless as a back-up device. You have to be around to turn it back on.

My Mac G5 with 20" display draws too much power for this unit. Even with NOTHING else plugged in, the Belkin beeps an overload warning the second I power up the Mac. I can run nearly everything else - Cable modem, router, USB hub, etc - without a warning, but the Mac alone draws too much power.

outlets are on top of case. easy to plug in and change plug ins. narrow case width allows backup unit to fit in the space available in my roll around computer cart. Switch is recessed and on front with lightup controls. No bumping switch and shuting off accidentally.

Power UPS! Everything you need to know.

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.

A rebate brought this down to about forty dollars for me but still this item disappoints. Used UPSes for over 20 yrs, mostly great ol' APCs that lasted > 10 yrs & were more costly but reliable. But now we want < $100 UPSes:)
Issues w/this POS:
* Smelled especially bad the first 24-48hrs plugged in (charging batt I guess). Afterward just smells bad, but that will probably pass.
* Unit stays warm exp. rear top all the time, even when off.
* Low hum audible in quiet room.
* Must press & hold switch 2 secs for on/off & insists on beeping/self-testing on pwr on.
But it is handling a mid P4, monitor, cable modem & wireless router.
Could put up w/the issues in an office environment, but certainly not in a bedroom. Even the Cyberpower we bought a year ago for maybe forty dollars more is miles better than this unit (has none of the aforementioned issues).
Do yourself a favor & spend $20-$40 on a different brand (esp. if for home).

Basically I just wanted something that would prevent from my desktop computer being shut off by a power surge or power outage in the middle of my using it, and this device serves that purpose perfectly.

I do not leave my computer on 24/7 like some people do, so I didn't bother installing the software included.

Overall I love the good looks, functionality, and very reasonable price...just 20 or 30 bucks more than your average surge protector! I use one for my home theater/stereo equipment as well.

* * * UPDATE, 1/29/09: Well, mine died during a power surge last night. All connected components were fine, which I'm glad for. But this Belkin is fried, won't turn on and the reset button on the back doesn't do anything. Strange that there is no user-replaceable fuse on this thing. I've tried everything, so here's saying R.I.P. old boy. I'm going to have to downgrade my rating to 3 STARS, since my APC battery backup in the other room survived without a scratch.