Rainy season means you need a UPS to protect your PC

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): I remember when I first moved into my small West Jakarta house in early 1992. The electricity supply was very bad.

The voltage was very low, particularly in the evenings when every other house in the city turned its lights and other appliances on.

We had to switch our fluorescent lights on early in the afternoon. If we forgot to, they would flicker like the lights of a car with a clogged carburetor.

This tiny little house also had a very limited electricity allocation when we moved in, up to 1,200 Watts.

If we inadvertently turned on the water pump without turning off the air conditioner, the circuit breaker would flip.

Those of you familiar with West Jakarta will know how impossible it is to stay inside in this arid area without air conditioning.

For some time I was virtually paralyzed as I could not use my PC if the AC was on. If I wanted to print with my LaserJet, all the lights in the house had to be switched off.

We asked the state power company to increase the power supply to 2,400 Watts and I could work more comfortably.

But the voltage problem remained.

Sometimes it dropped to such a low level that my PC would reset itself without warning. Okay, I learned to save the file I was working on as often as possible. It soon became second nature to me to press Ctrl-S after a few keystrokes.

But, the impact of this random rebooting was actually much more serious than I thought. It was too late when I realized what the voltage sags had done to my PC.

My hard disk, which was at that time a very expensive 80 MB Micropolis, was mortally damaged. That created a huge problem, as it happened when my cash flow was very tight to say the least. I had no choice.

As I couldn't work without a computer I borrowed some money and got myself a new Quantum hard disk.

I did something wise at that time, though. I bought a locally made uninterruptible power supply, or UPS. This UPS from ICA has been giving me excellent service until today, and I know I would have had to buy more hard disks if I hadn't forced myself into buying it.

Unfortunately, I had had to accept the untimely passing of my NEC 4D monitor because of the unstable voltage.

Power

In developed countries, stable electrical supplies are taken for granted. Here in Indonesia, damage to electronic equipment caused by poor quality power lines is a fact of life.

We have heard of an entire village suing the state electric company for damage to their TVs and other electronic equipment caused by extreme spikes.

What can poor electricity do to our computers and their peripherals? According to December 1997's issue of Windows Magazine (yes, I have it already), there are at least three things that can happen.

First, there are the sags and the blackouts. A sag is the conditions where the voltage suddenly drops significantly below the normal level. The sag is the culprit that damaged my Micropolis hard disk and NEC 4D monitor.

A blackout is when the current suddenly stops altogether.

There are surges and spikes. These are conditions in which the voltage suddenly rises significantly above the normal level.

During the rainy season you can expect a lot of surges and spikes as lightning strikes our overhead electricity lines.

Thirdly, there can be electromagnetic interference called noise that can damage the contents of your memory and storage devices.

When I was able to afford it, I bought a 3,000 Watt stabilizer that regulates the current for the entire house.

No longer do I have to turn on the fluorescent lights before it gets dark. Still, this costly stabilizer is not enough to protect the PCs I use everyday. A UPS is the best protection.

I use two PCs for my work, and each draws power from its own UPS.

It is true that I can't continue working when the lights go out. But, at least, I have the chance to press Ctrl-S to save my work and shut down properly.

And, when in a minute's time the lights come on again, my PC wouldn't be damaged by the surge or spike typical of a sudden return of electricity. Undoubtedly, my UPS' have extended the lives of my current PCs.

A UPS is a battery or set of batteries that will automatically supply power to the PC in case of surges, spikes, sags, brownouts or blackouts.

It also contains a lot of smart electronics that monitor the condition of the line from the wall so that it will know when to take charge.

Three types of UPS are available. The standby UPS just sits there waiting for the anomalies to happen. It's the cheapest type, and my ICA is a good example.

The better one is the line interactive UPS that constantly checks the quality of the current coming in. This type of UPS has more intelligence built in so it can take over before anomalies in the electric current reach your PC.

The third one, used mostly in mission critical systems, supplies power from the batteries while the batteries themselves are being recharged with the current from the wall.

This is the most expensive type of UPS, but the system is guaranteed to get clean power from it.

If you use the cheapest type of UPS, it is a good idea to complement it with a surge protector. There are a wide range of products available from companies such as Kensington, Tripp Lite and APC.

In fact, APC provides quite an extensive array of UPS and accessories with power regulators to protect your PCs, modems and other peripherals. Even the modem can be protected from the spikes in the telephone line caused by lightning -- a common problem here in Indonesia that has damaged a lot of modems.

The Back UPS Pro 650 from APC, for example, is the perfect UPS if you have a fully loaded multimedia PC.

These UPS come in different types, Volt-Amper (VA) capacities and features. The Matrix UPS from this company, for example, provides clean power for mini computers. Its batteries can be added or replaced without having to turn down the server -- which should never be down, anyway.

UPS technology has come a long way, too. A smart UPS can be connected to a PC and will flash warning signs when critical conditions are detected. It can be even be programmed to shut down the running application and the system safely in case of an emergency.

The long awaited rainy season has arrived, folks. A typical problem during this time is the fallen trees or their broken branches that cut the electricity supply to our homes.

If you have just bought an expensive Pentium II machine, you should not hesitate to invest a little more on a UPS.

However, you should carefully discuss your requirements with the store. Remember, the price rises rapidly as the UPS' VA capacity grows.