Budget well & Truly 'blown'

I'll be taking sandwiches to work for the rest of the year.

I've ordered a Gigabyte GA-H67A-UD3H Socket 1155 MoBo.
On-board video. USB3. SATA2&3. Esata. 7.1 sound. So all the up to date stuff.
Unfortunately also comes (at no extra charge) the known and advertised problem with the intel 6 Series chipsets, neccessitating a re-call/replacement when upgraded boards arrive in stock.

I would have prefered to get an 1156 socket board which would have been cheaper and with no problems but already they are just about NLA from a practicle point of view.

So the new board meant a new processor.
Intel core i5 25000k 3.3Ghz/6Mb/LGA1155/Quad core

And new DDR3memory.
Corsair Micro PC-12800 2x2Gb

New PSU which I might not have needed but my old one was 550w the new one is a
Corsair Micro 850 AXAU I would not have gone so big but things in the range of 650-750W don't have much choice and this one is Pro Series gold class with 100,000 mtbf and 7 yrs warranty.

Got the go -ahead from the other half before I ordered ( I don't have a death wish) but means the Triumphs restoration has just gone back another 8 months

SWEET! I think you'll be rockin' n rollin' now!

So why do I feel so,,, poor.
I'm wondering if I should invest in a UPS to protect my new gear. We get a lot of power blinks up this way and it must shorten the life of components.
Those UPS's are so expensive though, I'd need one of at least 800VA and the cheapest I can find is still $130.

If you have a lot of power blinks in your area, you need a UPS of some sort, whatever your computer needs to run a few minutes to allow you to finish and shutdown properly. Fortunately for me, I found one that meets my needs at Wal Mart on sale for $39. The power did go out once on me, in fact, I was logged onto this forum at the time. I finished my post, checked my email, and shut down the computer.

I wonder, since it's been a while that it's been used, do I need to drain & recharge the battery once in a while? The last time that it was used, was when a breaker tripped. My wife heard a beeping, I came in here, and it was the UPS, but everything was powered down, except for my modems. The beeping was bugging her, so I shut the door to the room where my desk is.

Mine is the APC Back-UPS ES 6 Outlet 350VA 120V.

Cat

Ok, I assume it was a laptop it kept running? some of the brands self test their batteries.
Some have non removable packs so once the battery gets too old your up for a whole new unit. Some allow for battery replacement.
I can get APC brand here as well but to allow me to keep a tower up and running plus the seperate monitor to allow me to see to shut down I'd need at least an 750Va and from the one table I saw even that only gives me about 5 mins to tidy up and shutdown.

As I recall, the only thing that was being powered was my modems. I have two, my wired cable modem supplied by my ISP, and my wireless one that connects to it.

When I bought the UPS, I had to install the battery myself. I figure, at that price, that it'll be cheaper to buy a whole new unit, rather than a replacement battery.

The closest one that I saw to meet your needs was at Tiger Direct, it was a 900VA for $99 in US dollars. Here it is:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...c.asp?CatID=23

EDIT: I had the link right, something must have changed on the page. It's Item # A75-8002.

Cat

A good UPS will also help to filter the incoming voltage and current, smooths out the spikes and dips regardless of a brownout or power surge too.

I consider them to be an essential piece of equipment, especially if there are issues that your area experiences.

APC is VERY GOOD equipment! So is Belkin.

Remember also that the sealed lead-acid batteries in most UPS units only last from three to five year at best. I had to replace mine this past summer after five years of ownership. The replacement batteries are quite reasonable in price though, I paid $28.00 total including shipping for one that was twice the capacity of my old one.

I've been hunting all day looking at variuos UPS units.
In the price I can afford with the capacity I need I got a:

CyberPower Value GP LCD
1200VA/720W Line Interactive
2yr warrenty.

http://www.cpsww.com.au/index.html




CyberPower Value GP LCD 1200VA / 720W Line Interactive Ups - 2 Yrs Adv. Replacement(VALUE1200E-GP)

Manufacturer: CyberPower
Stock Status: More Coming - Preorder
Product ID: 8217

Value GP LCD Series UPS with GreenPower UPSTM Technology is the best solution to supply a clean and stable power,The on LCD panel instantly display status of your UPS. PowerPanel® Personal Edition management software included for USB Port shows versatility of a UPS, like power voltage, scheduled shutdown, and remaining battery capacity, remaining battery runtime, battery status ...etc. With Energy-Saving Technology, Value GP LCD Series UPS can save upto 75% of electricity and save your

That looks like a good one to me. Being that you live in Australia, you may not have access to the exact items as US suppliers has, without paying a huge shipping/customs fee.

But I have bought things, one was the Seagate Free Agent (500GB) backup drive, from eBay Australian based stores. The exchange rate was not too far off from US currency, and the shipping took only a week. I also bought a brand new DVD-ROM for my Dell notebook from there for only $30, shipping included. That purchase took a little longer to arrive, about 2 weeks.

Kinda makes me wonder why the Anytime Upgrade costs so much for you.

Much better than dealing with China & Hong Kong sellers, it takes a week to get an answer on an inquiry.

Cat

Yeah, that's why I prefer local when I can. I seem to be able to get HDD retail reasonably competitive price but everything else I pay thruogh the nose for.
The retail shop I deal with is good though, the first time ever I asked for a return was on a HDD, it had not even failed and was working normally but it's "SMART" monitoring reading had fallen off very quickly for a drive only a week old and they replaced it on that basis alone.