Cyberpower CP1500AVRLCD UPS - LCD Display 1500VA/900W AVR 8-Outlet RJ11/RJ45/Coax Tower USB
by Cyber Power
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List Price: Our Price: $142.60 You Save: $87.35 (38%) Availability: Usually ships in 3-4 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cyberpower CP1500AVRLCD UPS - LCD Display 1500VA/900W AVR 8-Outlet RJ11/RJ45/Coax Tower USB
Customer Review: Misleading advertising / can't completely silence it
Summary: 2 Stars
I want to start by saying that I love the little LCD display with the ability to see how many watts I'm using and the remaining battery time (both without needing to install any software).
However,
1) Both the box and their website say typical runtime up to 170 minutes. I don't want to call it False Advertising, but it's certainly misleading. I've now plugged in two of these units and, after fully charged, the highest remaining battery time is 100 minutes. That's with nothing plugged in so it could never be greater than 100 minutes.
In my case, I have a Dell Dimension 8250 and an LG 24" LCD (turned down to 4% brightness which significantly reduces power consumption). My system uses 144 watts and I get 39 minutes of backup time. That's better than I got with my previous, similarly priced APC model. However, 144 watts is like two light bulbs and it's sad that the modern state of personal UPSes can only power two light bulbs for 39 minutes, and I paid $170 for this.
2) There's no way to completely silence the alarms. First, if the unit's battery is completely drained, you have to remember to manually silence the alarms again when you turn it back on (unless you install their software). Second, even after you do this, the alarms will still sound during the last fifteen to twenty minutes of battery life. As far as I can tell there's NO WAY to prevent this, not on the UPS and not with the software. You can silence the initial alarms, but not the final ones.
My request to all UPS manufacturers: consider the people who buy UPSes that cost less than $200 -- mainly home users and possibly small businesses. These UPSes are not located in a corporate data center, these are in homes where people sleep. The last thing I care about in the middle of the night is if the power goes out. I certainly don't want my UPS to wake up the whole family.
Please give us an easy way to permanently silence all alarms, without needing to install any software, and that continue to remain always silent, no matter what. Even a DIP switch would be great.
3) I wouldn't count on using the telephone/coax surge-suppressing jacks on this unit. Maybe they'll work for you, maybe not. I couldn't use the telephone jack because it created a lot of noise on the phone line (FWIW I don't have DSL either).
I also couldn't use the coax jack. Actually I was using it for several days in the beginning, but then a couple of techs from Comcast Cable showed up at my door and said they'd traced signal noise in my neighborhood to my house. They insisted that I remove the coax from this UPS. (FWIW they said this wouldn't matter because Comcast supposedly has surge protection outside of people's houses.)
Despite my mixed feelings about this UPS, I would probably recommend and purchase this model again in the future because I haven't been able to find anything better in the market in this price range. It's the lesser of the evils. I've had too many problems with APC models, so I hope to avoid APC while their quality remains inferior.
Customer Review: CyberPower CP1500
Summary: 5 Stars
ONE: After much researching... you can't plug one UPS into another UPS to extend power. You can damage both.
You can get two, one for the PC, one for the monitor.
TWO: The newer UPS models check your 120V wiring. If this unit finds a wiring fault (little light on the back) the UPS WILL NOT BE RECOGNIZED by your PC. Nothing much about this is stated on their web site nor manual ! ! Trying to install the software will shut your PC down as the software shuts down if it can't find the UPS. Yes, for a few seconds there is a cancel screen !
So I buy this unit for my Vista Business 32bit PC. It says it's Vista 64bit and Win7 compliant, not many are and everyone is moving to the faster 64 bit Win 7. I would first download the newer PowerPanel version.
As stated above this and other newer UPS models, will check and NOT WORK with bad wiring (reverse hot, no ground). So if you are getting a newer model UPS get a wall mount outlet checker for $4 at your local discount store. They plug into whatever wall outlet/extension cord you are going to use for the UPS. They have three lights, two amber and red. If just the two amber light up... no problem. I had a bad extension cord and the UPS started but would not be recognized after loading the software, then it would shut down the PC. I found the "fault light" on the back and switched the extension cord. That fixed the fault light but the UPS would still not be recognized. Reinstall, upgrade to the newer version PowerPanel, nothing would keep the software from shutting down the PC except the "cancel" on the shutdown reminder.
I find, by accident, that if the UPS finds a "fault" the UPS will stay in "fault" until the UPS is shutdown. I just changed my bad ext. cord and never turned it off the PC1500. Once everything was turned off and restarted the driver was loaded, UPS found and I wrote to the company to suggest they put this on their FAQ.
First: Check the "fault wiring" light. Second: if it went into fault, you must shut down the UPS and fix the problem.
Doesn't everyone have their PC right next to a wall outlet ! ! If you are going to try this with a two wire ext. cord , or broke off the ground tip to fit it in your two wire wall outlet(no ground), or you filed the cord end to make it fit the plug (reverse ground), this unit will power up.. just not be recognized by the software. Even the web site is not accurate for all models as the "fault light" on this model will either be on (bad) or off. The web site says it should blink on/off, but not with this model. Wouldn't that O.K. blinking light waste power? Oh, and by the way, the nice demo image shows a "blue LCD screen". That only stays on for 15 seconds or so. It goes off as an energy saver (.0001 watt ?) and to "save the LCD from burnout". So to see what's on the UPS LCD, you must press the button below the LCD. It does have 5 different screens with lots of tech info about the outlet power and stuff. Gee, everyone puts a UPS were you can easily reach it. None of these LCD items are on the PowerPanel pop-up screen. So buy a short stick too !
Customer Review: It works fine
Summary: 5 Stars
About a week and a half ago a lightning storm blew my power out about 3 times in a half hour period. I work from home doing software development and having my development system blow away is not good.
I decided I was long overdue for power backup so I could at least shut down gracefully. I did the usual look up of UPS reviews on line, decided on a unit, and went to Amazon to buy one.
I read the Amazon reviews for the unit I wanted and decided against it. Instead I bought the Cyberpower CP1500AVRLCD. It had more bang for the buck and only 4 out of scads of reviews were negative. One was about the industrial smell when it was unpacked and how it was sent back without even turning it on. I could live with industrial smell for a few days in exchange for peace of mind. I dropped the negatives to 3.
(When I received the unit, the smell wasn't bad at all. The poor lady must have received her unit from a different Chinese factory than mine...)
I ordered the unit and used the 5 - 7 day free shipping option. I received it on the 3rd day.
I have hooked up my computer, the monitor, my wireless mouse, and a 2 terabyte backup USB drive to the UPS. Yesterday it paid off. Another lightning storm and my house was really slammed with short power outages. My system didn't even notice. I barely did. I did have WiFi drop, but I was busy writing code, so I didn't miss it. No worries about two hours of work in the bit bucket. No corrupted files. Since the outages were of short duration, I didn't even have to stop working. And the software estimated I had 43 minutes of power left when the power company came back to stay. It was great. I no longer flinch when I hear thunder in the distance.
The Cyberpower sits next to my computer tower and quietly does its job. The hardware works as advertised.
Another nice feature of the UPS is the software that accompanies the machine. I'm running Windows 7 Professional and the software works. It puts my system to sleep and wakes it up on schedule. It will turn off the machine if it's running off of the UPS and the batteries are about drained.
It also displays the power utilization of the items plugged into it. I find that my computer, 23 inch monitor, mouse, and USB disk drive only use 100 watts of power. That's one light bulb. I no longer worry about power consumption while running disk compressions or other unattended tasks tasks over night. With the UPS, the computer will stay up and it doesn't really cost that much. (At pennies per kilowatt hour, 100 watts 24/7 isn't even noticeable on my electric bill. Now if I could only do something about Texas and air conditioning requirements...)
I can't believe that I waited so long to buy a UPS. In three months I'll spend more on ink than I did on this machine. As far as I'm concerned, it paid for itself yesterday.
I like it.
Customer Review: A worthwhile alternative to APC to consider:
Summary: 5 Stars
I work as a network technician and have used APC equipment for many years. Their high-end units have always done well for us. For many years, I also used their Smart-UPS brand for my home network needs. As they've become old and had problems, it became more economical to replace them, instead of fixing them, especially, since for my desktops, the industry was moving to USB for signaling, and away from serial ports. My rack still has older 1400 VA SU units using SNMP management cards, but I needed a new desktop solution.
For the past three years, I stuck to APC's consumer products and have been very disappointed. They have more problems than the older units I've grown to love, and because they change models so often, it's harder to find a battery replacement. Plus, they just have a sort of cheapness about them.
With my latest computer purchase, a dual quad Mac Pro, my older 800VA APC just couldn't handle it. So, I decided to try this Cyberpower 1500 and have been very pleased with it, using it for about 2 months so far. The signaling and reported time is more reliable than the APC I was using. Although it should be said, any consumer UPS will not guarantee exact runtimes, load measurements, etc. - For what you are paying for this amount of capacity, some sacrifice must be realized. If you do your calculations correctly, and use it as needed (surges, brown-outs and limited black-outs), these units will fulfill your needs. If you need super accurate measurements and reliable AC power generation, then you should consider a high end unit, such as what APC offers for data centers.
The load reading for this unit, when measured with a Kill-A-Watt is pretty accurate. I like the soft blue lighting with auto-off. I connect my two, 24" LCDs to the APC 800VA unit, and the Cyberpower handles the Mac Pro with three, external FireWire drives with no problems. Testing it, by turning off the circuit breaker (shouldn't pull the cord from the wall), reports about 20 minutes of runtime, which seems about right. I've left it on battery power for about 10 minutes, and the readings remained fairly constant. I live out in the country at the end of our power grid, so I get a lot of "dirty" power. Brown-outs are common, and my larger UPS units have the ability to generate statistical logs each day of the power fluctuation. I feel pretty safe with this unit, and wouldn't hesitate to purchase another one.
Lastly, the software both Cyberpower and APC provides for the Mac OS, is really bad! I prefer to just use the Mac's SysPrefs to configure the UPS settings and leave it at that. Both companies desperately need a re-write of their OS X software.
Customer Review: Generator Users, Beware - Redux
Summary: 2 Stars
ADDENDUM February 3, 2010 - In the next life I'll install a better generator providing electronic regulation, tighter voltage and frequency control, and lower harmonic distortion than my current Generac Guardian unit. In the meantime, I've replaced my CyberPower with an APC BR1500 Back-UPS 1500VA for Home/Office Computers which does its job even when receiving power from the Generac. The APC UPS provides for setting levels of protection against input electric noise; mine works fine with the generator even when the UPS is on the highest setting (i.e., clean input power).
I would have readily awarded the CyberPower Systems CP1500AVRLCD UPS 5 stars but for today's rude awakening. The unit had provided sufficient protection to allow my computer equipment (full tower PC, multiple external hard drives, multiple scanners, DSL modem/router, powered speakers, and 2 telephones) to ride unscathed and fully functional through quite a few power surges, brownouts, and short duration outages.
Today's California storms, however, resulted in a total utility power outage in my area of 6 or 7 hours. I have a Generac 15 kva generator which automatically starts approximately 15 seconds following utility power failure. The generator began supplying power as expected. The computer equipment was turned off at the time of the outage, but the UPS was nonetheless emitting annoying beeps. While the generator was supplying house power, the UPS would not output stable power long enough even to allow my PC to boot up. After sufficient frustration, I turned off the UPS, unplugged my equipment from a battery protected outlet, and plugged it into an outlet with surge protection only. This allowed the PC equipment to run flawlessly with generator power bypassing the UPS. When the utility finally restored power and the generator switch out, the PC equipment continued to run.
Eventually I found the following caveat buried in Support FAQs on the CyberPower web site:
"Can I use my UPS in conjunction with a generator? -- CyberPower UPS systems are not designed to work with generators. Many generators output a `dirty' AC signal that is not recognized by the UPS, which causes it to remain functioning off battery power."
Had such a warning been available in the CP1500AVRLCD's descriptions, specifications, or user documentation, I would not have bought it in the first place. Now I'm researching a replacement which will peacefully coexist with my generator.