Recommendations for my first Desktop build

[Bill_Bright]

Even if the power goes out for a single second for any reason, it will completely stop whatever it is you are doing as if you had forced a shutdown (or worse).

Here's the thing. The ATX Form Factor standard for power supplies requires ATX compliant power supplies to "hold up" power in the event of a power "drop" (dip or sag) below 90VAC (180V for 230VAC mains) with durations of just 17ms or less.

The average human eye/brain cannot detect "flickers" that last less than 30ms. This is why for decades, Hollywood movies and TV shows were filmed at 24FPS. What this means is a power outage, or just a dip/sag below 90VAC, that lasts 20ms is more than enough to cause your computer to come crashing down, but the user would not even be aware any power anomaly even occurred! And so a 1 second (1000ms) drop in power might as well be minutes. That's spooky!

This is why when posters report things like "my computer randomly shuts down for no apparent reason", I wonder (1) was it random? And (2) was there no apparent reason?

And here's a sad fact. If you check out the better PSU review sites, you will see many otherwise excellent PSUs fail to hold up power (continue to output required voltages) for even that required 17ms.

But again, power during a power outage (or significant drop in voltage) is only the icing on the cake. It is the AVR that makes a "good" UPS with AVR so valuable. I also have a good UPS on my home theater audio equipment and big screen TV.

My garage door (as many do these days) can only be opened from the outside with the garage door opener (there's no lock/handle at all on the outside). So I have an UPS on my garage door opener too! And I even have an old 900VA UPS for the electric blanket on the bed, just in case power goes out in the winter! That will keep us warm for at least 2 hours when it is -10°F outside!

Oh, and remember, a UPS on your computer is not just for the computer's PSU. If the power goes out and I quickly totally shut off power to my computer and both 24" inch monitors, my 1500VA UPS on this system will keep my network and Internet connection alive for 4 - 6 hours or longer! So I still have outside communication via the Internet with my wireless devices via the wifi side of my network. Very handy and reassuring when socked in your home during blizzards and the power goes out.

 

[Bustos]

Did the world end already and I don't know it?

 

[DaveB]

I've never seen a need for a UPS as we have underground wiring and just about never lose power. We don't get much lightening here either.

 

[Bill_Bright]

I sure wish we had underground utilities here but it just cost too much to go back into established neighborhoods and replace poles and drops. Underground utilities really would have been nice a few years ago when 90MPH straight-line winds took out a huge tree branch which took out my power, cable TV/Internet, and phone line all at once. Not fun. But again, backup power during a full outage is really just the secondary or minor reason to use a good UPS. Its all about the AVR. And of course, we must remember not all anomalies originate from the grid. Major household appliances introduce them onto the lines just about every time they cycle on and off.

Of course, buying a quality PSU from the start helps mitigate those problems too.

 

[don256us]

Ha. Power went out at work again and they had to send us home early. This is a big deal because they had multiple jury trials going on and they were trying to seat jurors. The whole downtown area was out. After I had posted about our outage in the morning, we had some minor issues with equipment not wanting to return but they all did. I won't know until tomorrow what went down this time. Our servers and a small group of PCs are on the building's UPS and then a generator located at the jail will kick in for those select infrastructure that has to keep running. The rest is on its own. Gear will fail if the power cuts out like that. We set all of our PCs to stay off in the BIOS to reduce the effect if the power goes up and down repeatedly and quickly which will really mess with gear. So this is what I will add:

I don't have a UPS on my desktops. What I do to mitigate the issue of failing gear is to set the BIOS to remain off after a power outage. Bad if you need to remote in but better if you want to protect your gear.

Bill. Our downtown has buried utilities but that doesn't help if contractors don't call miss dig or if miss dig fails to mark all utilities. Ground changes also cause utilities to fail over time

 

[DaveB]

Our downtown has buried utilities but that doesn't help if contractors don't call miss dig or if miss dig fails to mark all utilities. Ground changes also cause utilities to fail over time

Then they didn't "bury" them properly. I've been in Northern Virginia since 1993 in two different communities with buried utilities and never had any issues or damage to any computer or appliance. We've had short power outages maybe a half dozen times. Comcast and Verizon have had their issues, but they are both very poorly managed companies that use lots of incompetent subcontractors.

 

[habbajabba]

IMO, if you own a home you should have already invested in a generator of some kind, even if it's just one of those little honda portable ones. A UPS does the exact same thing but is for protecting specific circuit's attached devices.
If you have a telephone jack, those output 5v even if the line is disconnected. And of course, anything that can get to that power besides a phone is hard to find.

 

[Bill_Bright]

We set all of our PCs to stay off in the BIOS to reduce the effect if the power goes up and down repeatedly and quickly which will really mess with gear.

Pretty sure that's the default with all motherboards - but certainly worth checking. I just know for every remote "unattended" server or computer we supported, we always had to go into the BIOS and change the Power On settings to automatically boot when power is restored. I've never had to change that for any other build. They've always be set to stay off.

Ground changes also cause utilities to fail over time

Not sure what you mean by "ground changes". I mean sink holes and Earthquakes, sure. But beyond that, I don't know what changes might happen to affect properly buried cables. The depth cables are buried are dictated by local codes but generally at least 6 inches in places like residential yards - deeper under public thoroughfares. Water and sewer lines must always be below the "frost line" in very cold regions, but electrical cables don't. Those designed for underground installation are flexible enough to deal with any expansion/contractions from freezing and thawing ground so they don't have to be buried that deep. So yeah, even before digging a hole for a new rose bush, a digging permit should be obtained. It is free in most places.

IMO, if you own a home you should have already invested in a generator of some kind, even if it's just one of those little honda portable ones. A UPS does the exact same thing but is for protecting specific circuit's attached devices.

Well, not hardly "the exact" same thing. An UPS, by definition, provides "uninterruptible" power. Even generators with automatic cutover typically take 15 - 20 seconds - at best - to startup, stabilize, then switch over. In mission critical scenarios (hospitals, air traffic control facilities, data centers, 911 centers, police and military command centers, etc.) you typically see both used. In the event of a power outage, the UPS kicks in immediately to provide uninterruptible power until the backup generators come on line.

But even beyond that, generators (especially cheap ones) don't typically provide very "clean" power. The output voltages vary a little and even the output frequency does too. Not a problem for a refrigerator but for other sensitive devices, it can wreck havoc. So again, this is where the AVR portion of a good UPS comes in - to clean up and regulate the backup generator's power.

I used to maintain air traffic control radio communications systems. Our control towers, for example had a "battery room" full of 12V car batteries strapped together to make one big UPS battery. So if power went out, the entire tower, and all our radios, would stay alive until the generator kicked in. But I have to say - everyone still held their breath when the power went out until we heard that generator fire up and saw the backup power cut-over.

I don't know that all homes should have a backup generator, but I sure am glad I have one. Mine is a 5500KW gas powered model - big enough to keep the refrigerator and deep freeze running, a small space heater (in the winter) or small window AC (in the summer), a few lights and small TV running. And the igniter on the hot water heater too.

 

[trents]

I've never seen a need for a UPS as we have underground wiring and just about never lose power. We don't get much lightening here either.

Not much lightening in Gainesville? Wow! My home town is Richmond and I remember frequent and violent summer thunderstorms with lots of fireworks. But that was a long time ago and maybe "climate change" has taken effect.

 

[Robert17]

Never know when you need to stop a bleed!

I've used hemostats for years to pull/push jumpers and retrieve small screws that I drop around the case when working in tem. Fishing out small parts without damaging components or losing them worse works for me.

 

[DaveB]

Not much lightening in Gainesville? Wow! My home town is Richmond and I remember frequent and violent summer thunderstorms with lots of fireworks. But that was a long time ago and maybe "climate change" has taken effect.

Yep most "pop" storms that form near here don't really get going until they get closer to DC. Most storms that come from the west lose steam going over the mountains so they're usually weak here and then fire up more towards DC if the don't completely fall apart. So we get just a few strong thunderstorms here mostly when they move up from the south west on the eastern side of the mountains running along a cold front. Richmond is a completely different area, hotter, more humid and not close to the mountains or the ocean so a favorable spot for stronger storms to form and thrive. It's not just about climate change, but also local geography.

 

[Bill_Bright]

I've used hemostats for years

Me too. They are great as a third or fourth hand when soldering wires. And when soldering components, they make great heatsinks. In fact, they even make hemostats specifically for soldering electronics.

 

[storm-chaser]

A little OT, but that is the age old question... how do you bridge the gap between when the power goes out and when the generator kicks in?
In Chernobyl, they certainly had it all wrong. That bleed down test of the turbine lead to nuclear disaster on a scale never seen before. The "test" put the reactor in an unstable configuration which led to a positive void coefficient, effectively boiling off the remaining coolant and leading to the worst nuclear disaster in history. Didn't help that the moderators where graphite tipped.

There should have been an interlock that prevented raising the control rods so far, but this was one of the interlocks that the operators had overridden in their struggle to keep the reactor at a stable low power level for the planned test at Chernobyl. Since Chernobyl, the graphite followers have been removed from the rods in the remaining RBMK reactors to prevent the possibility of this happening.

A large amount of energy was suddenly released, vaporizing superheated cooling water and rupturing the reactor core in a highly destructive steam explosion. This was immediately followed by an open-air reactor core fire which released considerable airborne radioactive contamination for about nine days, which precipitated onto parts of the USSR and western Europe, before being finally contained on 4 May 1986.

 

[EarthDog]

A data center bridges that gap in a couple of ways...

1. Battery back up UPS
2. Flywheel back up UPS

And getting back on topic, I don't bridge the gap. There isn't really a need. If the power goes out while I am using my PC, it goes out. I walk my butt to my garage and get the generator out and turn it on. This doesn't give me my PC back or internet (we have 2 phones with a data plan for that if needed), but I am not a mission-critical location either. I'd like to keep my fridge and freezers going, and maybe a TV for entertainment (OTA antenna FTW!).

Undoubtedly, in my situation, which I dare say fits with 'most' PC users, spending that amount of money (well over $150) on a quality UPS for my system has never been worth it and I will never voluntarily suggest it to someone unless they specify they have ****ty power or want one. Blindly insisting on one is misleading as well.

 

[Bill_Bright]

A little OT, but that is the age old question... how do you bridge the gap between when the power goes out and when the generator kicks in?

Well, that is where the UPS comes in.

As for Chernobyl, that is quite a different scenario - especially since engineers for years warned of impending problems but (does this sound familiar?) the politicians in charge did nothing about it.

As far as not willing to invest in a quality UPS, yeah, that sure depends on your priorities. I don't see it as being a mission critical issue for most users (once again, backup power during a full outage is just the minor feature). I see it simply as protecting my expensive computer (and audio/TV) equipment from power anomalies. And any money that would go towards a decent surge and spike protector can go into the UPS.

And BTW, I have one 900VA APC UPS that is over 25 years old still doing its job. And a couple others that are pushing 10 years old. They all have had their batteries replaced at least once - but if you shop around and NEVER buy from the UPS maker, you can get some really good deals on replacement batteries and continue getting good service from the UPS for years to come.

And something many don't realize is surge and spike protectors wear out. Every time they absorb a surge or spike, it ages them and they should periodically be replaced - adding to the cost of ownership. Some have indicator lights telling when they are no longer effective. Most don't.

 

[don256us]

Back to the OP. I would upgrade the DVD burner to a Blu Ray burner. If you are going to keep the option of optical drives, why not go all the way. They're cheap.

 

[habbajabba]

"Well, not hardly "the exact" same thing"
Really? You never seen a gas powered pull-start UPS? The gas ones are great because if you keep adding gas they really are uninterruptible.
Blu-ray is awesome for the simple fact you can get 100gb discs that last decades as they are write only archival. HD's are cheaper though.

 

[EarthDog]

"Well, not hardly "the exact" same thing"
Really? You never seen a gas powered pull-start UPS? The gas ones are great because if you keep adding gas they really are uninterruptible.
Blu-ray is awesome for the simple fact you can get 100gb discs that last decades as they are write only archival. HD's are cheaper though.

Who are you talking to?

 

[storm-chaser]

A data center bridges that gap in a couple of ways...

1. Battery back up UPS
2. Flywheel back up UPS

Thanks. Just did some reading up on Flywheel backup UPS solutions. This is an interesting technology and the first time I've really heard of them. In case anyone is interested, I thought I would share some info, here is a brief background:

Flywheel UPS- What is it?
First of all, what is a flywheel? A flywheel is defined as a mechanical device specifically designed to store rotational energy. Flywheels resist changes in their rotational speed by their momentum of inertia. This inertia is what makes the flywheel work. The amount of energy a flywheel can store is the square of its rotational speed. The way to increase or decrease the flywheel’s rotational speed is by applying a torque to its axis of symmetry. In the case of a flywheel UPS, its most common function is to convert the kinetic energy it stores to produce DC power. It also provides power conditioning and run-time in short bursts in the event of a power outage.
Flywheel technology is some of the oldest in existence. In the Neolithic Period, one of the first primitive flywheels was developed in the form of a spindle and an early potter’s wheel, to create vessels to store food and tools. In the Renaissance in Europe, Leonardo DaVinci developed fairly advanced flywheel models to demonstrate movement. During the Industrial Revolution, James Watt contributed to flywheel development in steam engine technology.

 

[Bill_Bright]

"Well, not hardly "the exact" same thing"
Really? You never seen a gas powered pull-start UPS? The gas ones are great because if you keep adding gas they really are uninterruptible.

I'm afraid you are not thinking this through.

Uninterruptible means there are no interruptions - period. If the power goes out, the UPS batteries immediately (typically in less than 8ms) kick in so the connected devices never lose power.

And no, I have never heard of a gas powered, pull start UPS. Got a link?

Note that actually makes no sense. It takes time to pull start a gas powered engine. Even if you are right there when the power goes out, and the engine starts on the first pull, several seconds will have passed before the engine stabilizes, and the generator can start producing electricity. Any computer would have shutdown long ago because the power would have been "interrupted".

Flywheel backup UPS are not new. I first saw one about 15 years ago in a DoD communications center. But AFAIK, they don't make them for small, home use. They are not very energy efficient because to be truly uninterruptible, the flywheels need to be spinning 24/7/365 in order to be ready at any moment. They are not cheap either. The main bearings must be very precise to minimize vibrations, noise and friction. And they are big and heavy. The more power they need to provide the bigger the flywheel must be. And the bigger the flywheel, the bigger the motor to spin it must be. That said, that motor does not have to be huge. It takes a lot of torque to get the flywheel moving, but very little torque to keep it moving. The one I saw used a supplemental starter motor to get it going. Once spinning at speed, that starter motor stepped out of the way.