Will my Seasonic 500W Core GM work with Stepped Sine or i need Pure Sine Wave UPS ?

[FaelanMaelan]

Do i need a Pure Sine Wave UPS for my PSU that is using Active PFC or i can buy one with Simulated or Stepped ? .... As i want to protect my PC from power surges i need a good UPS but my budge is 150 euro .... Heard that Cyberpower are good brand for UPS. Also i found PowerWalker VI 800SW, 800VA/  for like 80 euro but im not sure if its a good one as i found youtube videos and reddit posts with problems with that one .... Please any advice would help ! 

[akio123008]

Do you even need a UPS?

 

So many people think they need one but really for most of us it's sort of a waste of money.

[flibberdipper]

The only time that a true sine wave is a deal breaker is in a mission-critical environment (like servers, telecom shit, that kind of thing). For home use, stepped wave is almost always fine. I've been using an old-ass APC UPS that's stepped and have had no problems with 20 year old PCs on battery power.

[Letgomyleghoe]

1 minute ago, akio123008 said:

Do you even need a UPS?

 

So many people think they need one but really for most of us it's sort of a waste of money.

80 euro basically eliminates the risk of a power surge killing your parts, also If you have something you wouldn't want shutting off during a power outage a UPS is the way to go.

[akio123008]

I never said "you shouldn't buy a UPS", I said for most people it's a complete waste of money, which is perfectly valid, for the following reasons:

 

2 hours ago, Letgomyleghoe said:

If you have something you wouldn't want shutting off during a power outage

99% of people in general, and I'd say 80%+ people on this forum don't operate mission critical computers.

For the vast majority of people out there, an outage of one of their machines, however annoying it may be, simply has no serious consequences. The cost of the UPS isn't justified. 

 

2 hours ago, Letgomyleghoe said:

80 euro basically eliminates the risk of a power surge killing your parts

Power surges are very rare, I have personally never experienced one, neither do I know anyone who has. I guess it may depend on where you live. 

 

Even if you do want to protect yourself from power surges, there are far cheaper surge protection devices you can buy. There's noo need to buy one that also has a complete battery and inverter strapped to it.

 

You're not wrong about UPS's and how they are useful, I'm just saying that I think some people decide too quickly they want a UPS when really it's overkill for their use case.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, FaelanMaelan said:

Do i need a Pure Sine Wave UPS for my PSU that is using Active PFC or i can buy one with Simulated or Stepped ?

The fact that APFC PSUs don't work with simulated/stepped wave PSU's is an old wives' tale.

 

It comes from the idea that the square wave has a higher RMS voltage that exceeds the bus voltage of the PSU.  But this actually causing a problem is extremely rare.

 

 

 

[Letgomyleghoe]

2 hours ago, akio123008 said:

99% of people in general, and I'd say 80%+ people on this forum don't operate mission critical computers.

For the vast majority of people out there, an outage of one of their machines, however annoying it may be, simply has no serious consequences. The cost of the UPS isn't justified. 

 

the cost isn't justified to you, there are those who work on projects that don't auto save and could lose hours of work because of a small power outage, such as myself. Just because a UPS doesn't make sense for you doesn't mean it don't for other people. 

[akio123008]

11 hours ago, Letgomyleghoe said:

Just because a UPS doesn't make sense for you doesn't mean it don't for other people.

No, that's the wrong way round actually; just because a UPS makes sense for you, it doesn't mean it also does for other people.

 

You make it seem like I'm against buying a UPS, or something like that, because I don't use one myself, which just isn't true. I only pointed out that most people don't need one, and that therefore suggested the OP considers if they really need a UPS.

 

13 hours ago, jonnyGURU said:

It comes from the idea that the square wave has a higher RMS voltage that exceeds the bus voltage of the PSU.  But this actually causing a problem is extremely rare.

The RMS voltage is the same, but the voltage is quite a bit higher than with a regular sine wave at certain points in time. 

 

I don't know how exactly that affects computer power supplies, but I do know that it can cause some weird effects on other electronics. It's also not recommended to run motors/transformers on square waves due to increased heat production and therefore worse effciency (but probably no damage to anything)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[FaelanMaelan]

21 hours ago, akio123008 said:

Do you even need a UPS?

 

So many people think they need one but really for most of us it's sort of a waste of money.

Yeah i need one cuz here in Bulgaria the power surges are often .... as i prefer to spend like 150 euro instead of paying 1,5K later if something happens - better safe than sorry right ? 

[FaelanMaelan]

18 hours ago, jonnyGURU said:

The fact that APFC PSUs don't work with simulated/stepped wave PSU's is an old wives' tale.

 

It comes from the idea that the square wave has a higher RMS voltage that exceeds the bus voltage of the PSU.  But this actually causing a problem is extremely rare.

 

 

 

Well i read that the Active PFC PSU's shut down when the battery is on if the UPS is not Pure Sine so yeah .... 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, FaelanMaelan said:

Well i read that the Active PFC PSU's shut down when the battery is on if the UPS is not Pure Sine so yeah .... 

And I'm telling you:  This is incorrect information for any modern day PSU.

 

 

[Guest]

10 hours ago, akio123008 said:

 

The RMS voltage is the same, but the voltage is quite a bit higher than with a regular sine wave at certain points in time. 

 

Right.  I misspoke.  The RMS is the same, but the voltage peaks are higher/longer and can exceed the bus voltage of old/cheap PSUs.

 

I used to install PCs as voice mail servers (the voice mail, call routing, etc. was done in a program that ran in Windows).  The PCs used were standard desktop PCs with ATX PSUs.  Every server was installed with a CyberPower 1500VA UPS which is simulated sine wave.  The only time I ever had an issue was one time I used a PSU brand that came with a case I was using.  The PSU shut down when the UPS switched to battery power.  Otherwise, the few hundred systems I installed over the years never shut down when on battery power.

 

This included about 20+ systems installed in Florida (lightning capital of the world) and never had a system shut down during a power outage.

 

[borders]

I think the problems that the Seasonic S12 series had with stepped wave UPS contributed alot to the idea that stepped wave wasn't good with PCs.