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It's not powerful enough to keep things running for long, but as a power condtioner, or as an effective measure to prevent shut downs due to momentary losses of power, it's proven to be well worth the price. I live in Birmingham, Alabama, and we have more power failures than you'd see in third-world nations. If I have any complaint, it's the annoying alarm tone that sounds every few seconds as long as the power is off. Sometimes several times a day, we lose power for long enough to interrupt communications equipment. So the APC BE550R 550VA Back-UPS ES 8-Outlet Battery Backup System is a reasonably priced solution to a really annoying problem. There should be a way to silence that thing.
I even let it go through an automatic shutdown just to see how it handled it. Power outages in our neighborhood are a fact of life--it almost always goes out during big storms and sporadically goes out for no apparent reason--sometimes for just a split second--just long enough to make everything with a digital clock go to blinking twelves. Its a sinking feeling when everything goes dead quiet and dark. The power went out last week for the first time since I set it up and it worked like a charm. This thing even cuts in momentarily when there is a minor deviation in the voltage. I tried to remember to save my files more often, but "Murphy" has gotten me way too often.
I like the built-in surge suppression too, since when the power comes back on it often surges. I work from home, so I have had numerous instances where I have lost work when the power drops. No problems. I kept telling myself I'd get one of these, but for some reason put it off for years until now. Its already made me glad I got it. (I had a controller chip on a hard drive melt one time from such a surge, even though it was on a surge protector).
OK, let it storm, let the cars skid into power poles, let the vacuum cleaner or the dog yank the cord from the wall, I'm ready.
The confirmation for my purchase was fast , a second communication included FedEx tracking number and the purchase price was very fair. This vendor is a "KEEPER" - keep him in mind for future purchases/shopping
But we've had some flickers, including several during Tropical Storm Hanna which passed over us. So I just needed something as a bridge for this brief interval, and also to prevent a PC crash during a power flicker (more frequent). Our house has an auto-start standby generator that kicks on about 20 seconds after a power failure is detected. The APC worked just as advertised. The APC 550 seemed like it would do this, and the price was right. We've had no outages since the product was connected. And all the surge-protected outlets it provides have helped me clean up some of the "rat's nest" behind my computer (half of these are supported by the battery; half are not). Overall, an impressive and decently priced product.
They will work fine for 6 months or so and then, without warning and for no apparent reason, they begin beeping, indicating that there is no power supply, when in fact the electrical supply is fine. I own 5 of these BE550 units and every one of them has failed at one time or another. APC has replaced 3 of them at no cost (to their credit), but to no avail. I believe these units have an inherent flaw in them and I will not buy another APC product. I need a reliable product - not a piece of garbage that won't last and fails without warning.
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