So, living in Florida with the utterly crap weather we get (yes, we do - sorry, it's bake or soak, no matter what the brochures say, with a short period of freezing) a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply, or Battery backup) was a must-have for me when building my current system.
(It's my gaming system/main system, since upgraded. Basically, every non-notebook system I make is going to have a UPS to go with it.)
At the time... well, initially I figured "Just something to deal with brownouts and minor power drops" would do the trick, so I got a woefully underpowered ... something... from APC. Bad choice on my part - it didn't have the power to really sustain for more than a few seconds, but it was cheap and at the time all I figured I'd need. But this isn't about that - replace the battery (it's a few years old now) and it'll be great for small electronics, routers, phones, etc. No problem.
No, I went out to Best Buy and bought a Geek Squad 875va UPS. Nice display, decent size, and it does work well - I have (depending on what all I'm doing) 10-15 minutes of power. Plenty to wait out most small strikes, shut down gracefully and the like.
My gripe about it? The horrid software that comes with it (or is available for download.) It doesn't seem to like to start, or stay started, or detect the UPS (connected via USB cable - yes, I've changed the cable, ports, etc.) When it DOES, I frequently get "Cannot detect/Battery detected" back and forth. Not sure why. On top of it, while it does work when the monitoring software RUNS, the software interface wont' CLOSE. How'd they screw that up?
The software is, to me, important - it's what will auto-shut down the system with 5 minutes of battery power left (by how I normally set it.) If it won't run, or can't detect the UPS, well... it's not of much use to me. Uninstall, restart, reinstall every month or every other month just won't cut it.
The software is one of two reasons I didn't go with them for my work system. (The other reason being it's apparently not available now.) I have another, very similar system for working at home. For this, I went with APC - one that's a little lower rated (750va/450volts,) but close enough. (The other system isn't drawing as much anyway.) For that - I get powerchute software. Not only is the interface nicer, but the software behaves very well.
Honestly, if GeekSquad had decent software, I'd have no qualms about buying another UPS from them - but for the next system (whenever it may be,) it's getting another APC UPS. It just feels more reliable, not to mention the information is readily available on them pretty much anywhere. Geeksquad has to get its stuff together.
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