Home > Consumer Reviews > Belkin Universal UPS 800VA with USB & Serial Interface

I bought one of these a few months ago and it was real easy to set up, just plugged in the power for a few hours to charge it up, installed the drivers/software from a cd and then plugged in the cable to the pc. recognised immeadiatly by xp. software is easy to use and configure, powers my pc (hungry 650psu, inc a few cards, 2 hd's led's, 9 fans and 3 ext usb drives and my modem for about 20mins after i pull the plug, then auto shuts down my pc having safely closed al open programs! Would never want to run a pc without a ups again!

We're having constant supply problems at the moment with builders regularly causing the "trip" to activate and cutting off all supply to the 13amp supply. This Belkin UPS has been a godsend, easy to install and set up, and completely reliable at shutting every thing down neatly and without any fuss even when I'm not there so that when you start up again it is just as though I had switched off the computer myself in a orderly fashion. I am very impressed and pleased.

I knew about UPS devices but didn't think I'd need one myself; I thought surge protection was sufficient as our power supply was pretty reliable. Then one evening, every electrical device in the house flickered on and off rapidly for a minute. By the time I reached my PC, it was too late, it was a dead computer. I now have a nice, new powerful machine and I bought this Belkin UPS with my newly acquired 20/20 hindsight.
The device is silent, and does exactly what it professes to do. The only reason I haven't given it five stars is because the software doesn't yet support Vista 64bit. This means the automatic save and shut-down facility isn't available to me. This isn't really of any concern as I never leave the house with the PC left on, all I am interested in is the ability to close my machine down safely and to protect against an interrupted and erratic power supply. I can recommend this device to anyone who is considering buying one.

Had the 800VA Belkin UPS with no problems until just before the 3 year warranty was up, but then it suddenly failed twice - just dropped the output supply without warning - leaving my PC to recover from corrupted data (thankfully it's a RAID system). Strangely the arcane "Belkin Bulldog" monitor software didn't spot a problem in advance, and didn't seem to think that a persistent battery level of 5-10% was anything to worry about ! Effectively the UPS gives you "peace of mind" until it itself goes wrong, when it suddenly becomes your nemesis.

After over a week of exchanges with Belkin ("have you tried switching it off and on again ?" type of stuff), it turns out that they can't repair or replace it, because it's now obsolete.

>>> In fact more than that, Belkin say that they're getting out of the UPS market completely, so the 3 year warranty loses some of its appeal, becoming a straightforward money back deal. <<<

This works well as a UPS in that it protects against power cuts.

However mine makes a permanent buzzing noise - which is not excessively loud but in a quiet room can be clearly heard. When my desktop PC is on it's fans more than drown out the UPS noise!

Also using a power monitor I discovered the UPS uses an average of 37watts of power even switched off at the front. Only by switching it off then unplugging from the mains does it consume zero power. 38watts my not sound much but over a month if it was left on 24 hours a day it could be £24 a year extra on your electric bill ( assuming you use it for 12 hours a day anyway ). Plus not great for the environment!