You can silence the chirping easily
My old APC, a ES 750 Backups, was bought in 2008, and the battery on it just failed (yes, it lasted TEN years). That unit was a replacement for an APC I bought at a retail store which was at the end of its warranty, but the battery died. I called APC back then, and they sent me the replacement at the end of the warranty life for free. APC had the best customer service in the business, and despite not calling them this time, I have no reason to think it's changed. I ordered a replacement battery for that 2008 ES750 (I got the Keyko here on Amazon- will see how long it lasts), and it's back in business. If I get another 5 years out of it, one APC purchase will have lasted 20 years and still going. APCs are incredibly reliable, they honor their warranties, and they appear to last forever. Nothing I've seen anywhere says different. I purchased this APC 1500VA because I wanted longer backup battery life, and moved my old APC ES750 to protect my Comcast router. Once a year or so, we have a tropical storm or hurricane that cuts our power for an hour, up to days in a rare hurricane. A 1500 should double the up time of a 750. Also, this has a display that shows the condition of the battery, the amount of power being used, and power load. The old ES750 did not. This unit is amazing. I have a full gaming PC, monitor, sound system, printer, 2 lamps plugged in, and the load bar is barely to 1/3. With the PowerChute software installed (first time I've ever installed it), it says I am drawing 99 watts of power right now (I have printer shut off when not in use). The Estimated battery time is 61 minutes if the power source goes down. There was no discount of any kind available, so before buying I compared every backups before paying the higher price for this APC brand. The difference was a couple of dollars more, but for something that could possibly last 20 years, saving a few dollars was not worth the headache of an unreliable unit or unresponsive customer service. Reviews always make a difference to me in a buying decision, I wanted to address some of the reviews that may have turned me off from choosing this model. 1. The unit makes excessive noise. - I have it positioned under my table, more than 18" away from my actual PC (PC faces my chair, this is turned sideways to face the wall with the connectors facing the PC at a 90 degree angle). The unit is SILENT. It makes NO noise. NO buzz, NO hum that can be heard over my near silent PC fans. I have no idea about the specifics for servers, or how far it should be away from equipment to prevent feedback loop, but for home use, the unit is silent and works flawlessly. 2. The horrible chirping when the battery or AC power dies. I totally relate to this, it's exactly what happened when my old ES 750 went, and it drove me almost bonkers. It is LOUD. If you unplug the unit, the chirping would not stop until you physically removed the battery itself. THIS unit has a mute button, it's the top left button on the unit. I haven't heard the alarm sound on this yet, nor do I want to unplug to test because getting to the plug behind all my computer equipment is a contortionist exercise. But my old APC did not have a mute button, so I assume that's what this is for. There's a feature in the Powerchute program however that allows you to "DISABLE THE BATTERY BACKUP ALARMS AT ALL TIMES" (as well as "Disable the battery backup alarms when the PC is in hibernation"). So you never need hear the alarm if you don't want to, ending the annoyance once and for all. My little APC ES 750 protected my PCs through 3 major hurricanes and 4 serious tropical storms, one of which destroyed my roof. With that one unit, I have never lost a single PC to massive power spikes, something that happens continuously with brownouts as they try to restore power after each major storm to the area. Some neighbors have lost PC's plugged into regular surge protectors. The ability to protect data lines seems to help too, my mom once fried a PC while it was shut down and she was on vacation, the only explanation was a spike through her data lines. The only downside is the weight... to compare it to a brick would be absurd, it is many times the weight of a brick. It's HEAVY. But that's because this is a huge battery and it's all battery weight. Be prepared for the weight, at about 1/6th the size of my loaded tower PC, this weights 4x more. APC are the best, hope this helps! Read more
