Need advice - time to buy some new hardware

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Haole Boy

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Aloha everyone,

Looking for advice / recommendations on a couple of hardware purchases:

KVM Switch - what brand(s) have you had good experience with? Want the following features
  1. 4 ports​
  2. VGA or HDMI video​
  3. Bluetooth support for mouse and keyboard​
  4. non-proprietary cables to connect with client machines​
  5. USB A connections to client machines​
Desktop UPS - what brands work. I have a Cyber Power that self diagnoses as "good", but does not keep my PC from shutting off when the power drops for a couple of seconds.

Mahalo for your assitance!

Harry Z
 
Some of those retail UPS's don't really have any good reporting. If it just runs for a minute or two then it's time to pop in a new battery. Done that one mine as well as many others.

I second passing on BT. There's a reason why the world still runs on copper. Every customer I've ever had with BT has always had to get a regular KB and mouse for just in case. Or wait for me to come around.
 
@Stever I just prefer wireless mice. Keyboard is sort of a as long as i have a BT mouse...

@Markverhyden My current UPS doesn't keep the machine up at all. Even though when I do a self-test, it reports OK. So, I'm looking for a brand that will actually keep my machine up and running for several minutes when the power goes out.

@YeOldeStonecat Thankx for the info. I'm looking for a desktop KVM switch. Forgot to mention that in my original post. I'll take a look at the Startech offerings.

Mahalo
 
Haole Boy said:
@Markverhyden My current UPS doesn't keep the machine up at all. Even though when I do a self-test, it reports OK. So, I'm looking for a brand that will actually keep my machine up and running for several minutes when the power goes out.
Click to expand...

So if you have it plugged into the battery side of the outlets, unplug AC to UPS and the machine immediately dies?
 
Haole Boy said:
Aloha everyone,

Looking for advice / recommendations on a couple of hardware purchases:

KVM Switch - what brand(s) have you had good experience with? Want the following features
  1. 4 ports​
  2. VGA or HDMI video​
  3. Bluetooth support for mouse and keyboard​
  4. non-proprietary cables to connect with client machines​
  5. USB A connections to client machines​
Desktop UPS - what brands work. I have a Cyber Power that self diagnoses as "good", but does not keep my PC from shutting off when the power drops for a couple of seconds.

Mahalo for your assitance!

Harry Z
Click to expand...
RE: UPS
Are you aware that most of the UPS have small replaceable batteries in them? Similar to a small motorcycle or "jet ski" battery. Often they are cheap and easy to replace. Sounds like there's a good chance the battery (or batteries) is barely hanging on. Showing proper voltage, but not storing enough current to do its job. I see it alot with motorcycle and lawn tractor batteries.
 
Markverhyden said:
So if you have it plugged into the battery side of the outlets, unplug AC to UPS and the machine immediately dies?
Click to expand...

Yep, that's it

SlickMinnow said:
RE: UPS
Are you aware that most of the UPS have small replaceable batteries in them? Similar to a small motorcycle or "jet ski" battery. Often they are cheap and easy to replace. Sounds like there's a good chance the battery (or batteries) is barely hanging on. Showing proper voltage, but not storing enough current to do its job. I see it alot with motorcycle and lawn tractor batteries.
Click to expand...

Yes, I was aware that the batteries are replaceable. But did not think that I could find any here on Oahu. Much to my great surprise, I did find some, so my UPS is working again. Also found an older UPS laying around and bought a battery for it, too.

Mahalo for your responses!
 
I'm looking at both the Tripp Lite B006-VU4-R and the StarTech SV431USB 4 port KVM switches. Anyone have any experience with either of them? The Tripp Lite looks like it's a slightly newer design and supports higher video resolution, but other than that I don't see a lot of difference between them. Any / all opinions gratefully appreciated.

Mahalo,

Harry Z
 
Haole Boy said:
Yep, that's it



Yes, I was aware that the batteries are replaceable. But did not think that I could find any here on Oahu. Much to my great surprise, I did find some, so my UPS is working again. Also found an older UPS laying around and bought a battery for it, too.

Mahalo for your responses!
Click to expand...
Not sure of which model you have but most are very common as @SlickMinnow indicated. Burg and fire panels all have them inside as well as a lot of other control systems, like door entry.
 
Batterys need to be replaced on a schedule, at work we have been caught out too many times by equipment manufacts not telling us that something had a backup battery it it :(
The 2 worst examples are of an equipment manufact being taken over but no data transfer of the software for our machine, and the other one being having to use a crowbar to get 6 burst ( but not leaking ) sealed lead acid batterys that had wedged them selfs in, I was looking for Ni-Cd's when I found them !
A friend also had burst sealed lead acids lock themselfs into his UPS :(
 
Mahalo for the additional info @Markverhyden and @Stever. This was partly my fault as I believed the app for my UPS telling me that the batteries had enough life to run my machines for over an hour. So I did not run the self-test. Found out that this was not true when we had a couple of power outages. Ran the self-test and it failed! Lesson learned, always run the self test.

Mahalo for the feedback.
 
Haole Boy said:
I'm looking at both the Tripp Lite B006-VU4-R and the StarTech SV431USB 4 port KVM switches. Anyone have any experience with either of them? The Tripp Lite looks like it's a slightly newer design and supports higher video resolution, but other than that I don't see a lot of difference between them. Any / all opinions gratefully appreciated.

Mahalo,

Harry Z
Click to expand...
I've used a lot of Tripp Lite UPS in the past especially their 1500va units. Some here don't like Tripp Lite but they have been great for me and my customers. I used to leave a reminder on the calendar for battery change every two years but have since changed it to 3 years.
 
Diggs said:
I've used a lot of Tripp Lite UPS in the past especially their 1500va units. Some here don't like Tripp Lite but they have been great for me and my customers. I used to leave a reminder on the calendar for battery change every two years but have since changed it to 3 years.
Click to expand...
Trip Lite isn’t APC but I’ve never had problems with them either.
 
I had (have) several nice, older, rack mount APC UPS. I was fixing them up by adding new batteries. Tested by hooking up some of those cheap shop lights, about three or four with 150 regular light bulbs. Don't know if it was the best test, but figured it would be an approximated load in wattage and nothing of value could be damaged in the process.
 
Markverhyden said:
Trip Lite isn’t APC but I’ve never had problems with them either.
Click to expand...
Although I rate APC the best among UPSs an APC unit is the only UPS I've ever had fail on me personally. It was a Back-UPS 650 that blew chunks (a scientific American term) and rained electrolyte down on its battery. I'm assuming capacitors failed spectacularly. Quite the mess but it was ancient.
 
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