Automatic Voltage Regulation

Easily one of the most appealing features of the Belkin Universal UPS 1000VA is its automatic voltage regulation. I'm sure by now you've all heard that brownouts (when the voltage in a given area suddenly drops) can be just as destabilizing to electronics as power surges.

Basically the Universal 1000VA UPS automatically detects the voltage that it's receiving and should it drop too low (90 volts) or higher than (136 volts) the UPS will switch to its internal battery backup powersource. This means no matter what happens your PC will always stay on when there's trouble and that the electronic components that are hooked up to the UPS get clean stable voltages.

Please keep in mind that AVR only comes with the higher end UPS's, if you're using a cheap UPS or just a surge protector, you might want to consider getting a more comprehensive UPS which includes AVR if you have a lot of brownouts in your area.

Belkin Bulldog Software

As we mentioned earlier the Belkin Universal 1000VA UPS can be attached to the PC via USB or Serial cables and interact with the PC via Bulldog software for monitoring purposes, or to shut the PC down properly.

As you can see, Belkin's Bulldog software is pretty detailed, and gives the end user a lot of information. One great feature that's not found on the Belkin Home Office series of UPS's we tested is the load level on the UPS. Knowing how much stress you're putting on the UPS is great especially if you're thinking about plugging in another computer, or even a monitor.

Here are the meters which give you details about voltages and frequencies to and from the UPS. Seems as if the voltage within the PCStats office is a bit on the high side.

Should anything out of the ordinary happen you have many options. My favorite is the ability of the Bulldog software to e-mail you should there be power loss, load warnings, etc.

Best thing is, it's extremely easy to set up the email notices too! Keep in mind, the UPS must be connected to the computer with Bulldog installed for this feature to work - and if your network equipment is not power protected, it won't do much good. But, on the bright side, Bulldog can be set to shut down the computer in the event of a power loss on its own.