Active PFC Power Supply Unit and APC UPS compatibility

[ksipsi]

Hello,
I recently bought an APC BACK-UPS RS 1500VA 230V. After I had bought it i found out that there is a rumor in the Internet that this series of UPS is not compatible with PSUs that have Active PFC.
Is that so ?
Did anyone ever used this UPS with a UPS that was Active PFC ?
I have dual PSU configuration in my system, one is active PFC (Fortron FSP Epsilon 700W) and one that it is not so obviously I am concerned about the Fortron.
Any knowledge, and even better, any kind of experience about this will be much appreciated !

P.S. Sorry for any grammar mistakes

[Pgh]

I had 2 APC RS1500s die in a somewhat scary way in a 10 month period recently. They gave a loud pop when turned on and died. Fortunately the computer that was connected was not harmed.

That computer has an Antec Phantom 350 power supply (US model, not Active PFC) and it certainly draws no more that 200 watts.

Both UPS were replaced by APC without charge. I asked the APC tech support agent if there was a known problem with this model but he said no. I have the 3rd one now but I haven't tried using it yet.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hello,

I'm not sure how having PFC, which reduces the "noise" that gets fed back into the AC plug, could be a problem? If anything, it would/should make the UPS's job easier?

I have several APC units, and I have had a Belkin, and neither brand has ever failed for any other reason than worn out batteries (they were several years old).

[Oleg Artamonov]

I have dual PSU configuration in my system, one is active PFC (Fortron FSP Epsilon 700W) and one that it is not so obviously I am concerned about the Fortron.

Some A-PFC PSUs are incompatible with line-interactive UPSes, but Epsilon works fine.

[zistu]

I'm using a combination of the following products without any issues:

APC Smart UPS 1000
APC Smart UPS SC 420

With the following PSUs:

Corsair HX620W
Corsair HX520W
Corsair VX450W

Right now both of the machines with the HX model are connected to the 1000 UPS, the VX to the 420. But as said, no issues what so ever.

I've seen the rumours myself too and did a lot of digging to find out if I would have problems myself, but in the end I could not find anything conclusive, and just went ahead with the purchases. Not sure if I got lucky or not, but it works.

[Oleg Artamonov]

I've seen the rumours myself too and did a lot of digging to find out if I would have problems myself, but in the end I could not find anything conclusive, and just went ahead with the purchases. Not sure if I got lucky or not, but it works.

Corsair 620HX:
"I checked the PSU out with an APC SmartUPS SC 620, and the UPS’ indicator would report overload at a load of over 365W and 330W when working from the mains and batteries, respectively. Switching to the batteries was performed without problems"

Most modern PSUs doesn't have any problems working with UPS.
Problematic PSUs are FSP PLN and PFN series (but not newer GLN/HLN), Delta Electronics units, some Hipers...

[ksipsi]

OK i connected the UPS to my computer and everything went well. No smoke no explosion no burnt hardware at all!
The only thing is that when the UPS is operating on batteries the psu with the Active PFC makes a strange sound but it works though. Is this normal or is the sign of something bad happening ?

P.S. I would like to thank everybody for their responses! Thanks a lot guys!

[Oleg Artamonov]

Is this normal or is the sign of something bad happening ?

Normal.