Problem with inversor + computer.

jeanchris

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Feb 27, 2012
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Hey Guys!

I am having a really big problem with my computer and inversor lately and it's starting to get really frustrating.

I'm not sure how it started because this inversor is less then 2 year old, with brand new battery but for some reason it can't take my computer anymore, everytime the street luz go and my computer is on with a few other things on in the house the inversor shutdown to not overload, so i guess my PC is sucking too much juice. What's weird is that it worked fine for 16-20 months and now all of sudden it's shutting down everytime. Even connected to an UPS the UPS shut's down before the battery jump's in and it doesnt protect my computer.

I have a big gaming tower, not small laptop or anything. Anyway, is there anything I can do to give more power to my inversor? What are my options other then buying another inversor? it's a 1.5 sinwave with 4 battery's
 

malko

Campesino !! :)
Jan 12, 2013
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Perhaps the inverter is not charging properly, sometimes la luz is too high, too low, too unstable.....
Or maybe even inveter is workimg full time ( as in providing electricity ), happened to me once.... and i didnt notice to the lights went off :)

Just thoughts.
 

jeanchris

Bronze
Feb 27, 2012
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hmm not sure, my knowledge in this kind of thing is not really good, but from what I know both electrician and inversor company told me the inversor is working 100% like it should.

I think it's just that too many things are connected at the same time on the inversor.

some guys told me i could buy a card to put in the inversor and give it more power, but didnt really understand what he meant.
 

malko

Campesino !! :)
Jan 12, 2013
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Hopefully someone with more knowlege can chime in.

I guess it depends on 1 hand of the inverters capacity ( shown in kwh, if i am not mistaken ) and on the other the # of batteries.

For an idea, i have 3,6k inverter ( i think ) and 8 batteries.
Maybe 10 hours of street luz, if i am lucky.
Well i can run an "american" type fridge, tv/dvd/stereo, ceiling fans, a chest freezer ( on low ) and of course lights and phone/tablet chargers.....
The batteries never run out, now that i have a stabilizer. Before that, i could think the street luz was powering the stuff, when in fact it was the batteries.
 

windeguy

Platinum
Jul 10, 2004
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Battery's are brand new and works 8hrs+.

Then it sounds like the inverter is being overloaded and shutting down to protect itself.
I would try a different inverter if possible to test that yours is indeed working properly.
 

jeanchris

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Feb 27, 2012
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Yep that is exactly what they told me, its shutting down du to overload. it's only 1500w and I have a lot of fan's, tv etc connected to it so I guess it's not powerful enough. I don't miss luz more then a few hours a month so I didn't see the necesity of buying something more poweful, wish I knew hehe!

Is there anything I can do too boost my inverter? Or is there any other good options to power my PC without luz/inverter?
 

windeguy

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Jul 10, 2004
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Yep that is exactly what they told me, its shutting down du to overload. it's only 1500w and I have a lot of fan's, tv etc connected to it so I guess it's not powerful enough. I don't miss luz more then a few hours a month so I didn't see the necesity of buying something more poweful, wish I knew hehe!

Is there anything I can do too boost my inverter? Or is there any other good options to power my PC without luz/inverter?

No such thing as boosting an existing inverter. What you need is a new inverter with a more powerful output section. The only thing that will work is upgrading the inverter to a 2.5 kW model. Trying to put a 2.5 kW output section into a 1.5 kW inverter would likely overload the transformer even it if fit.
 

jinty05

Bronze
Feb 11, 2005
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You could have an electrician re-balance what items that will run off the inverter ie reduce the load if you do not want to buy a more powerful model.
 

Cdn_Gringo

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Apr 29, 2014
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Just thinking out loud here...

Your setup worked just fine for well over a year. Same appliances, same computer I assume. Then something changed. What changed? new battery(s)?

A new battery doesn't mean a good battery. Your computer must have at least a 400W power supply, maybe larger. Most computers don't max out their internal power supplies but that tower could be sucking 300W - 350W at idle or more if playing a graphics instensive game leaving only 1000W or less for everything else. You don't say how many batteries are connected to the inversor. Are all the inversor batteries new or did you replace a subset of the batteries? This problem started after you changed the batteries right?

If not the batteries, and a component in the inversor is not in the process of failing and nothing else has changed in your casa, you have a mystery.

What you say about your UPS strikes me as odd. If the Luz goes out, and the inversor trips off because of an overload and your UPS is working properly, it should supply power to your computer for however, long it normally does. If the luz goes out and the UPS immediately shuts off, then your UPS batteries need to be replaced with new ones. I would think you have an inversor that produces a square wave. Don't worry about what that is for now. Your UPS is probably not going to be happy with that wave form even if the inversor is working properly. Without the street luz, your UPS is going to see a power failure and switch to its internal batteries. After a year or so of doing this a couple times a week, your UPS batteries will be burnt toast. The UPS will say they are fully charged but as soon as they are required to supply a load, the UPS will turn off.

How long after the luz cuts out before the inversor trips off? Right away, a few minutes or a variable length of time. You seem to think the computer is the problem. If the luz is out and the inversor is running and the computer is turned off, no inversor overload? After the inversor shuts down due to an overload and your reset the inversor without turning the computer back on does the inversor work ok?
 

jeanchris

Bronze
Feb 27, 2012
627
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Just thinking out loud here...

Your setup worked just fine for well over a year. Same appliances, same computer I assume. Then something changed. What changed? new battery(s)?

A new battery doesn't mean a good battery. Your computer must have at least a 400W power supply, maybe larger. Most computers don't max out their internal power supplies but that tower could be sucking 300W - 350W at idle or more if playing a graphics instensive game leaving only 1000W or less for everything else. You don't say how many batteries are connected to the inversor. Are all the inversor batteries new or did you replace a subset of the batteries? This problem started after you changed the batteries right?

If not the batteries, and a component in the inversor is not in the process of failing and nothing else has changed in your casa, you have a mystery.

What you say about your UPS strikes me as odd. If the Luz goes out, and the inversor trips off because of an overload and your UPS is working properly, it should supply power to your computer for however, long it normally does. If the luz goes out and the UPS immediately shuts off, then your UPS batteries need to be replaced with new ones. I would think you have an inversor that produces a square wave. Don't worry about what that is for now. Your UPS is probably not going to be happy with that wave form even if the inversor is working properly. Without the street luz, your UPS is going to see a power failure and switch to its internal batteries. After a year or so of doing this a couple times a week, your UPS batteries will be burnt toast. The UPS will say they are fully charged but as soon as they are required to supply a load, the UPS will turn off.

How long after the luz cuts out before the inversor trips off? Right away, a few minutes or a variable length of time. You seem to think the computer is the problem. If the luz is out and the inversor is running and the computer is turned off, no inversor overload? After the inversor shuts down due to an overload and your reset the inversor without turning the computer back on does the inversor work ok?

Yup, it worked fine for at least 1 year, I changed the battery because I tough they where the cause of this ( I didnt took good care of the previous set of battery, and the guy that came told me they were in bad shape, so I changed them, 4 total) all of them are brand new from PriceSmart.

The problem didnt start with the new set of battery, started with the old one. Nothing as changed in my house beside maybe adding an extra abanico or some small electronics devices that are connected, nothing crazy and i dont have any big appliance connected to my inverter.

If the street luz go and my PC is not working, it never happened once that the inverter went off, everytime this happened it was linked to my computer (and 3 monitor) being on at the same time. I know this is sucking a lot of juice.

For the UPS its exactly like you say Battery is charged but i think the UPS is toast, my inverter is a sin wave inverter.

Sometimes the inverter will shutdown and restart by itself right away, its like the whole house go in a total blackout for 2 seconds and then it come back.
 

msmfgf

New member
Jul 12, 2013
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something you can do is try to work out approx what load you have on the invertor
you say you have fans, lights, tv & the comp on the invertor - add up the total watts of those items - the comp, monitor & tv will have a label showing the watts, lightbulbs too. the fans will be between 50W & 100W each - double that on start-up.
you may be surprised how much power your poor little invertor has to supply - usually a 2.4 is used for a home bigger than a studio
 

jeanchris

Bronze
Feb 27, 2012
627
0
0
Yes that's what I will do for now, im gonna buy a new UPS, and when I use my PC I will try to keep everything else disconnect in the house. I wish i knew more about all of this back when I bought it, would have bought a 2.5 for sure. I might leave the country at the end of this winter so not sure I want to invest 25k+ pesos on a new invertor, meh!
 

jeanchris

Bronze
Feb 27, 2012
627
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0beb2200bcf25756a606c45fea4e05df.jpg


What about those settings, do they seem right? What's the difference between putting them down or up?

First red box : UP-UP-DOWN-DOWN
2nd red box(Charger) : UP-UP-DOWN-DOWN also.
 

AlterEgo

Administrator
Staff member
Jan 9, 2009
23,069
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South Coast
A 1.5 inverter will not power much at all. A few light bulbs, a fan, maybe a TV. I'd agree you're probably overloading.

There's no way to boost an inverter, you'll need to move up to a large size.

Or he can do what we did - buy a bigger one for the heavier duty electrical items, and leave that one for the fans, lights, TV. Our big fridge and small chest freezer are on a separate 3.0 inverter, I wish it was bigger.
 

windeguy

Platinum
Jul 10, 2004
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Or he can do what we did - buy a bigger one for the heavier duty electrical items, and leave that one for the fans, lights, TV. Our big fridge and small chest freezer are on a separate 3.0 inverter, I wish it was bigger.

Running two would also mean buying another set of batteries. I would just get a larger capacity inverter and keep the old one for an emergency back up to keep the lights on.
 

AZB

Platinum
Jan 2, 2002
12,290
519
113
didn't read the whole thread but here is my take:
you have a gaming computer, which draw's lots of current. I have a feeling you live in an area where you have frequent power shortages. You must have put your batteries to work during all those power outages. 2 batteries were enough in the beginning to juice up your high current system but now the time has come the 2 batteries can't charge up to max after 2 years of usage. The plates inside the batteries have corrosion and charge can't be built up to the max like when they were new. Maybe you have never bothered to check the water levels in the batteries all this time. when the water level goes down the batteries begin to go bad quickly. Always use battery water purchased from the store.
I don't know what system you have but since you have mentioned you have a gaming tower then it means you have a heavy duty cpu, AMD fx or maybe i7 intel quad core. the video card would be very heavy duty as well. all the components combined will draw a lot of current when playing a game on high frame setting. since your inverter was Ok in the beginning with your computer setup, the I would suggest to buy 4 new batteries this time around. do not add 2 new batteries to 2 old batteries. all have to be new. you will need twice as much time to charge all all the batteries to the max with the same inverter.
good luck.
AZB