Setting Up & Testing

Once you connect the battery per the User’s Manual or the yellow sheet attached to the side of the APC Back-UPS 1300, and plug it into the wall, connect the RJ-45 to USB cable to the Data Port on back of the Back-UPS 1300, and an available USB port on your PC. Turn on the Back-UPS 1300. The following will be displayed on the LCD screen.

- The LCD backlight will come on.

- The ON LINE indicator flashes.

- The ON BATT indicator lights and flashes while a self-test is being performed.

- Once the self-test is completed, only the ON LINE indicator remains lit.

If you forgot to connect the battery, the Back-UPS 1300 will emit a high-pitched beeping sound and the ON BATT indicator will flash. By default, after 30 seconds the LCD display will turn off to conserve the backlight. This can be changed via the Power and Display buttons by following the procedure outlined in the User’s Manual, so that the LCD always stays on. Note that even with the LCD turned off in its default power-saver mode, it will immediately light up and display any pertinent information if a power event or diagnostic condition on the Back-UPS 1300 requires it to do so.

I have the following configuration connected to the APC Back-UPS RS 1300VA LCD 120V:

PowerChute’s interface is clean, simple and easy to navigate and use. With its functions divided into three separate categories, summarized explanations of what each option does is written in plain English so that you don’t have to be an Alpha Geek to use the software. Most of the functions—like adjusting the Sensitivity Controls—are redundant with those that can be performed from the LCD, Power and Display buttons on the front of the Back-UPS 1300, but are infinitely quicker and easier to access through PowerChute—especially if the unit is tucked away under your desk. What’s also nice about the interface is that no matter which section you’re in, you can always see the Estimated Battery run time, and whether or not you are on Battery or AC power.

PowerChute does not utilize the native UPS services in Windows or uses agents to protect any unsaved data in the event that the battery power runs down during a blackout. Instead, it uses the Hibernation feature in Windows. As it does when enabled by default on laptops, hibernation saves your current system state and places Windows into hibernation mode as the Back-UPS 1300’s battery reserves become depleted during a blackout. When power is restored and Windows is brought back up, the desktop is restored—open windows, applications, and files—to its previous state. This is why if you attempt to turn off hibernation, PowerChute will throw up a dialog box warning you that any unsaved data will not be protected if a blackout occurs and the UPS battery runs out.

Although PowerChute automatically performs a self-test every two weeks, it is recommended that when using your Back-UPS 1300 for the first time, that you perform a manual self-test by pressing the Self-Test button under PowerChute’s Monitor System category.

Installation was a breeze. It took me roughly a half-hour to disconnect the old UPS, connect the battery on the Back-UPS 1300 (which, as I expected was fully charged at 100%); plug in my rig and peripherals, install PowerChute and run a manual self-test. Everything worked out A-OK, which is what I have come to expect about APC products over the years. I tested the battery backup feature simply by disconnecting the power cord of the Back-UPS 1300 from the wall and monitoring PowerChute and the LCD display. Immediately, the alarm kicked off loud enough to hear in the room next to my office and the LCD display switched to On Battery Mode, telling me how many times in minutes were left on the battery. In Windows, PowerChute displayed an alert in the System Tray with information similar to the LCD. The Estimated Battery Time indicator immediately changed to Time Until Shutdown, showing me just that in minutes, while the Power Source indicator had changed from AC to Battery. I plugged the UPS back in, and everything switched back to normal and the alarm shut off. The blackout I had staged was recorded under the Performance and Current Status sections, and on the LCD under the Event Counter.

One other thing I tested was the load on the UPS. Over the years with the old SmartUPS 1000, as I progressively added more powerful hardware the load on the UPS increased. As a result, during a normal work session, I eventually wound up in a situation where the load was way over 50% on the UPS while it was on AC power, and found myself staring down the barrel of a measly 4-minute runtime on battery before the PC and everything else connected to the UPS, went dark. Ideally, you want to keep the load on the UPS as low as possible for two reasons. First, if the UPS goes on battery, the lighter the work load on the unit is, the longer the runtime you’ll have on battery power. Second, as you upgrade your system in the future, you’ll have more headroom without maxing-out the UPS while maintaining a comfortable margin of battery runtime.

Running Photoshop, Word, downloading E-Mail, a few large game patches; backing up my website and all the data in the My Documents folder down to my NAS and listening to my iTunes collection, the load on the Back-UPS 1300 barely peaked over 23%. Then I decided to break out the big-guns—Crysis—the new poster child for handing the most powerful PC hardware on the planet a world-class ass-whupping. Closing all non-essential programs, I launched the game and started playing. It wasn’t long before the fan on the GeForce 8800 GTX started ramping up as I ran through the game's lush island environment mowing down trees, North Korean troops and blowing up everything that wasn’t nailed down. The maximum load in percentage displayed on the LCD peaked at 39% during the heaviest firefights in the game in areas with dense foliage. On the old SmartUPS 1000 there were 5 LEDs that represented the current load on the UPS, with the first being the lowest, and top being the highest. On the old UPS, the fourth LED stayed lit most of the time with Crysis running full-bore, and there were more than a few occasions where the top LED lit up, too!

Final Impressions and Conclusion

Overall, I’m impressed with the Back-UPS RS 1300. Like all of APC’s products, the quality of the unit is excellent, and the manual is clear and easy to follow whether you’re a novice or experienced computer user. The product feature set is first-rate and for what you get, the price is very reasonable. I like the LCD display, which is easy to read at almost any angle and definitely prefer the information it provides over the LED-only models in APC’s lineup. The ability to adjust and tweak the Back-UPS RS 1300’s settings through PowerChute without having to reach under the desk and use the buttons on the UPS is a big plus—though the default settings will probably work just fine for the majority users who live in all but the worse areas with chronic power problems.

If there’s anything I would change about the Back-UPS RS 1300, it would be to add official 64-bit XP and Vista support to PowerChute Personal Edition—and some type of history function where you could either view a graph of the load on the UPS and power events over time, or export the information into a file so that you could graph the information yourself with your favorite spreadsheet program.

Over the years, I have personally used other power protection products besides APC, and have worked in companies that did the same. They have always cost less; but none of them have ever come close to the quality and reliability of APC’s products. After losing motherboards, RAM, and other hardware to other brand UPS and surge suppressors that ultimately didn’t measure up, I’ve stuck with APC products ever since and have never looked back or regretted it.

Whether you have an old unit to retire through APC’s Trade-UPS program or are at your wits-end with your existing power-protection solution and are looking for something better and more reliable, you’ll find the APC Back-UPS RS 1300VA LCD a worthwhile investment in protecting your PC and your data.

APC UPS Selector for PCs

APC Trade-UPS Program

APC Equipment Protection Policy