I have a 350VA UPS.
I am running a tower pc with 3 Hard drives.
last power failure the UPS lasted all of 30 seconds
should I upgrade to a 500VA unit?

Use it.

well i dun be known about no suplay or wtf enugth is.... its bad enough when I move letters around in a word.. but adding and removing letters at random isnt ok..

as for the ups deal.. what size ups are you running, how old is it, did it last at all, and is it just ur pc and monitor plugged into it.

if your computer turned right off then your battery is dead or the chargin mechanism is dead, which means get a new one... if it lasted a lil bit.. like 5 mins thats all most of the cheap ones are ment to run.. long enough for you to turn off your comptuer.. ups's are not intended to let you play your video game for a half hour without power.. if you want to do that get either a big ass ups.. server size, or get a generator.

as for size you might just have one that cant put out enough power for your tower and monitor.. check the watt usage of ur psu and the monitor and see if it is under the max for you ups.

I'm personally a fan of American Power Conversion (APC). You may look into using their trade-up program to get a newer UPS. I have several units from them and absolutley love them, I also have some from other companies which suffice. The most important thing to to know what the battery capacity is and the rated output of the conversion circutry.

Also note that unless you plan on spending several hundered dollars ($300+) they will not be sutible for extended operation (more than a few minutes) as it uses a "step wave" to simulate AC Power, not a sine wave. Stepwaves are very hard on voltage regulators and also make it impossible to "daisy chain" UPS devices to gain extended run times.

i agree, my house has 2 APC ups's and i have one in my dorm room.

you should check your battery in your if its dead, we replaced the battery in my dad's ups for 35 bucks as opposed to buying a whole new ups

Every time I read this thread, I can't stop laughing.