UPS & 3B1 Anecdote

[Mark Horn]

In article <4491 at cbnewsj.ATT.COM> gnome at cbnewsj.ATT.COM (ronald.l.fletcher) writes:
>Some of both I guess. The reference manual claims the MAX power
>for the UNIXPC is 400 Watts. I ran an energy audit on my house
>last weekend to see what is costing me so much money and found
>the UNIXPC to be drawing .86 Amps (@120V). This was with heavy disk
>activity and the screen at full bright, 2 fans running on low.
>With the screen off and the disk idle the current went down to
>about .77. I didnt have the time to disconnect any fans to 
>check for a difference. This machine is configured with a 1MB
>mother board, a 40MB HH Microscience drive, 1/2Meg combo board, 
>1/2 MB RAM card and a VoicePower Board. All the ports and the VP were
>idle during the measurements. I wonder what you have to load these
>up with to reach the MAX.

I could ask someone around here what this means but perhaps an explanation will
be of general benefit to many people.  Given the above results and someone who 
wanted to get away with a cheap UPS, what kind of numbers should I look for?
I think Boyd Ostroff said that his power supply was 386 Watts (?).  Well, then
if the UNIXPC draws .86 Amps, what does this translate into for a reasonable 
UPS?  Say I want one that will last XX minutes, how do I translate .86 Amps into
XX minutes?  I assume that the rating on the power supply has everything to do
with it.  

Sorry if this is so obvious that everyone under the sun knows this, but I don't

Thanks for the help...
- sparkie
--
 ___  ___  ___  ___  _  _  _  ___
/ __\| . \/ . \| . \| |/ /|_|| _ |  "Mothers Against Skunks Driving...
\___\| __/|   || _ /|   < | || _[    ...because stinking and driving don't mix"
\___/|_|  |_|_||_|\\|_|\_\|_||___|          - heard on a madison radio station
ARPA:	harier!sparkie at cs.wisc.edu, sparkie at uhura.cs.wisc.edu
UUCP:	...{harvard|rutgers|ucbvax}!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!harier!sparkie