We've had a couple of brief power outages at home recently and each time even though I have a large APC Uninterrupted Power Supply under my rig, an active FS2004 has been kicked to the desktop although the PC remains on and OK. I thought that this kind of arrangement would keep the sim alive and working through power outages but the sim obviously crashes. Is this normal even with a UPS?JS

If your UPS is indeed working, and any software associated with the UPS is not directed to shut down applications, your PC should continue to function as normal.One thing about UPSs is that the batteries do not last forever and just because they indicate a charge does not mean the batteries are healthly.If you count on your UPS you should periodicly check it by unplugging from the wall (simulating a loss of power) and observe that your computer still functions properly. Also, under sizing a UPS for a particualr system can induce problems.

I have found, using various brands of UPS's, (Tripp-Lite, APC, etc.) that none of them handle momentary power outages well. A "blink" or momentary interruption of AC power will not be instantly detected by the UPS and consequently anything attached will be affected. This has been my experience using these UPS's in multi-server environments.Right now for example I'm having a tough time with a NAS that, even though it is attached to a UPS, a blink seems to have corrupted one of its mirrors.At home on my FS rig I have a small APC UPS. It works fine if I unplug it from the wall, kicking in normally. But a power blink? No way. We had one about a month ago and it was sayanara. (sp?).RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

Rhett:This is EXACTLY what we've had in abundance recently--a series of power "blinks" as you describe. The last series of "blinks" threw all my GoFlight units out of sync and I had to disconnect and reconnect all 11 units to get back to normal. It was maddening.Thanks for your post. It's not much comfort in one sense but it's good to know I'm not the only one with these annoyances.JS

Dang Guys...If I was experiencing those "blinks" on my system, my undies would be totally bunched up.I've used APC ups-es for all of my 15 yrs of home computing. For the last, well, almost 2 years, I've been using their "Back-UPS RS 1500VA" http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techsp...total_watts=200It squawks once in a while, and we have our lights flicker... not often, but it happens. Never have I noticed the slightest hiccup with my system. Really surprises me to hear that experience about an APC ups.I kind of hate recommending a $200+ ups because if you bought it and something bad happened you might say, "u u u u" but it works "perfect" for me.Rob O.