"Line-interactive" UPS = continuous power conditioning?

[Anonymous user]

I'm a novice when it comes to electrical concepts and power supplies. I have need for a UPS to plug my desktop system into at my house, due to some old and faulty wiring in the building. But I'm not sure on exactly what type of UPS I need. I've lost a pair of LCD monitors and my wireless mouse to....I guess you'd call it "dirty" power flow. Both monitors blew inverter boards ( 22" and 24" LCDs) and my wireless mouse doesnt properly charge in its cradle anymore, so I figure the cradle lost its board as well since I know the battery is still good. The nice new APC surge protector I bought with line testing has the building wiring fault light on, so as best I've been able to figure out with some of my tech savvy friends is that there is a short in the wiring somewhere that is causing everything to not be properly grounded. Thanks to all the volatile weather we've had lately, there have been quite a few voltage sags and spikes as well.

I've done a bit of searching around, but I haven't been able to find in clear english, if the type of UPS I need would be a "line-interactive" model, or if I need something labeled as an "online" UPS. All I know is it needs to do continuous power conditioning / voltage regulation for whatever is plugged into it. Could anyone please help clarify exactly what the difference between these 2 types of UPS' are and which is the type that I need?

Message was edited by: Malakii

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Hello Adam,

I hope the link below would give you an idea on the two UPS systems.

[The different types of UPS systems|http://www.apcmedia.com/salestools/SADE-5TNM3Y_R7_EN.pdf]