Portable Power Station And UPS For Power Outage For Laptop and External Monitors?

I occasionally have power outages where I'm located. The thing is I play online poker and that is my sole source of income. However, I do not make much money at all. It's enough to just get me by. My laptop is a Dell XPS 15 9520 and I have 2 external monitors. One is a 32' Samsung 4k monitor and the other is a Asus 24' monitor with 1920x1200 resolution. So the way I have my laptop and monitor currently set up is like this. 6 foot folding table. The 32' 4k monitor is right at the edge of the middle of the table. I have the 24' monitor to the right of it and put it diagonally. My Dell XPS laptop is put to the left side of the 32' 4k monitor and diagonally. I have my wired keyboard that I use and a Logitech trackball mouse. I have a Cyberpower 1500VA UPS that I bought many years ago and it's plugged into the wall outlet and I plug my laptop charger into the UPS and do that with 2 external monitors as well. I basically am using my laptop like a desktop as it's almost always plugged in.


The issue is the UPS battery is dead and has been for years. So if say a power outage happens, everything powers off. Like if I unplug the cable from the wall outlet, UPS immediately shuts down. It does show numbers on the screen display on the UPS but obviously none of that matters once the power goes out as it shuts off immediately. So based on that, I need new UPS batteries. It seems the model I have requires 2 batteries. The thing is many times for some reason, my UPS would unexpectedly shut down by itself. It would do that a few times within a short span and then I have to click on the power to power it back on. Does anyone know why it does that? The thing is I have been using this UPS as a surge protector the last few years as I read you can do that... but it just won't do anything when a power outage happens.


For my laptop, I have 2 power banks. One is an Anker 737 powerbank that is 24000 mah. The other is a Dell PW7018LC power bank that is 18000 mah. Now when I tested using my laptop by itself a while back without it being plugged in and when laptop battery is 100%... if I was to connect my Anker 737 power bank to it and use my laptop during the entire time, I notice my Anker 737 power bank goes from 100% battery to 0 in about 1 hour 5 minutes. When I did this with the Dell PW7018LC, I believe it was around 50 minutes before that went out. Does that sound correct? The thing is years ago when I had a Dell XPS 15 9550... I used a Dell PW7015L power bank that is also 18000 mah and I recalled I could get 1 hour 45 minutes before the power bank went from 100% to 0%. When I did these tests, I only used the default graphics card and not the Nvidia graphics card. So for the Dell XPS 15 9520, it was the Intel Iris Xe graphics. The thing is my older XPS laptop used a i5-6300hq processor. My Dell XPS 15 9520 has a i7-12700h processor so that explains why both of these power banks go to 0% faster than my older laptop right with the PW7015L? Now my Dell XPS 15 9520 laptop has Intel Iris Xe graphics card and Nvidia 3050. I actually use the Nvidia 3050 when playing online and I read it uses more power that way? Note... my older XPS 15 9550 laptop used a barrel connecting charger with the PW7015L. My current XPS 15 9520 uses usb-c so I had to buy the Anker 737 and the Dell PW7018LC for it. The issue is even with these power banks, it only charges my laptop and not my external monitors. I play online so playing so many tables on my Dell XPS 15.6' screen is not comfortable at all. I want to at least still be using my 32' 4k Samsung monitor.


The main issue I have with a power outage is the moment it happens, my laptop screen immediately turns black. The same happens with my 2 external monitors. So when this happens, I have to like push my wired keyboard that I use out of the way and move it upwards on my 6 feet folding table. Now my Dell XPS 15 9520 laptop, it has no usb-a ports. It has 3 thunderbolt ports. I use this Dell DA20 adapter that came with my XPS 15 9520 laptop. This Dell DA20A is connected to my thunderbolt port on my laptop. I have a 4 port sabrent usb-a connected to it to give me more usb-a ports. The other thing this Dell DA20A has is an HDMI port. So I connect an HDMI to VGA cable from it to my 24' Asus 1920x1200 monitor. Now on the other side of my XPS 15 9520 laptop, there are 2 thunderbolt ports. The top thunderbolt port is for my usb-c laptop charger from Dell. The thunderbolt port below that... is a display port to displayport cable to my 32' 4k Samsung monitor. So when the power outage happens, I need to unplug my hdmi to VGA cable from the Dell DA20A adapter. Then I have to unplug the display port to display port cable from my 32' 4k Samsung monitor. Then I unplug my Dell laptop charger from it. Then pick up the Dell laptop and put it right on the folding table. I used a Logitech trackball mouse with it. Now that sabrent 4 port usb-a that I have, I connect a wired keyboard to it and my Logitech wireless mouse.

Now when the power outage happens, I have to then turn on my data on my iphone. I have to turn personal hotspot on. Then I would connect to the hotspot from my laptop so I could continue playing. I would then plug in one of my 2 power banks to it while continuing to play. I read a while back that you should use your power bank first even if your laptop is 100% battery because if you decide to use your laptop until it goes to 20% or 10% and then plug in your power bank, the power bank would actually run out faster? That is true right? So during this whole time, I would play tables while on my laptop screen only and it is extremely uncomfortable. If say the power outage still hasn't come back and the Anker 737 power bank runs out of battery, I connect my other Dell PW7018LC power bank to it. If once that power bank runs out, all I have is my Dell laptop battery. The thing is my Dell laptop battery probably would last maximum 2 hours. I say it's probably 1.5 hours or so because I haven't replaced the battery since I gotten this laptop over 2.5 years ago. So I would say if power outage happens, I get 1 hour 5 minutes on Anker powerbank. 55 minutes with Dell PW7015LC. And 1.5 hours at most with my Dell XPS laptop. So I have at the most 3.5 hours of backup power in case of a power outage.


So if a power outage happens later on in my session when I'm close to done for the day, that isn't a big deal. Like if I have say a few tables left and I would need at most 2 hours. Of course playing the few tables on the laptop screen isn't comfortable. The disaster happens if it happens during the middle of my session. Like if I have a lot of tables going on and I know I have to play for another 6 hours minimum. So if this happens, I need to find a place outside that has power but when power outage happens, almost always there is heavy rain and some places don't have backup power. Now if this happens right when I start my session, it's very bad as well. As imagine I plan to play at least 8 hours... and well once I register for a few tournaments, these would last at least 8 hours if you get to play it all the way to the end. Of course many times at many tables you might bust out in minutes or an hour or few hours. So the thing is when a power outage happens, I unregister from any upcoming tournaments for the day.


The issue with a power outage is since I'm immediately disconnected, my hands are folded. Recently when this happened, it took me a bit to disconnect my cables from my laptop and then connect to my personal hotspot and then got back to my tables. The issue is by the time this happened, most of my chips were gone at my tables as it would fold my hands automatically as I was sitting out. So this would cost me a good amount of money. Imagine being down a good amount of money for the day when you could be potentially be at least breakeven or up a bit but your power went out.

So based on what I described, the first thing I should do is buy 2 replacement batteries for my Cyperpower 1500 VA UPS right? Because the moment a power outage happens, well I would have at least 30 minutes or so? I think the UPS I have probably gives me an hour or so before it runs out? I would be connecting my laptop and my 2 monitors to it. The thing is when playing online tournaments, there is a 5 minute break every hour at 55. So I have a few minutes to figure out what to do if my power still hasn't come back. The thing is the UPS probably gives me 1 hour of backup? The thing is I read people connect their routers to the UPS but for me, I'm fine just using my data on my phone as a personal hotspot. The thing here is I believe the internet is down when a power outage happens so connecting a wireless router wouldn't work when the internet is down. Of course, I have to make sure my iphone has enough battery since it uses a lot of battery when using it as a hotspot.


I asked this a while back and recall people said you could buy multiple UPS but that would cost a good amount of money. Some people said a UPS isn't suppose to be meant to be used this way. I recalled someone saying you could buy a car battery and charge it and if you buy a few of them, it could even last 12 hours or more? However, I never owned a car ever and don't even know where to start. The other issue is I read it gives out fumes and is dangerous and you cannot keep it inside the apartment right? I do have a balcony but that isn't a good idea?


I then read about power stations but never knew what it was. I then read about jackery, ecoflow and bluetti power stations. Does anyone have experience with these things? Like when I check ecoflow power station, one is 768wh and 800w input Some are even less wh. The thing is how long would that last if I connect my XPS laptop to it and my 2 monitors? What about just my Dell XPS laptop? Now if the Anker 737 powerbank that has 24000 mah gives my XPS laptop 1 hour 5 minutes... what would that ecoflow power station with 768wh give? What about jackery?


Now if I want say 5 hours of power backup for my laptop and 2 external monitors... what would be the minimum amount of wh I would need from the power stations? Which power station or power stations should I buy? Do people just have 1 or many buy 2 of them? There seems to be some that cost 3000 dollars which is ridiculous but those are for people who are living outside the grid or want to charge everything. For me, I only need it to charge my laptop and 2 external monitors. I don't need it for my fridge since a power outage here usually isn't more than 48 hours at the max. It's more like 24 hours at the most. But most power outages here are minutes to a few hours at the most. But many are like an hour or so. But having no monitor while playing on my small laptop screen is basically almost unplayable. So a UPS would give me at least 1 hour right? Then which power station should I buy? So in my situation, when a power outage happens, continue playing while I still have immediately backup power with my UPS. Then the moment the 5 minute break happens, disconnect all my charging cables from the UPS and plug it all immediately to the power station right? Now... if it shows I have still over an hour on my UPS, use it for another hour before I then disconnect all the cables and then connect to the power station?


I'm curious if anyone here has these portable power stations and how long it would charge their laptop and say 1 monitor or 2 monitors during a power outage while you continue to use it? Thanks.

Does anyone have any opinion on this? What would be a good option to have for power outage where you want your laptop and at the 32' 4k monitor to have power for at least 5 hours or so?


So replace the UPS batteries and that should give the laptop and the monitor 1 hour or so? Or it wouldn't give that much even? I have 2 monitors but want to have power for at least one monitor.

Sounds like you might do well with a power inverter which can convert 12VDC to 110 VAC using an automobile battery. There are several available for under $100. I have used one to power a laptop, desktop and tablet in the past.

Also, please do replace the battery cells in your UPS.

Hope this helps.

How many times are you going to keep asking the same questions? IMO, it gets old!

Edit: Does this look familiar? Backup Power Options for Laptop When Power Outage?

Okay so replace the batteries for the Cyberpower UPS. So that would give 1 hour or so backup power?

Well when I asked this question a while back, I didn't even know about portable power stations. I didn't know about jackery, ecoflow and bluetti. These seem to be the idea thing to use?

There are a lot of portable power stations with jackery, ecoflow and bluetti. Someone mentioned that if a power station has say 1070wh, then it would give 9 hours to my laptop. It would give about 5 hours to my laptop and the 2 external monitors. Would that be right? So if I want 5 hours of backup power, get a power station with at least 1000 wh?

So, is this a Windows 10 related or Windows 11? Why the duplicate post?

I only read a fraction of your post, but one thing to consider...

Most UPS use lead acid batteries. Good for a couple years, then you are buying new batteries. But FINALLY the manufacturers of power stations are fixing that. Ecoflow recently released the River 3 Plus which features a true full UPS with communication via USB to the PC. If you need a larger battery there is also the Delta 3 Plus which also has the UPS.

These units use the new LiFePo4 batteries which have 3,000 charge discharge cycles. The Delta actually has a new gen of those batteries good for 4,000 cycles. That means you could completely charge and discharge it EVERY DAY for over 10 years. Plus, they also double as highly capable power station.

Just something to consider.

Well my UPS is very old. The battery has been done years ago. So I only used the UPS as a surge protector so to speak.


The thing is how long would it power on my laptop and 2 monitors though if I get replacement batteries? I need 2 batteries for this UPS.


Okay so those power stations is what one should want for an extended power outage and you want say 5 hours of power bank for laptop and 2 monitors right? So I would get 5 hours of power backup on my laptop and 2 monitors with a power station that has 1000 wh? The thing is how much watts does my xps laptop draw if connected to UPS or power station? Since my Dell laptop charger is the regular 130 watts... it would draw 130 watts? Or it might be 90 watts or 65 watts? How big of a difference would it be if say I was using the Nvidia 3050 compared to using the Intel iris xe graphics card? Like say I try using my laptop with either of these to try to test it out.

Remember that your Dell charger is designed to handle the maximum amount of power that the system will draw. That is when it is under heavy load, the battery is low and is being charged, the display is on at full brightness, etc. If the system is just idling and the battery is charged, you will only draw a fraction of that power.

Suggestion: On Amazon and elsewhere you can get for really cheap meters that measure how much power something is drawing. You might consider picking one up to see in real time exactly what your various devices draw at various time (under load, at idle, etc.).

Below is a link to just one example. Please note that I simply pulled that one as an example, I have no experience with that particular unit so you may want to compare with others.

Submitted my response too quickly. Meant to add this...

Once you have a rough idea what your total power draw is, you can do the calculations like this:

The formula is Watt hour rating for the UPS divided by power draw of all attached devices equals the number of hours it can supply that amount of energy. So, suppose I have a UPS that is rated for 1000 Wh. That means that it can supply 1000 Watts for 1 Hour (assuming it can actually deliver 1000 W of power). Or it can do 500 W for 2 hours (1000/500 = 2), or 100W for 10 hours (1000/100 = 10), or 2000W for 30 minutes (1000/2000 = 0.5). Just bear in mind that you cannot draw more than the maximum that the unit is capable of supplying.

hsehestedt said:

Remember that your Dell charger is designed to handle the maximum amount of power that the system will draw. That is when it is under heavy load, the battery is low and is being charged, the display is on at full brightness, etc. If the system is just idling and the battery is charged, you will only draw a fraction of that power.

Suggestion: On Amazon and elsewhere you can get for really cheap meters that measure how much power something is drawing. You might consider picking one up to see in real time exactly what your various devices draw at various time (under load, at idle, etc.).

Below is a link to just one example. Please note that I simply pulled that one as an example, I have no experience with that particular unit so you may want to compare with others.

Amazon.com

Click to expand...

Well the Dell charger is 130 watts. So the lowest my laptop draws is 45 watts or so? Or it could be lower? But when using it normally, it's probably 90 to 130 watts? So rarely it would ever go 130 watts?

So if one wants 5 hours of backup power for laptop and 2 monitors, get a power station that has at least 1000 wh then correct?

I'm curious but could you use a portable power station like a UPS or not?


Example you charge your portable power station to 100% and keep it plugged in your wall out. You then plug laptop and 2 monitors to it. Then use it like a UPS or surge protector. Then if power goes out, well you still have power until it runs out. Or you can't do that? Or if you do that, the portable power station will wear out real fast? I read these portable power stations are good for 10 years and there is a 5 year warranty.


Or is the proper way to use the portable power station is charge it to 100%. Then just leave it there? Then only connect your devices to it when needed? That would be how most people use it right? However, if you charge it to 100% and don't use it for weeks or months, isn't the battery going to discharge during that time? I can't imagine it stays at 100%?

If the adapter is 130W that is the max power it can provide so it will never draw more than 130. When idle, who knows, it depends upon the system. It might be 40W, it might be 5W. You would have to measure it to know.

As for the power station, yes, you can use many of them similar to a UPS. I say similar because most have no communication link to the PC to tell the PC to shutdown when the power station is approaching empty. The only models that I am aware of that have true "pro grade" UPS abilities are the EcoFlow River 3 Plus and the EcoFlow Delta 3 Plus. Plus, those models have a <10mS switchover while most power stations are 20 - 30mS. Note that for a laptop the switchover speed does not matter because a laptop contains an internal battery that can power the laptop if the switch is slow.

I HIGHLY suggest these power stations, however. The latest all use LiFePo4 batteries with 3000+ charge/discharge cycles until capacity drops to 80% of new. The old-style UPS systems use sealed lead acid batteries which support very few cycles and are typically dead in a few years. The power stations are good for 10 years easy.

Typical usage would be to leave the power station plugged in and charged to 100 per cent all the time. That way if power goes out you have the maximum amount of available time to power your computer and any accessories. As I noted earlier the problem with most power stations is that they have no communication back to the computer. This means that when the power station loses power because the battery is empty the power to the computer will simply be abruptly cut off and the computer will not shut down cleanly. The assumption is that you will be there to manually perform a shutdown of the computer. With the EcoFlow units that I noted, because they have true UPS functionality, they have a USB connector devoted to connection to the computer. That way when the power station is about to run out of power it sends a signal to the computer telling it to perform an orderly shutdown. Also, you would typically leave your devices connected to the power station at all times. After all, if your equipment is not connected to the power station, how is it going to protect your equipment if the power suddenly goes out?

As for leaving the power station charged to 100 percent you are correct in that if you put the power station away for months at a time it is generally recommended to charge them up every six months or so although that recommended time may vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.

You also asked what capacity unit you would need to power a laptop and two monitors for 5 hours. That is not something that I can tell you. You would need to know how much power your laptop and monitors draw. Note that the ratings on those devices may not indicate how much power you draw when the system is idle. I would strongly suggest getting a power meter because they are so cheap and it's the only real way that you're going to do proper planning. Of course, if you don't care how long the runtime is you can just get a power station that is capable of supporting the maximum draw of both the laptop and the two monitors and that way you know you will at least have power for an undetermined amount of time until the power station battery dies. Some people don't care how long their computer gets power they just want the power station to power the computer long enough that they can perform an orderly shutdown themselves. If you need your computer and monitors to stay powered when you are not present or if you want them to be powered for a long period of time, then you would of course want a larger capacity power station.

So, there are two main things that you are looking for from a UPS or a power station. The first is how much power the power station can supply. For example, if you have a power station that can handle a maximum load of 300 watts then all the attached devices must consume at most no more than 300 watts or else they will overload the power station. The other factor is the capacity of the power station. The larger the capacity the longer it can power the devices that are attached.

There really is not a concern about leaving these running 24 by 7. Again, bear in mind that these new power stations have over 3000 charge and discharge cycles and the delta unit actually has a newer generation of the batteries that are good for 4000 charge discharge cycles. What this means is that you could fully charge and fully discharge the unit once every single day and still be good for over 10 years. Put another way, the batteries are likely to die of old age before they are from usage.

I hope that I have answered your questions but if I have missed anything, anything I have said is unclear, or you simply have more questions please don't hesitate to ask. Years ago, when I was a Technical Support Engineer, I was actually the UPS specialist for our organization so I got to know quite a bit about them, so hopefully I'll be able to answer any questions you may have.

My apologies there was actually one more thing that I wanted to say but forgot. Those power meters that I previously referenced that you can buy so cheap from places like Amazon, my suggestion would be to look for one that measures the total amount of energy used over a period of time. That way you can determine how much power you use in a typical day. That will take into account the highs and the lows and give you an average usage for the day. This way you'll get a real world measurement of what your equipment is actually typically using and not just what it is using at that instant in time. Once armed with that information then you can make good sound judgments on what capacity power station you would actually want to power your systems for the amount of time that you wish.

If you need more information regarding this with some specific examples of doing the calculations I'd be happy to supply that.

Thanks for the response. You say some power stations allow a max of 300 watts, well that won't be an issue in this situation right since it's a laptop and 2 monitors? The xps laptop draws max 130 watts. The 32' 4k monitor draws max 59 watts. The other 24' 1920x1200 monitor draws max 45 watts I believe.


The thing is a 1000 wh portable power station should give 5 hours of backup power for the laptop and the 32' 4k monitor and the 24' 1920x1200 monitor? Say laptop draws 100 watts and the 2 monitors draw 104 watts. That is like 200 watts. So that would be about 5 hours?

The thing is when a power outage happens, I don't want any downtime. By that I mean I want my laptop and monitors to continue working. So I could do that with a portable power station connected to my laptop and 2 monitors and have it connected to it like a UPS? Thus the current way I have it done with the UPS now? Except when power goes out, the UPS immediately powers off and then I have to disconnect my 2 monitors from my laptop so I could use the laptop by itself.


The thing I thought was get replacement UPS batteries. Have it installed. Have the laptop and monitors connected to it like normal. Then when a power outage happens, I would continue using it like it is... until the UPS powers off or when there is that 5 minute break at 5 minutes before the hour. Then I would disconnect the cables from the UPS from my laptop and then connect those same cables to the portable power station. Then use it until the power station runs out of battery. Is this the preferred way? The thing is I don't want any downtown at all while I'm currently playing where I have to disconnect my cables if you know what I mean.


Like if say a power outage happens at 6:10pm. I continue using my laptop and monitors connected to the UPS. But say the UPS only lasts 30 minutes and it's 6:40pm, well I am going to have some downtime disconnecting my cables from UPS and connecting them to the portable power station. But it say a power outage happens at say 6:30pm, well if the UPS lasts 30 minutes till 7pm, that is fine because there is a 5 minute break at 6:55pm so I would then disconnect the cables from the UPS and connect it to the portable power station so that way I didn't miss any action. Does that make sense?


The thing is if the UPS gives me say 55 minutes of backup power, then I won't have any downtime when going from UPS to the portable power station. But the thing that is confusing is you are saying there is no issue using the portable power station like a UPS? I would thought it uses more battery this way and wears it out? I thought just keep the power station there until you need it. Wouldn't that make the portable power station last longer or it's the same?


You mention it would last 10 years so that would mean you are using it quite frequently? I only would use it when I have to during a power outage. So I thought use UPS as is and if power still hasn't come back or UPS runs out of battery or there is the 5 minute break, then switch to the portable power station which should have close to full battery?