Back UPS and PowerChute Personal 3.0.2 -Computer does not come back on after power is restored

[jimn_apc]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 5/25/2013

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Hello,

I have a new Back UPS 550G and have been testing it with the PowerChute Personal 3.0.2 Software, and when I pull the plug, every thing works as expected, i.e., the balloon pops up, 1 minute later the Hibernate dialog comes up, and 10 seconds after that, the machine hibernates. One minute after that, the monitor loses power (standby light goes out). If I plug it back in, the monitor returns to stand by (no signal) but the computer does NOTHING - unless I set the BIOS "AC Back" setting to "Full-On." Meaning that anytime the computer has been without power, e.g. unplugged or the power supply rocker switch turned off so I can work on it, as soon as power is restored, it starts up. This is an inconvenient side effect.

Is this the way it is supposed to work, or is there another way to get the USB port to wake it up after power has been withdrawn.

I have a GIGABYTE GA-H55M-USB3 Motherboard with an Intel Core I3 processor, and Award Bios, the latest offered by Gigabyte, and Windows 7 Professional 64 bit.

Any ideas?

Thank you,

Jim

[BillP]

This reply was originally posted by Angela on APC forums on 5/28/2013

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Yes, I believe that is the issue here based on article ID FA159550 in our knowledge base (http://www.apc.com/site/support/index.cfm/faq/)

[jimn_apc]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 5/28/2013

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Angela,

Thank you for your reply. The BIOS "Power-Back-On" setting does seem to be involved here. I found that if I set it to "Memory" (last known awake state). I could put the computer to sleep (which is hybrid sleep and also does a hibernate), and if I toggled the rocker switch on the power supply off then on, it would come roaring back to life, of course having lost the RAM and needing to resume from the hibernate file on disk. Sadly, when I sent it directly to "Hibernate" (without going to Sleep first), Removing and then restoring power did not bring it back to life until I hit the power button.

I cannot find a way to set the PowerChute software to simply put a computer to sleep (knowing that "hybrid sleep" would also trigger a hibernation save), which would allow the computer to come on when power is restored. Can the action labelled "Shut down" in PowerChute be changed?

I'll also be pursuing the BIOS side of things to see if there's a way to get it to wake up from S4 (hibernate) on return of power.

Thank you for your help.

Jim

[BillP]

This reply was originally posted by Angela on APC forums on 5/28/2013

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Hi Jim,

Thanks for the further information and clarification on your situation. I just relayed this to Bill P. (my PowerChute loving co-worker ) as he handles support for this product regularly.

[jimn_apc]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 6/10/2013

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Hi Angela,

Should I be posting to a different group? Calling Tech Support? I never did hear from Bill P, but I have been doing some experimenting and learning.

Clearly, the only way the computer can "know" that it needs to start up (unattended) is when it sees power again.

• I can set the BIOS to turn the system on immediately whenever AC Power is "restored," which really means any time I plug into a wall outlet (in addition to power restoration after failure). This is a  bit awkward.
• I can set it to turn on immediately whenever power is restored and it was in state S3 (sleep) before power went out. (on the face of it this seems odd but see below Hybrid sleep).
• I cannot get it to turn on if it was left in state S4 (hibernation). This is where Powerchute leaves it.

OK you may be wondering, what is the point of putting a computer to sleep just before withdrawing power from it? Sleep depends on power. The answer is that Windows uses (unless the feature is disabled) Hybrid Sleep: It goes through all the motion of getting ready to hibernate, i.e., writes out the hiberfil.sys and saves the state, but then Sleeps, i.e., enters S3. The idea is that most of the time you don't lose power and just wake from S3 sleep,, but it you do, the computer can just resume from  hibernation. The key is it never enters S4.

Re-applying power cannot restart it from S4. Now if I could only get Powerchute to simply put it to sleep (S3), Windows will take care of the rest.

Best,

Jim

[BillP]

This reply was originally posted by Angela on APC forums on 6/10/2013

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Well, I gave the feedback to Bill to give to our product management team but I don't know if any changes will happen overnight unfortunately..but any future revisions would be where we could make modifications to this process. Sorry if I did not make that clear previously.

[jimn_apc]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 6/10/2013

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That's OK. I guess I wasn't clear on whether this issue fell into the category of there's something I'm missing or you can't do that with the software the way it is now. It's not a big deal. It's a very small fraction of the time that I would really need my computer to start up by itself anyway instead of waiting for me to turn it on.

Thank you for your help.

Best,

Jim

[BillP · Accepted solution]

This reply was originally posted by Angela on APC forums on 6/10/2013

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Hopefully Bill will also add any additional comments if he has them now and you're welcome!