Can't understand a few PCBE settings

[Anonymous user]

Hello people, I thought about them for a while but there are a few things that I can't understand about the PCBE shutdown settings. I'm using PCBE 8.0 Single Node with the Web interface.


Time Required for Shutdown Sequence / Runtime Remaining Threshold. The fact that this setting is named in different ways makes things confusing. It is also described in two ways:

1 - Time Required For Shutdown Sequence: The time in minutes, as entered by the user, required to complete the shutdown sequence.+

2 - +Use the UPS On Battery Thresholds to set the Runtime Remaining Threshold for your UPS. This is the threshold at which PowerChute Business Edition initiates an OS shutdown. The range is from 2 to 59 minutes. For example, if you set the the Runtime Remaining Threshold to 10 minutes, and your UPS switches to battery operation, an OS shutdown begins when your UPS's battery has only 10 minutes of runtime remaining.+

So basically this is the thing that starts the shutdown when the battery hits the set runtime threshold, or is that the Low Battery Signal?
The first description says that you must set this as the time that the computer takes to shut down (?).
The second described setting is UPS On Battery Thresholds which is not the name of a setting but of the group of first two settings, Time Required for Shutdown Sequence / Runtime Remaining Threshold and Low Battery Signal. The description talks about the settable range from 2 to 59 minutes. The Low Battery Signal goes up to only 23 mins so that's got to be the first setting.

You can see there is a big mess, I'll just make the right questions:

1 - what is the Time Required for Shutdown Sequence / Runtime Remaining Threshold setting? What does it do and how must it be set?

2 - what is the Low Battery Signal?




Now there's more.
A couple nights ago there was a storm and some power events occurred:

[http://www.pctunerup.com/up/image.php?src=_200812/20081228220250_pcbe_power_fails.jpg]

Everything ok as you see, there only is that Time on Battery Threshold Exceeded that got me curious about what it was. Literally from the name of the event one would think that this event occurs after a set time that the UPS has been on battery. By default it is set at five minutes and from the log you can see that it occurred after five minutes of battery operation.

The description says instead: If the UPS goes on battery and there is less available battery time than the user-configured threshold, then this event will take place.
According to the description this event should occur only if the UPS was to go to battery with the battery discharged enough to be already below the set runtime.
In my case it shouldn't have happened though, because when the power failed the battery was at 100% with over an hour of runtime.

So, again, what is this event and what does it do?


Big mess, I hope somebody can help me out 😄

[BillP]

i would set it to a less tight value, such as 5 minutes, as you mentioned to account for enough time incase any strange circumstances arise so that the PC has enough time to shutdown.

[Anonymous user]

I have the same question about "Time Required for Shutdown Sequence". It is set for 5 minutes and when my SUA1000 went on battery it had 46 minutes runtime remaining. After 5 minutes it had 40 minutes remaining but the message: "Time On Battery Threshold Exceeded" appeared. Then 8 minutes later I plugged the UPS back into the outlet and power was restored. Here is the complete log: (I ran 2 tests)

5/6/09 22:42:15 Power Restored
5/6/09 22:34:11 Time On Battery Threshold Exceeded
5/6/09 22:29:10 Power Failed
5/6/09 22:24:30 Power Restored
5/6/09 22:23:56 Time On Battery Threshold Exceeded
5/6/09 22:18:55 Power Failed

Could this be a firmware defect? If so can it be updated?
Here is my UPS info:
UPS Model Smart-UPS 1000
Firmware Revision 600.3.D
Manufacture Date March 12, 2004

Thanks

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Yes it is set to 5 minutes. The period is not there and no shutdown was initiated after 5 minutes on battery. So this is different from the runtime remaining threshold?

Both Time On Battery Threshold and Runtime remaining threshold are set to 5 minutes which is probably the cause for my confusion

[BillP]

what is set under Events->Actions->Click on Time On Battery Threshold Exceeded? It sounds like this is set to five minutes there and then also, in the Actions screen, you probably see a • indiciating its configured to force a shutdown on the UPS.

see my screenshot. in my setup, this is set for three minutes as you can see. let me know what you see to start.

also, you answered my other question in the other post since it appears you are using the agent web interface.

[BillP]

I will try to answer your questions as best I can because I agree some of the wording is confusing 🙂

1 - what is the Time Required for Shutdown Sequence / Runtime Remaining Threshold setting? What does it do and how must it be set?

The Time Required for Shutdown Sequence is basically the amount of time that the machine takes to shutdown and complete everything that it needs to do which includes these three items:
# Execute a user-defined command file to perform custom actions such as a database shutdown (if enabled)
# Begin the OS Shutdown after the Command File Execution Duration has expired
# Turn the UPS off after the OS Shutdown Delay time has expired
The runtime remaining threshold is basically what it says in the description. For example, if this is 10 minutes, when the runtime remaining on the UPS reaches 10 minutes, the event will occur and do whatever you choose to happen on that event, if anything.

2 - what is the Low Battery Signal?>

The low battery signaling time is effectively the point where the UPS tells everything attached to it it has a low battery and will force them to shutdown if they havent been configured to shutdown based on any event. So if you forget to configure anything basically, its like a fail safe way of getting everything to shutdown. In a simple signaling environment, this is when the UPS tells everything to shutdown since simple signaling is only one way communication. But you are using smart signaling.Low battery and the threshold essentially should do the same thing in different ways. Low battery signaling time is just another event that you configure the UPS to shutdown on.

The description says instead: If the UPS goes on battery and there is less available battery time than the user-configured threshold, then this event will take place. According to the description this event should occur only if the UPS was to go to battery with the battery discharged enough to be already below the set runtime. In my case it shouldn't have happened though, because when the power failed the battery was at 100% with over an hour of runtime.

This is what it seems to me. That say, in your circumstance, if this is set to 5 minutes, that when there is 5 minutes or less, everything will begin to shutdown. You can try setting that to one minute and setting the low battery duration to 5 minutes or something close if 5 isnt actually an option.
I hope this helps!

[Anonymous user]

Ok so the correct value to set as Time Required For Shutdown Sequence is the command file runtime plus the effective shutdown time plus the OS Shutdown Delay.
I don't need to run any command files but I have noticed that the OS Shutdown Delay time starts when the software tells the computer to shutdown and not when the computer actually shuts down, this way the shutdown time and the OS Shutdown Delay happen at the same time.
Now, saying that my computer shutdown time is about 30 seconds and the OS Shutdown Delay is by default 1.30 minutes then the closest settable value is two minutes, is that right? Or is it better to insert a less tight value to be safer, say five minutes?

My Low Battery Signal is set by default at two minutes and the software is set to shut the computer down only for the three default events which are Communications Lost While On Battery, UPS Internal Threshold Eceeded and Low Battery. As it is now it should consider only the Low Battery Signal time to shut the computer down and only log an event for the Time Required For Shutdown Sequence.

Anyway, thanks for the explanation 🙂

[BillP]

Hi,

Runtime remaining threshold is the amount of time needed for the OS to power down. Low Battery is a threshold that is set to trigger a shutdown prior to the battery being depleted.

You have a few options through the web interface to shut the OS down. There is the On Battery event that will power the system down when the UPS goes on battery.

Runtime Remaining Below threshold when set will start a shutdown when the battery falls below x amount of available runtime.

Low battery setting will start a shutdown when the battery reaches x amount of runtime. The difference with this setting and Runtime Remaining Below threshold is this setting is preconfigured. You must configure Runtime Remaining Below post installation. Low Battery if left unchanged will always trigger a shutdown.