Correct manner to shutdown a UPS

[Magnussen_apc]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 3/27/2012

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Hi,

hopefully someone can explain the correct manner how to bring down a UPS in the Case of Power Outage.

Prerequisite: All Workstations and Servers have a Client installed and configured from PowerChute Network Shutdown (PCNS)
and a Power Outage occurs.

As far as I know I will do the following as preparation in a Data Center:

Configure all Workstations connected to the UPS to shutdown lets say 5 min. after Begin of Outage.

Configure all Servers connnected to the UPS to shutdown lets say 10 min. or 15 min. after Begin of Outage.

Next step
I think it is correct to configure the LAST server that has to be shutdown to additional
shutdown the UPS. I did a test in that manner and it works 100%. All OK.

Now my question:
I recognized that there is still a noise from the UPS (the FAN and some electronic) and also the 6 LED's at the UPS
front are flashiing in a row. How long is this process? Until the power of the Battery is empty?

Second question: If I don't give the command to shutdown the UPS after shutdown of the LAST server
the UPS runs until the Battery is empty! Can I calculate it? What are the times?

Thanks for help.

[BillP · Accepted solution]

This reply was originally posted by Frans on APC forums on 4/20/2012

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Question 1 - the output of the UPS is off but the fans are still on and the 6 lights are flasing = sleepmode, they say it wil shutdown after 1 hour but last time at a customer it was after 10 minutes and then the UPS was completely out.

Question 2 - UPS runs until the batteries reach minimum batterie power and then goes out, time depends on how many batteries, how old and good they are, you can not calculate it, just do a test and watch the clock.

Good luck.