PCPE - outlet power on delay

[BillP]

Using PowerChute Personal Edition version 3.0.2, there is a registry setting called UPSOutletsturnondelay in HKLM\Software\APC\PowerChute Personal Edition\3.02.00\Settings which has a setting of 4.

I am testing a APC Back-UPS CS 650 supporting Windows 7 x32 Dell OptiPlex XE PC which has BIOS settings of power outage status state = On

I having performed the command line: powercfg.exe /hibernate off

which ensures the APC shuts down the computer instead of hibernating it.

Removing the power from the APC device continues the computer on battery until it reaches the point in time that it shuts down the computer (So far so good!)

When the computer switches off - I plug the power back in to simulate power restored before UPS has switched off outlet power.

The UPS continues its process and turns outlet power off (Good - as expected)

But 5 seconds later it turns outlet power back on (Not Good - the computer does not power on as it has not had 30 seconds of outlet power off).

Does this registry setting control how long the outlet power turn on delay and is it in seconds?  If so should it be something like 40 instead of 4?

Kind Regards

fossehs

Changing the registry setting to 40 did not work

[BillP]

Using PowerChute Personal Edition version 3.0.2, there is a registry setting called UPSOutletsturnondelay in HKLM\Software\APC\PowerChute Personal Edition\3.02.00\Settings which has a setting of 4.

I am testing a APC Back-UPS CS 650 supporting Windows 7 x32 Dell OptiPlex XE PC which has BIOS settings of power outage status state = On

I having performed the command line: powercfg.exe /hibernate off

which ensures the APC shuts down the computer instead of hibernating it.

Removing the power from the APC device continues the computer on battery until it reaches the point in time that it shuts down the computer (So far so good!)

When the computer switches off - I plug the power back in to simulate power restored before UPS has switched off outlet power.

The UPS continues its process and turns outlet power off (Good - as expected)

But 5 seconds later it turns outlet power back on (Not Good - the computer does not power on as it has not had 30 seconds of outlet power off).

Does this registry setting control how long the outlet power turn on delay and is it in seconds?  If so should it be something like 40 instead of 4?

Kind Regards

fossehs

Changing the registry setting to 40 did not work

[BillP]

Hi fossehs,

Which shutdown option did you choose on PCPE, is it keep my computer on as long as possible or preserve battery power?  If you have chosen the second one, you will need to wait until the UPS has entered the sleep mode before plugging the UPS back to a power source.  Below is the outline on how the preserve battery power works:

     1. UPS goes to battery and PCPE starts its preserve battery power counter.

     2. When the counter expires it sends a command to the UPS to start counting its turn off delay and then commands the OS to shutdown.

     3. The operating system shuts down and the UPS continues to count its turn off delay. (Once the UPS finishes counting its turn off delay it will reboot and nothing can stop this from happening.)

     4. The UPS cuts power to the outlets then rechecks to see if the incoming power is acceptable. If it is not it waits there until power returns. ( This is where the problem usually occurs, because the power has been re-applied already prior to the UPS completing the turn off cycle it reboots the outlet.  I suggest that before plugging the UPS back in, wait until the shutdown of the UPS to finish)

     5. If the UPS went to battery due to a brown out the unit at this point will be in LVSM until the voltage becomes acceptable again.

[BillP · Accepted solution]

fossehs,

The registry entries you mentioned control switchable outlets and your Back-UPS does not offer this feature. When a Back-UPS has switchable outlets there is a master outlet. If the master outlet draw drops below a set amount the switchable outlets will be powered off and when the master goes above the amount the outlets are powered on. Example, PC is plugged into master outlet and it goes into sleep mode, the power draw drops below 25 watts so the switchable outlets are powered down. When the PC comes out of sleep mode and the master outlet draw is greater than 25 watts the switchable outlets are powered back up. The settings UPSOutletsturnondelay and UPSOutletsturnoffdelay do not affect the power being restored to the UPS itself after a power failure they only affect the switchable outlets.

The feature you are looking (delay of outlet power on after a power failure) is available in the Smart-UPS models SMT or SMX. With an SMT or SMX you can configure the UPS via PowerChute or a network card to power up the outlets after a specified delay.