PowerChute 7.0.5, Vista and turn off display when on battery

[Anonymous user]

I have an APC SUA1000I UPS and I just installed PowerChute Business Basic 7.0.5 in Vista 32 bit.

Using Vista native Power Options, I was able to tell the OS to turn off the display after x minutes of inactivity when running under batteries (for instance, I could choose after 20 minutes when running on utility power and after 2 minutes when running on battery).

Installing PowerChute removed all the native battery power options, of course. I seem to remember that, under XP, PowerChute added a special 'UPS' tab to the Power Control Panel applet from where you could control the Display Power Off time when running on battery, but, alas, I can't find it on Vista.

So my question is: is there a way to control how long the display remains on when the power goes off?

[Anonymous user]

JC,

If I understand you correctly you would like to have the monitor on your pc turn off, after the pc is running on battery for x amount of time.

There is not a way to do this directly with PCBE. The best way to get something similar would be to set the monitor to go into an idle state after x amount of inactivity at the computer.

By using a UPS in the native mode the OS acts as though the PC is a laptop, so that's why you were able to set in windows for the monitor to power off once the PC has been on battery.

[Anonymous user]

This is a case where PowerChute provides LESS options than the OS, then. Pity.

If I'm working on my PC and on utility power, then it's normal for me not to want the display to turn off while I do some temporary stuff away from the PC, like reading some documentation or making coffee.

On the other hand, if power goes off while I am working, then I would like to be able to save all my stuff (or do whatever is necessary) and then immediately reduce the load on the UPS to maximize run time and hopefully ride out the power outage without actually having to shutdown the system.

For instance, I have a dual monitor system (one 21" CRT and one 17" CRT). The UPS load with both monitors on is about 44%, giving me roughly 22 minutes of run time. However, if I turn both monitors off the UPS load drops down to 16%, giving me about 65 minutes of run time. Most power outages here don't last that long.

Of course, I could always switch off both monitors manually, but there is a problem with that (something which actually did happen to me once with another APC UPS): one time there was a power outage, the UPS went on battery and I physically switched off the monitor to ride it out. I don't remember why now, but some time in the middle of the process I decided I needed to so something and turned the monitor back on. The current drawn by the monitor has it switched on was enough to overpower the UPS on batteries, which immediately switched off bringing the PC down with it.

This kind of 'power surge' does NOT happen when returning from a monitor power saving mode.

Anyway, thanks for your reply... 🙂

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

No problem. Sorry the functionality isn't present for what you wish to accomplish.