PowerChute does not Shut Down but Restart connected Server..

[Anonymous user]

After installing Power Chute, the server does not shutdown, but restart. Neither using Shutdown Button nor testing program capabilities to shutdown the server when power failures.

I have DELL PowerEdge 2950 server with Windows Server 2003 R2.
and
APC Smart-UPS 3000.

I installed PowerChute Bussiness Edition Basic comming with the APC.

Thanks a lot in advance,
Louis.

[Anonymous user]

Everything was ok when installing the software. Everything was discovered with no problems.

To test the system I removed the ups power cord from the oulet and I waited for the shutdown sequenced to be launched within the scheduled periods.

The shutdown sequence was automatically launched and the server did not shut down but it restarted.

The Operating System Shutdown mecanism was definitively affected by the PowerChute program, you see, whatever I do:
- To press Start button and then press Shut Down option
- To run command "shutdown -s -m \\ServerIPAddress" from the network
- To wait for the PowerChute sequence to be executed when I remove power cord.
Always the server Restarts.

Other side, the hardware is working Ok.
- I format the server without installing PowerChute, and it Shuts down OK.
- I use a Linux CD to enter in the server (MiniP) and it Shuts down OK.

Ok, I hope is enough. Anyway dont hesitate to ask..
Thanks in advance,
Louis.

[Anonymous user]

wow.

I've never heard of that. I thought that the UPS may have cycled power prior to your system shuttong down completely, but that would not account for the 'normal' shutdowns you tried. How long after you issuing the shutdown command (or from when a PowerChute shutdown starts) does the system reboot? Did you try just stopping the PowerChute services while it was still installed to see if that corrected the shutdown behavior? What about just uninstalling PowerChute? What version of PowerChute came on the CDs sent with your UPS?

[Anonymous user]

After installing Power Chute, the server does not shutdown, but restart. Neither using Shutdown Button nor testing program capabilities to shutdown the server when power failures.

I have DELL PowerEdge 2950 server with Windows Server 2003 R2.
and
APC Smart-UPS 3000.

I installed PowerChute Bussiness Edition Basic comming with the APC.

Thanks a lot in advance,
Louis.

[Anonymous user]

I know this post is probably to late but I recently ran in to this issue and have a work around that seems to be working well

I have small ITX system running Windows server 2012 x64
It's mainly a file server with 3x4TB drives on a Adaptech 6805 raid controller.
I also have an application called Newznab with apache, php, Sql, Perl installed and I wanted a way to keep my database looking good in the event of a power outage.

Keep in mind I do not have a cache battery so my Write Cache is disabled (UPS would protect me from Power outages but not BSOD or hardware failure)

Anyways I bought a BX1300LCD
http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BX1300LCD

and installed PowerChute Personal Edition v3.0.2 then found out that Windows Server 2003/2008/2012 is not supported
http://www.apcmedia.com/salestools/JNOE-7GSAQJ_R11_EN.pdf

I unpluged my APC and had it set to Shutdown after 1 min.... 4 mins later Nothing happen. Checked my USB /Serial connection. then went to my Event log and found this under windows/application Log

Log: Application, Source: APC USB Service, Event ID:174 - General: Battery backup transferred to battery power due to a blackout.

So I knew My APC is communicating correctly but unable to send a shutdown command..... Then after thinking a bit It would be best if my system just Hibernated so it could continue writing after I get home from a Power outage.

So then I right clicked on the event, click Attached Task to This event...
Action: Start a program
rundll32.exe
Add Arugments:
powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState Hibernate

Went to my Scheduled tasks and set "run wheather user is logged on or not and Run with Highest Privileges.

Unplugged my APC with my sql Task running... and tada. worked like a champ

Long story short... Now my Computer Hibernates immediately after a power outage. I know this isn't Ideal for most if you want to have your system stay up a bit but works for me. Of course you could also make any script to send a SMTP email, Sleep for x Seconds, then pass the hibernate command after XX mins....... but I didn't get that fancy yet.

[tbone15_apc]

I purchased a Back-UPS® RS 550GI unit which I connected to a Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 box.

Connecting the UPS, installing PowerChute PE and all went fine. PowerChute shows runtime/battery left etc. as expected.

What's not working is the automatic shutdown of the system if the server runs on battery power.

Is that how things work with that unit and PowerChute PE on a server-based Windows OS (which is unsupported?)?

Thanks in advance! o)

[BillP]

Robert,

PowerChute Personal Edition is has not been tested so therefore is not support on Windows Server OS. PowerChute Personal Edition is designed for Windows desktop OS. We recommend Smart-UPS with PowerChute Business Edition or PowerChute Network Shutdown and an NMC for Servers. If you must use the Back-UPS 550 I suggest using either native shutdown (see Kbase FA159653) or APCUPSD. 

[tbone15_apc]

Hi Bill, thanks for your detailed response. Much appreciated! o)

I do not run a business and I need to be safe for black-outs which last only 1 or 2 seconds, so I don't really need anything "big". Bigger sized UPS units also consume more standby energy, which I tried to avoid by choosing a relative small unit. It's a bummer that PowerChute won't shutdown the server OS! I actually like the interface of PowerChute and all the various details and statz available.

Is it possible to use PowerChute PE for just viewing all the UPS details while using the native shutdown and energy management of windows? If I remember, there was some kind of option regarding that available when installing tePowerChute, I'm a bit afraid of uninstalling and tinkering around now, as basically all is working fine. I also attached some tasks to the events popping up in the event-viewer whenever the UPS unit switches to battery/ac-power. 

My solution (thanks to the user mentioning the event-viewer thing):
To shutdown after 5 minutes on battery, create a scheduled task with an event-trigger for "Application/APC UPS Service/174" (Log/Source/EventID).
    Command: "shutdown.exe /s /t 300 /c "Shutting down because of POWER FAILURE in 5 minutes!" /d u:6:11"
To abort shutdown, if UPS switches back to ac-power bind to "Application/APC UPS Service/61455" (Log/Source/EventID).
     Command: "shutdown.exe /a"
 

Don't know yet, wether this will bring the system back up automatically, after it went down and the UPS is back online later on. I guess it won't, as no "killswitch" information is send to the UPS unit, right?

Thanks! o)

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Robert,

If you are shutting the system down with script my assumption is the UPS will not be commanded down so either the UPS will shutdown when the battery drains or if AC is restored the UPS will remain up. 

[tbone15_apc]

Yes, after shutting down the server by script and if ac-power is back before the battery went down, the server won't come back to life, as the UPS won't shutdown and trigger a power on/off for the server. But since a longer period of power-loss is not very likely to happen here (happens to be seconds only), it's not much of a problem.

Thank you very much Bill, have a merry Christmas! o)

Rob.