Shutdown delay

[Anonymous user]

I have a BACK-UPS HT 1500. This unit is marketed for home theater but it has all the PC features, USB connection, etc, and I got a good deal on it so grabbed it.

PCPE sees it fine and is fully functional, but I'm finding that it doesn't appear to allow me to specify the time between initiation of system shutdown and when it cuts the UPS power, it isn't leaving enough time to shut down my OS as I have several things that happen prior to shutdown.

PCBE identifies it properly during install, but cannot see it after install, just says unknown device or whatever in the web GUI (windows sees it fine in device manager).

Is there a way to increase the shutdown delay in PE or get this working with BE?

[Anonymous user]

I have a BACK-UPS HT 1500. This unit is marketed for home theater but it has all the PC features, USB connection, etc, and I got a good deal on it so grabbed it.

PCPE sees it fine and is fully functional, but I'm finding that it doesn't appear to allow me to specify the time between initiation of system shutdown and when it cuts the UPS power, it isn't leaving enough time to shut down my OS as I have several things that happen prior to shutdown.

PCBE identifies it properly during install, but cannot see it after install, just says unknown device or whatever in the web GUI (windows sees it fine in device manager).

Is there a way to increase the shutdown delay in PE or get this working with BE?

[BillP]

here is the shutdown timeline for with and without PCPE:

Shutdown time line, software not installed:

1. UPS goes to battery, the on battery beep sounds
2. The UPS will sound the on battery beep until it reaches the last few minutes of run time. The length of time depends on the load and how old the battery is.
3. When the unit reaches the last few muntes of battery life it will then sound its low battery alarm.
4. Just before the battery is completely exhausted the ups will turn itself off.
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.

PowerChute Personal Edition default shutdown time line:

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.
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.


with PCBE, you get minimal (simple) support. you can only shutdown the computer based on a low battery signal (when the UPS has a low battery). there are no delays configurable within it that I can see, except for a command file that you can run for when the computer shuts down, based on that low battery signal. it is stated in the software here:

All events that have the shutdown action enabled will use the settings defined here. The shutdown sequence is as follows:
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 interface will look similar to my attachment and you only get to see if the UPS is "online" or "on battery." the only way to really test it is to pull the plug on the UPS and refresh the page.

[BillP]

you're right, the outlets on the UPS need to reboot before the UPS turns back on, cause if it doesnt, it doesnt know when to turn back on.

also, unfortunately, there is no way to tweak the delay in powerchute personal edition.

[Anonymous user]

Hm, BE won't see it even in simple signalling. Which is odd because it detects and communicates with it fine during setup.

From what I can see, PE has a hard set timer of 1 or 2 mins depending on UPS model. Neither is sufficent for me. I guess I'll have to figure out what I'm going to do.

The built in support in Win 2008 works fine but the problem is, if the power comes back on before the UPS shuts itself off, the PC will never turn itself back on since the UPS won't know to reboot itself/bounce the ports, and that's the only way the PC knows to come back on. I guess as long as I set it to shut down when theres only a few % left and the possibility of that would be fairly minimal, just don't like cutting it that close on shutdown.

There is no hidden tweak to increase this 1 or 2 minute timer in PE?

Thanks for the info.

Message was edited by: drinkingbird

[Anonymous user]

I guess the only question left is should I be able to get this working with BE? It detects it automatically during install and doesn't report any errors, but after it is just "unknown device" in the web GUI. Same result when I select "simple signaling to any APC UPS" during setup.

From what I understand this is just a BACK-UPS RS with a different color case, but that isn't in the list of selections during setup. I guess I could try each one in the list but since that requires uninstall/reinstall each time it is a bit of a pain. I did try doing a hard reset on the UPS, shutting it down and holding the power button for 10 sec until all the lights lit up and shut off 1 by 1.

BE on the same PC can see my old Smart-UPS 1400 fine (connected via serial and USB to serial converter), unfortunately the batteries in that one are shot and this one offers much better runtime.

[BillP]

Hello DL, welcome to APC Forums.

PowerChute Personal Edition is the software designed to work with your current UPS. The PCBE software is designed to work with higher level UPS such as the APC Smart-UPS though there are Back-UPS that works with this software but all of them were already obsolete. One of the reason why it shows unknown device on the web interface is because of the method of communication and data exchange between the software and the UPS.

Unfortunately the solution that you can use to configure graceful shutdown is either the PCPE or the Native UPS software that comes along with your OS if your using Windows or Mac. On PCPE you can choose to shutdown your computer after running on a certain amount of time or when you only have a little amount of time left, if your computer takes time to shutdown you might need to choose the first one.

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Thanks. Just seems odd that it detects it fine during setup. The docs for PCBE say "virtually all USB UPSs" or something to that effect. My older smart-ups works fine with it so that confirms what you're saying.

Unfortunately no matter which option I choose (shut down after xx minutes or when xx minutes are left) it still uses the default delay of 1 or 2 minutes, which just isn't long enough for my OS to shut down.

I've switched back to native Windows 2008 support which does not signal the UPS to shut down after the PC is off, so I've set it to shut down when only 5% battery is remaining, and that seems to only leave a few minutes until the battery dies (I have a couple hundred watts of network equipment that doesn't require graceful shutdown and finishes off the battery) and the UPS shuts off, that'll have to be good enough for now.

JonPro wrote:
Hello DL, welcome to APC Forums.

PowerChute Personal Edition is the software designed to work with your current UPS. The PCBE software is designed to work with higher level UPS such as the APC Smart-UPS though there are Back-UPS that works with this software but all of them were already obsolete. One of the reason why it shows unknown device on the web interface is because of the method of communication and data exchange between the software and the UPS.

Unfortunately the solution that you can use to configure graceful shutdown is either the PCPE or the Native UPS software that comes along with your OS if your using Windows or Mac. On PCPE you can choose to shutdown your computer after running on a certain amount of time or when you only have a little amount of time left, if your computer takes time to shutdown you might need to choose the first one.