APC Back-UPS BK650MI

[Anonymous user]

Here's obviously where I should have visited first ! After 15 years, ( probably a lot longer than that), of my APC BK650MI only acting as battery back-up i.e. nothing connected to it's RS-232 port, (that would have cost a big amount of extra money at that time), and recently, a long-winded voyage of discovery on APC "simple signalling," and after buying a APC 940-0020C simple UPS simple signalling lead on ebay for 90 pence ! ...and after digging & Googling, & a bit of help from "Bob I" in MS XP General Discussion NG, ...all is working beatifully. e.g. I can cut power to my PC at the mains switch, and the shutdown behaviour set in XP's "Power options properties" | UPS tab all works as it should.

Just one little niggle, I don't get any on-screen "notification" on my XP Home ed. SP3 ...all updated, PC. Is the word "notification" being used to describe signals on the RS-232 lead, or is it being used to describe messages that I would be able to see on screen if they were appearing - which they aren't ?

So in other words, does anyone know which Windows XP Home ed. services have to be running, to be able to see these "event notifications" ? I've done some digging, and found a little information but, not much.

...and the polarities in XP | Power options properties | UPS tab | Select | Generic | Custom | UPS Signal polarity | are all set to Positive. As I said, all seems to be working okay, yesterday I tried fiddling with them and had to reboot into safe mode to switch of XP's ups.exe service, after my PC unexpectedly hibernated !! ...so all three radio buttons set to "positive" seem to be the correct settings.


...any tips gratefully accepted 🙂

regards, Richard

[Anonymous user]

Many thanks for your response. After originally posting here, I continued my search a little longer, and discovered that UPS "events" are being correctly logged in XP Home ed. "System Log" - with little yellow triangles, and as you suggest, I would most likely have to use the APC Powerchute software to get actual on screen "alerts" in addition to XP logged events.
However the MS ups.exe service is providing all the functionality I need with "simple signallling, so I can live without the on screen alerts. i.e. I was simply curious as to how the word "notification" was being used !

To summarise, it's really novel for me, (after almost a couple of decades !), knowing that if a mains power cut lasts longer than 2 minutes, (we usually get a few momentary power cuts here in the village during the winter, and occasionally a much longer mains power outage), ...knowing that my PC, on APC BK650MI, will hibernate | power down | and the battery unit will then shut down and stop buzzing as it produces "mains" power from its' internal battery ! i.e. it won't needlessly, completely, discharge, now that I have "simple ups signalling" in place ...if you see what I mean.

Next, job is to "serial lead" (just for the sake of it! ...I've already found the "pin-outs" and resistor value for it), an MGE 1500 Pulsar Xtreme given to me by the engineer at work, who removed it and replaced with a newer unit. I've pulled it apart and blown it out - and it's working fine. Far too noisy, (2 fans in it), to have running all the time under my 2nd work bench out here in my little "workshop," but, I've connected it up and will leave it on "bypass", ...and should I have to reflash someones bios - all I have to do is set it running 🙂

regards, Richard

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc · Accepted solution]

Richard,

I don't believe that Windows has the capability itself to notify your PC (the user) using Windows Messaging Service.

That is one of the features of the software that APC offers for its units. You will have a pop up message box indicating that the system is powering down, or on battery, or whatever you want to customize.