BE750G

[Anonymous user]

Is this UPS supposed to take 15-20 seconds to start every time the green ON button is pressed? I corresponded with APC support who determined that I might have a defective unit. The user guide sheet specifically makes no mention of the start time wait. He sent me a new unit. Today I received the replacement unit and it performs EXACTLY the same. Please post any similar experiences.

Message was edited by: bennyb

[BillP]

when you turn the UPS on, the green light should flash indicating the UPS is doing a self test on its internal battery when you turn it on.

that "self test" does take about 15-20 seconds. during that time, the UPS should start providing output power i believe..but its perfectly normal operation.

i just double checked it on a BE750G that I have here.

[Anonymous user]

Thanks. But the issue was for me that during that self test I turned on the pc attached and the UPS shut down everything It's my opinion that the unit is NOT comfortably available during this start up time and that fact is deliberately withheld by APC in the user guide. Users can't be happy about waiting even more time for their PCs to start. I know I'm not.
Even so the fact that the support personnel didn't give a correct answer to my original inquiry speaks volumes about their quality in this forsaken environment.

[BillP]

Hi Benny,

When you say the UPS shut down your PC when it was running its self-test at startup, do you mean that our software hibernated your PC or the UPS cut power to all its battery-backup outlets?

Would you mind informing us about the power consumption characteristics of the equipment attached to the battery-backup outlets? It sounds like the UPS is quickly exhausting its battery during the 20 second self test, which would indicate a very large load is attached.

One last question: do you turn off the UPS when your computer is not in use? I wonder if when you are ready to use your comptuer, you first press the power button on the UPS and then immediately turn on your computer from a completely off state. If this is true, then your computer is drawing close to the maximum wattage possible and is likely exhausting the UPS battery very very quickly.

We recommend leaving the UPS on at all times.

[BillP]

also, the BE750G has a "master" and "master controlled outlets" feature. is this feature enabled? are you any of these outlets designated as master or controlled by master? you should be plugging the computer into the master outlet, otherwise, if you are plugging it into a controlled outlet, then with nothing in the master outlet, it'd probably turn everything off.

i attched the manual for reference on enabling/disabling this feature.

[Anonymous user]

When you say the UPS shut down your PC when it was running its self-test at startup, do you mean that our software hibernated your PC or the UPS cut power to all its battery-backup outlets?

CUT POWER ~3 seconds after I pressed the PC's power button. I didn't wait for the green LED to stop blinking. (I do now.) Restart had to go into default mode at the bios. Thank goodness I run my business in default mode otherwise I would be resetting any and all bios settings.

Would you mind informing us about the power consumption characteristics of the equipment attached to the battery-backup outlets?

Powerchute reports 189 watt of power being provided. And, "You can connect more equipment to your battery backup."

One last question: do you turn off the UPS when your computer is not in use?

YES doesn't everyone? How many stories do we see daily about power consumption use by always-on devices, power adapters, bricks etc.?

This computer has a 2 year old thermaltake power supply, rather green 420W slilencer model, P4 cpu.

I NEVER had any issues with the previous APC UPS I had for 2+ years. Just everything now with this so-called new design.

also, the BE750G has a "master" and "master controlled outlets" feature. is this feature enabled?

NO I turned it off, (reference LED is off) --seems like a useless process for my purposes. The PC is plugged into the obviously marked master outlet.

i attched the manual for reference on enabling/disabling this feature

NOTICE the absence of any description of a self test operation in that "manual"
RATHER it states."A single short beep and the green “Power On” indicator confirms the Back-UPS ES is on and ready to provide protection..

Thanks for your concern and helpfulness.

B

[BillP]

If you remove the computer load and test this procedure with a smaller, static load (perhaps a display or a lamp or radio), does the UPS "power down" the test device during it's initial power-on self-test?

If not, this is an issue with inrush current from your computer's power supply at start-up.

Also, the master control outlet feature sounds exactly like what you are hoping to achieve by turning off the UPS every time you aren't using the computer.

With this feature enabled, and the computer power supply connected to the master outlet, any devices in the master-controlled outlet bank would be turned off as soon as your computer is powered down, thus saving considerable energy.

This UPS was specifically designed with energy conservation in mind. It's features make it one of the most energy efficient UPSs in the market -- if not the most "green" available.

[BillP]

just to clarify, i attached the manual to enable/disable the master and controlled outlet feature. on this particular model, you cannot disable the self test.

[Anonymous user]

I plugged in my trusty Honeywell 16" fan (on lowest speed) into the master outlet then turned on the UPS. The fan started, then you can definitely hear its speed slow as the UPS goes through its self test. When the self test is finished and the last click of the relay is heard and the green LED remains solid, the fan speed increases to normal. There is a subtle but discernible speed change. And that voltage drop would ruin any computer's start.
What I am getting from all this (and from that new master/controlled outlet function) is that the UPS should remain on ALWAYS as the practical solution and SOP. The UPS should NOT be used as a master switch to turn everything off for the night to conserve energy. Is this the point after all?

(My two 22" LCD monitors then will have to be turned off manually every night, potentially leading to switch fatigue after a time.)

Thanks for all the replies.

BB

[BillP]

yes, generally the UPS should be left on all the time. i dont think its a written rule anywhere but i think it is the better thing to do. everytime you turn the unit on and off, it does the self test. so if you do that daily, after a while, its probably going to shorten the life of the internal battery.

a lot of people also use their plain ol' surge protectors as a master on/off switch too but obviously that doesn't need to go through a self test.

[BillP]

Benny, by using an electric motor (Honeywell fan) as your test load, you noticed what appeared to be a voltage drop according to the speed of the fan while the self-test was being done. In fact, the UPS was outputting 115vAC during the entire self-test -- no voltage drop.

What you should be aware of is that this UPS outputs a modified or stepped sine wave when it's on-battery during any self-test or true outage. AC motor loads are not recommended for use with this type of stepped sine-wave on this class of UPS. Typical home/office electronics work great on the battery output of this class of UPS.

A better test load would be a light bulb or other home electronics device. These devices use power in such a way that a stepped wave has no bearing on their operation. You will see that these devices will operate completely normally when the UPS is in the middle of a self-test or on-battery due to power problem. AC motors are not able to operate normally with this type of output which explains why your fan's motor lost RPMs during the self-test.

Your UPS is operating normally. You would want to 1) leave the UPS on at all times, or if you must have it turned off, 2) allow the UPS time to complete its self test before starting up your PC due to its large inrush current.

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Hello: A little late to this thread... Today (Dec 25 2009) I hooked up my new BE750G I bought at Best Buy 3 weeks ago.
First I plugged into an outlet and charged the battery.

After hooking up my iMac 24" Intel Desktop, I used the "Master" Battery outlet for the CPU power.
Then I plugged my HP C6380 All-in-one printer into one of the "Controlled" Surge outlets.

All works EXCEPT The Control part.

After using the Mac and printer for a while (both with power ON, I:
1) Shut down the Mac (all powered off... NOT Sleep)
2) The HP Printer promptly shut down...
3) BUT.... in about 3 secs the printer powered up again.
4) Then the printer shut down after about 3 secs

This cycled ON OFF ON OFF every 3 secs with a very faint "beep" each time

How does one fix this? Could it be the unit? What does the "Threshold Program" have to do with this?

Also I had a BE750BB for 4-5 years and replaced it with this one..
Yet the WEB Site won't let me on... Whom do I email to set this straight?

Thanks for any comments...

Jim B
PS I now have the HP in one of the 'UN-'controlled' surge outlets...
Works fine.. But I have to manually turn ON-OFF the HP.. (Sigh)