Back-UPS indicating low battery while plugged in to working outlet

[Anonymous user]

Hello I just started using a 600VA APC Back-UPS (BE600M1) with my new gaming PC.

The unit was working normally until running a resource intensive game at which point the Back-UPS indicates that it is running on battery, and the battery is at low power (below is a description of the error taken from the FAQ):

2.) The Back-UPS product has entered a low battery condition
• Continuous Beeping (the amber On Battery LED will be illuminated)

The LED is definitely amber and not red (I suspected the power draw may have created an overload condition, but this doesn't appear to be the case). 

The unit will beep continuously until I close the game.  Changing the alarm mode to silent (flashing red LED after 3 second press) doesn't silence the alarm, and regardless, I don't think simply silencing the alarm is the solution.

I have confirmed the outlet has power.

The alarm does not sound when the PC is plugged into a non-battery back up outlet on the unit.

Anyone have any thoughts on what may be happening?

[Anonymous user]

Do you know if the new computer has a power supply with a high efficiency rating and an Active Power Factor Correction?

If you temporarily use a surge only outlet for the computer. Does it act differently with the game?

[Anonymous user]

I don't know much about what that is, but it would appear so:  "Active PFC (>0.9 typical)"

https://www.gigabyte.com/ca/Power-Supply/Power-Supply#kf

Game performance does not appear to suffer when the PC is plugged into the surge only outlet.

[Anonymous user]

The power supply has Active Power Correction as you thought.

The UPS from its sales pages. Output Waveform: Stepped approximation to a sine wave. Some Active Power Factor Correction power supplies don't work well with that type of output and may trigger the UPS to indicate overload, low battery or turn off abruptly when the UPS switches over to battery on a power loss. I have seen recommendations  that a pure sine wave power supply is better for Active Power Factor Correction supplies.

The UPS is 600VA 330 Watts. It is possible your 650 watt power supply when running a game is using close to or over 330 watts and could also be triggering the fault indication.

The OK on a surge only outlet. Indicates either the supply is using close to the rated 330 watts with the game or the Active Power Factor supply is triggering the UPS fault indications.

[Anonymous user]

Soooo basically I need a higher rated UPS?

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

The safest would be a UPS with pure Sine Wave output and a higher wattage output for the battery backed outlets.