I need information on APC Back-UPS 800VA, 230V, AVR

[Anonymous user]

Hello

I am considering buying one of your products:

APC Back-UPS 800VA, 230V, AVR, IEC Sockets

but a lot of important information is lacking on your web site and inside the documentation PDF.

1. Does this unit restart the computer like the other units that you sell as described in this thread:Re: Power gets cut on power restore

I need that functionality. I can wake the PC with WAKE ON LAN magic packet and this functionality is not that important, but I really need the unit to function as described in point 2 as the PC needs power in order to receive a WOL packet.

2. Does the unit ALWAYS go back online when the power is restored and provide power to the connected units? I have an EATON unit that requires pressing the power button after longer power outage that has drained the battery. Even if the unit receives power for a long time it will never power on. This is the reason why I will never buy and EATON unit again.

Please let me know ASAP as I really need to replace this EATON as soon as possible.

Thank you in advance!

[Anonymous user]

Any clue on this?

[BillP]

Sorry for the delay.

Regarding #1, this is normal behavior. Here is some information on how the shutdowns work.

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 minutes 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 Low Voltage Sleep Mode (LSVM) 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.

So yes, it is by design because the UPS needs to complete its reboot cycle.

Regarding #2, looking at PowerChute v3, I think PowerChute provides a count of the different events like blackout, etc under Monitor System->Performance.

[Anonymous user]

Hello Angela

Thank you for your reply, but it does not contain answers to my questions.

1. Why after LVSM when the power is restored

a) UPS provides power to PC - PC starts booting to go out of hibernation as it is set to ALWAYS ON from BIOS

b) Just while the PC is restoring the hibernation state the UPS restarts it and looses the saved state.

What is the reason for that?

2. I already mentioned that there are counts that are of no use. I was asking if there is event log with times and descriptions.

Thank you!

[BillP]

Hi again,

Sorry. With #1, I was trying to explain that what you're seeing is normal operation because of the shutdown timeline. If power is restored when the UPS is in the middle of its shutdown/reboot process, you may see a problem with the UPS cycling the output because it has to complete its reboot of the outlets. I understand it is an issue though.

On #2, yes, I only see the event counts. The only other event log I know some stuff gets recorded in (which is generic) is the Windows event log.

Bill P.  and SecretSquirrel   - can you provide any additional input or information on my findings to devadviser here? I don't think I missed anything but double check me - especially on the issue with the UPS cycling output and losing the hibernate state. Would apcupsd avoid this - I don't think so.

[Anonymous user]

Hi

I wrote that this happens in after point 5.

Do I have a defective unit?

When PC is hibernated and UPS goes to sleep what happens is:

1. Power is restored - UPS immediately provides power to the PC - that is great

2. After several seconds UPS cuts the power to PC and restores it back immediately - WHY? At this point the PC has already started loading the hibernation file and this extra restarts ruins my saved state.

I really do not understand this.

[BillP]

hi.

I checked with SecretSquirrel and Bill P on this for a sanity check. Are you testing this by pulling the plug from the wall? I had assumed you observed this behavior during an actual power outage but pulling the plug from the wall and plugging it back in can cause the UPS to react differently and produce different results. We would not be comparing apples to apples against a real power outage because the electrical connection is reset to the UPS in a different way when you're removing the plug. Thus, it could cause this extra reboot.

I don't think you have a defective unit and this is by design or caused by testing, assuming you're pulling the plug from the wall so I need clarification on that.

During a legitimate power outage where the plug stays connected to the wall the entire time, you should see the UPS perform as I outlined in the shutdown timeline and it should only cycle power once to the computer.

[Anonymous user]

Hello

It does not make any difference - it is even strange to me that you persuade me that it should be different.

This issue is present both during a real power outage and during a manual test.

I have the ups connected to a power outlet with a on/off switch so I just switch the power off. It should not be any different than a real power outage.

I wait for the full shutdown sequence and wait the UPS to go to sleep mode - all lights go off.

When the power is back the UPS wakes up and immediately provides power to the PC (that is great)...after several seconds it just switches off the power and then immediately switches it back on (immediate on/off action within a second).

I really do not understand why this happens. And worst of all it ruins my hibernation state as it does this exactly while the PC is restoring the hibernation file.

Do you have any explanation for that? What can I check? Is it a settings somewhere?

[BillP]

This is not a setting you can change on the UPS as I mentioned. The only settings are within PowerChute and there is really nothing there beyond allowing you to change how long the UPS battery runs when there is an outage.

I am trying to escalate this further so that we can get a deeper understanding on what the logic may be here if you're not testing it in a strange way that is causing the behavior. I agree, switching the outlet should simulate a legitimate power outage. But, restoring power at different parts in the UPS shutdown/reboot cycle could also cause issues which is why I was asking exactly how it was being tested and specifically, when you're testing it with the switched outlet, when you're restoring power to the UPS by turning the outlet on.

Anyway, so far what I know is you're using PowerChute on Windows. Can you confirm the version of Windows for me?

Another thing I've been ask to clarify - What's the LED and buzzer (audible noise) when the UPS [incorrectly] cuts the power of PC after power is restored? I know you said it turns on/off quickly so I don't know if you see a light or hear a beep or anything.

[Anonymous user]

Hello

I am considering buying one of your products:

APC Back-UPS 800VA, 230V, AVR, IEC Sockets

but a lot of important information is lacking on your web site and inside the documentation PDF.

1. Does this unit restart the computer like the other units that you sell as described in this thread:Re: Power gets cut on power restore

I need that functionality. I can wake the PC with WAKE ON LAN magic packet and this functionality is not that important, but I really need the unit to function as described in point 2 as the PC needs power in order to receive a WOL packet.

2. Does the unit ALWAYS go back online when the power is restored and provide power to the connected units? I have an EATON unit that requires pressing the power button after longer power outage that has drained the battery. Even if the unit receives power for a long time it will never power on. This is the reason why I will never buy and EATON unit again.

Please let me know ASAP as I really need to replace this EATON as soon as possible.

Thank you in advance!

[BillP]

1. and I guess 2.) The UPS itself will reboot and turn its output power back on. Whether you're computer is capable of turning back on when AC power is restored is usually the responsibility of the BIOS on the computer -> Computer will not automatically reboot after UPS has shutdown and restarted | FAQs | Schneider Elect... But yes, the UPS unit is designed to turn back on after a power outage and after it includes its graceful shutdown process once AC power restores. It would only be a rare circumstance or loophole where I could see this being a problem or if the reboot/graceful shutdown process is somehow interrupted but this is not common at all but is remotely possible.

Hope this helps.

[Anonymous user]

Hello Angela

Thank you for your reply.

I am no interested in the computer part of things - I can set those up as long as I have power to the PC from the UPS as soon as the AC power is restored.

1. Does the ups restore the power to the connected PC after the power is restored even if the UPS battery is drained - not using any software.

2. Does the ups restore the power to the connected PC if the included software is used to hibernate the PC and put the UPS to standby. Shall the UPS in such case wake up from standby and provide power to the PC as soon as the AC power is restored?

My questions are about the mentioned model.

Thank you!

[BillP]

Hi again.

1.) Yes, it should do that. It would begin to charge and also should then turn its output on at the same time. Obviously, there could be an issue though if there is an outage, then the UPS turns back on and power goes out again and the battery capacity is depleted though..

2.) Yes, it will turn on here too.

Here is some general information that also may help on how this typically works.

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 minutes 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 Low Voltage Shutdown Mode (LVSM) until the voltage becomes acceptable again.

PowerChute Personal Edition default shutdown timeline:

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.

[Anonymous user]

Hello

Thank you very much for your reply, but after some detailed research I think your answer to point 2) is incorrect as this UPS seems to be so basic that it has no communication port at all - thus it can not shutdown/hibernate the machine.

I think I will go with this model: APC Back UPS RS LCD 550 Master Control

Your items are a bit overpriced, but I hope the unit will meet the requirements that I have

[BillP]

Hi again. There are a select few units that do not offer a "data port" which is the place you connect a USB cable. I admittedly should have asked you for the exact SKU of the UPS to see if it has a data port but usually the ones that have AVR do because those are higher end. Though, you may have discovered one without as we offer more international modes without it seems from my experience. Do you recall the SKU you found do I can double check on the data port? Something like BR800I or similar?

If you just want to go with the new model you found too, I understand.

[Anonymous user]

I have typed the exact model in the title - the seller does not provide the product code in the form that you have mentioned, but I do not see any similar item that has data ports on your site:

http://www.apc.com/products/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BX800CI&tab=models

[BillP]

Thanks. BX800CI is what I was looking for. The "APC Back-UPS 800VA, 230V, AVR" part is a description but I see the information on our website now, or at least the picture, and it does not appear to have the data port as you noticed. I apologize for the confusion.

[Anonymous user]

Hello Angela

I have not posted for quite some time. Yes I use Powerchute on Windows 7, but that is irrelevant to the problem.

I will try to explain where the issue is again.

PC is set to hibernate 1 min after the power outage and BIOS is set to power on the PC - Always ON

So what happens

1. Power goes out and PC hibernates - that is all ok.

2. While the UPS has not went to SLEEP mode the power is restored. PC immediately starts to boot up at this moment - WHY? Isn't the UPS supposed to be still powering the PC?

3. While the PC is booting up, the UPS reaches the SLEEP time I guess and seeing that the AC is back cuts the power to the PC and restores it back. This causes the PC to restart at the middle of the boot sequence thus destroying the hibernation state. As far as I read somewhere this is by design as the AC may be restored at the time while the PC is shutting down and it will never be woken up if the unit does not do this.

So having in mind that  the issue in point 3. is actually a feature what is the case with point 2.? Why the PC starts when the AC is restored? The UPS at this point should be providing a steady voltage and the PC should not feel any change in the power in order to boot.

Is there someone who is technically familiar with this unit that can check this issue and provide a solution? It is really annoying to the extent that this unit is unusable.

Thank you in advance for your help.

[BillP]

Hi Jack,

Please see my response to your issue below.

2. While the UPS has not went to SLEEP mode the power is restored. PC immediately starts to boot up at this moment - WHY? Isn't the UPS supposed to be still powering the PC?

At the point in which utility power has been removed, a sequence of events begins to play out.  After a period of time of operating on battery power, the Powerchute software or Native shutdown utility  will initiate a Graceful Unattended Shutdown of your operating system. Once the Graceful Unattended Shutdown has begun it can not be interrupted, even if power returns and the complete shutdown sequence will continue until completion. 

Once the operating system has hibernated, the UPS will receive confirmation that the PC has been shutdown properly and will now begin it's own internal countdown. If power returns during this period between shutdown of the OS and shutdown/reboot of the UPS, the UPS will return to an Online operating state, however will continue to countdown to shutdown. The change of state between On battery and Online can take upwards of 10-12ms, which may be seen by the PC BIOS as being a reboot of utility power. It would appear that this is the case with your PC.

It is possible to shorten the transfer time of the UPS, to 8-10ms by adjusting the unit's sensitivity to High. This can be done through the PowerChute Personal Edition's interface. This may help with the issue your seeing, however will also lead to greater transfers of the UPS, as it will be monitoring utility power quality much closer.

It is likely that the issue you are seeing would never appear during an actual real power event, as a "Perfect Storm" of events would need to take place for this sequence of events to happen. 

From your description in previous correspondence, the UPS is operating as intended.

I hope this helps to answer your questions and concerns.

SecretSquirrel

[Anonymous user]

Hello

I tested your suggestion and it makes no difference at all. I tested it also at LOW sensitivity - no change here too.

I doubt that your assumption is correct. I think the UPS does something wrong in point 2.

Why?

Because if I connect the PC to the AC utility directly and I take the power out and plug it in immediately it does not power on - it does not feel the change that quickly. (which is quite stupid indeed). I have to wait about 15-20 sec before plugging it back in for the PC to feel the change and turn on. I guess some capacitors have to discharge inside the PSU for that time. Anyway this is another nonsense in the Motherboard/PSU not related to the UPS. Just for the record the hardware is good - PSU - Corsair 550W, MB - Gigabyte GA-Z87-HD3

Quote:

"It is likely that the issue you are seeing would never appear during an actual real power event, as a "Perfect Storm" of events would need to take place for this sequence of events to happen. From your description in previous correspondence, the UPS is operating as intended."

These statements are absolutely FALSE. These events happen to me EVERY TIME and YES these are "actual real power event" and the device is not operating as intended to the extent that it is unusable. Actually the issue is so bad that it makes me think that these units have never been tested.

Anyway I am trying to keep calm as I really had it with this device. I am trying to solve this issue for months. I paid 5 times more money for a middle class device and it performs the same as a noname $20 unit.

Do you have any other suggestions how to make this unit work? Are there any hidden settings that I can alter? Can I prevent the power on/off event that I described at point 3 as the behavior in point 2 seems to be a fault in the UPS unit?

Thank you.

[Anonymous user]

Any other suggestions on this issue?

Are there any settings that I can tweak to fix this?

[Anonymous user]

I get no reply on this.

Shall I assume that this product does not work?

[Anonymous user]

One year and no reply...what a support!

Is there any firmware update that can fix this poorly designed thing?

Why the damned thing can not go to sleep immediately after it detects that no device is drawing power - meaning the PC has shut down.

I am really disappointed - expensive device and it can not handle the simplest use case.

[BillP]

Jack,

I tested 6 HP desktop systems last year for a customer that was having a similar issue. Each of the systems was exactly the same model with the exact same internal hardware. What I found was that 1 of the systems exhibited the issues you are seeing where if AC is restored before the UPS goes to sleep the OS restarts while the others worked as expected. I swapped PSU between the systems and found that the issue followed the PSU.

The other issue of the system restarting when AC is restored after the UPS is in sleep mode I was able to reproduce on 2 of the 6 systems I tested however the issue was intermittent. Out of 20 tests the issue happened 2 out of 20 times on one if the systems and 1 out of 20 on the other system.  

The other customer moved the Back-UPS to a different computer and it work as designed. And for the problematic system he purchased a Smart-UPS SMT750. The SMT750 provided a pure sine wave and also allows for the outlet group to have a delayed power up when AC is restored. Those 2 features seemed to resolve the issue with that system.

[Anonymous user]

I really do not think that the issue has anything to do with the PSU.

It is clear that this device is poorly designed - instead of checking if current is drawn from PC to detect that it has shut down and go to sleep the UPS is waiting X minutes to go to sleep. If power comes back before it goes to sleep computer starts immediately after power is restored - another UPS issue - computer should not detect any power change as the UPS is supposed to be still powering the outlet. Now at this stage PC is restoring hibernation state. UPS on the other hand reaches the sleep moment and seeing that the power is restored, cuts the power and enables it again in order to reboot the pc which of course damages the process of hibernate file restoration that is going at that point because of the PC already booting.

In order this unit to work:

1. The PC shouldn't feel the power being restored and not start until the UPS performs its RESET operation (power off/on)

2. That nonsense RESET had to be configurable and I could disable it to solve my problem.

3. Of course I will never buy an APC product again to solve an issue caused by using an APC product - if I wanted to damage my hibernation state I would not need a UPS at all. Using this product is even worse than not having a UPS at all as once the hibernation state is damaged the PC starts and is stuck at a Microsoft boot screen that requires input - retry restoring or delete hibernation file and restart which means that this PC can no longer be accessed remotely unless someone goes and makes a choice.

And note that I am using a Corsair Power Supply - not some cheap Chinese noname unit. I really do not understand why this UPS is so poorly designed without any configurable settings and the PowerCrap application has nothing but few screens with nonsense text and useless features and lacks even basic stuff like power event list, instead it provides absolutely useless stuff like "Energy Usage" which I am sure that is not even correct.

Anyway - totally disappointed.

Is there any firmware or software fix or some hidden menu that I can use in order to at least disable the damned RESET (power off/on) operation?

Thank you!

[BillP]

Hi,

On 1/4/2016 5:23 PM, Jack said:

Is there any firmware or software fix or some hidden menu that I can use in order to at least disable the damned RESET (power off/on) operation?

APCUPSD give you the option of powering down the UPS or letting it remain up until the battery is drained. The feature is Kill Power and it is discussed in the APCUPSD User's Manual. 

[Anonymous user]

Thank you for the reference but even if I thought there could not be something worse than PowerShit that tool IS!

With some headaches I managed to get it working as desired, but it crashes after restoring from hibernation.

I always said that trying to make something that works on all operating systems is just stupid.

Amazing that there is no tool to work for this simple task.

Can you provide info on the APC drivet commands that I can use to write my own tool - should take me no more than 30 min I believe?

[voidstar_apc]

On , said:

I really do not think that the issue has anything to do with the PSU.

It is clear that this device is poorly designed - instead of checking if current is drawn from PC to detect that it has shut down and go to sleep the UPS is waiting X minutes to go to sleep.

The BackUPS I've used turn off to conserve battery when there's no load. However because computers draw current even when off and other devices attached to the UPS may still be on, it doesn't substitute for timed turn-off.

I agree that it would be nice to have an optional shutdown strategy that monitors when a computer actually turns off. The reason I don't think the UPS industry has persued this is because it's limited to one-computer-one-UPS scenerios; once you have more than one computer attached to a UPS, you need to know how long each will take to turn off and schedule shutdown accordingly. Otherwise you won't know if the battery provides enough runtime and delaying shutdown for one computer puts the others at risk.

On , said:

If power comes back before it goes to sleep computer starts immediately after power is restored - another UPS issue

Yes, this shouldn't be happening. One possibility is the computer is being woken up by activity on the USB bus. You can test this by disconnecting the USB cable after the PC shuts down but before power returns. That way you can determine if the PC (USB cable unplugged) wakes up immediately when power returns.

If your BackUPS is connected via USB, then at least on Windows you can try going into device manager "devmgmt.msc", right clicking the UPS device to select "properties", and under power management tab uncheck "Allow this device to wake the computer." If that doesn't work, I'd try looking in the BIOS.

On , said:

 some headaches I managed to get [APCUPSd] working as desired, but it crashes after restoring from hibernation.

That's odd. The program (APCUPSd) or the whole computer? Blue screen of death?

[Anonymous user]

Hello

Thank you for your reply.

1. "shutdown for one computer puts the others at risk." - this device is for home use so powering more than one computer is unlikely....this option is something we can not change anyway.

2. Power on by keyboard or other device is disabled. Also the option you mention is disabled. Most likely the device is poorly designed as I see that it provides some power to PC even when going to "deep" sleep - I have a fan with light and it lights up for a second when UPS enters sleep mode - how stupid. So most likely this is a HARDWARE ISSUE with the UPS - PSU should not feel a change when the power is restored.

3. No the computer does not crash. The service stays in "Shutting down" mode after restoring from hibernation. I tried to restart the service in multiple ways from the BAT file, but that leads to crash of the service which can not be manually started/stopped until restart. As you can understand if I do not restart it, it will not react to power outage anymore as it is in "Shutting down" mode.

[voidstar_apc]

For #1, I think we're in agreement.

For #2, I assume by "sleep mode", you mean when the UPS transitions from providing battery power, to output off while waiting for AC to return? I'm not sure I'm interpreting you correctly there as the PSU will definitely "feel" losing power. I thought the problem is that while the UPS is on battery (hasn't gone to sleep), your PSU "feels" the AC return?

For #3, Seems like APCUPSd doesn't handle hibernation or something. You've probably already seen this, but it looks like you can use an exit code to prevent APCUPSd from entering "shutting down" mode:
http://apcupsd-ups-control-software.10985.n7.nabble.com/Hibernate-system-instead-of-Shutdown-on-Wind...

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Hello

Thank you for your post, but the tool is not working as I noted - I saw that and also millions other posts that try to hibernate and can not.

I guess you are confused by the post which tries to say that the exit code helps not to allow the default action of apcupsd - "shutting down", but it is still left in that mode. Real headache eh.....

I saw that someone did a patch for that, but they have just ignored him:

http://apcupsd-ups-control-software.10985.n7.nabble.com/PATCH-hibernate-clear-shutdown-on-mains-on-t...