Keeping Powered Backup Outlets Alive

[Anonymous user]

I apologize if this has been answered: if it has, please point me to the thread!

I recently purchased a BR1500G for a specific purpose. I expected this functionality to be trivial, and am now dismayed that the unit does not seem to do this.

What I want the BR1500G to do in a power outage is this:

1). Hibernate my main desktop computer on Master Outlet 8 along with its dependent periphery on Outlet 7. This works fine.

2). Supply power to my router/modem, ATA, an ethernet switch, and possibly a file server (external hard-drive) until the battery for as long as possible on the Battery Backup outlets. This does not seem to be implemented. Why not?!? Instead, the unit shuts down after 2 or so minutes.

Is there an elegant workaround for 2).?

What seems to work is this: Once the BR1500G has shut down, unplug the computer on Outlet 8, plug a power strip into it with the networking equipment, and power the BR1500G on again. It seems to stay on - though I haven't waited until the battery was empty to see. But this solution is suboptimal - I don't want to have to crawl under the desk to replug things, and it would be better if the router, VOIP phone and file server didn't die in the first place.

Thanks!

[BillP]

Hi,

What you are looking for in not possible if the computer is running PowerChute Personal Edition but it is possible with APCUPSD. With APCUPSD you have the option of turning the UPS off or not. For your configuration you would not configure APCUPSD to turn the UPS off. The UPS will continue to run until the battery is drained or AC is restored. 

Note: If the UPS does not turn off the computer will have to be started manually is AC is restored prior to the battery draining. 

[Anonymous user]

Hi Bill, Thank you for your response.

I will play with APCUPSD a bit when I find the time to figure it out!

For now I've done a little experimentation under PowerChute and made some discoveries that make it it fairly usable.

Namely: If during a power failure I shut down the Master computer manually rather than letting PowerChute automatically power it down, the UPS unit will not shut down, and the network stays up. So I have to be quick!
If I am not there to shut down the Master computer manually, then the UPS might as well shut down and not waste battery.
Once the UPS is shut down, taking the network with it, it can be restarted with the Power button. I can then leave the computer off and allow the network to come back up and run on battery. There seems to be no need to replug anything like I originally thought.
What would be nice is, if I come too late and the UPS has already shut down the Master computer, but not the rest of the system and itself, if one could intervene at that point and stop it from shutting down - but I have not discovered any way to do that.
What would be even nicer is if some further development of PowerChute allowed for more behavior options, like not shutting down automatically!

Frank

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Drop the software if your OS can detect the UPS (most modern operating systems) then use the power management features of your OS to shut your computer down. This would make the UPS dumb and you won't be able to switch off whatever is on outlet 7 but the upside is it won't shut down the UPS when the computer shuts down. Instead it'll continue running the battery until dead or AC comes back.

This is what I do to keep fibre running during power outages (ONT/Router/VOIP) for a good 4 hours if need be.