Recording outages in sleep mode

[BillP]

This question was originally posted by Tom on APC forums on 7/28/2014

---

I have an ES 550 backup system on my main desktop computer. It also powers my VoIP phone modem. I have a couple other similar units powering my cable modem and router, and other things.

My computer is set to power down to a sleep mode after about an hour of inactivity. Most power outages have occurred at times other than when I was working on this computer (at night, while I'm out of town, etc.). When I am not here to witness the power outage, I'd like to get some sense of the duration. However, the Personal Edition Powerchute apparently does not record outages when the computer is in sleep mode. Is there any way around this? My understanding is that the USB port is inactive in sleep (correct?). Is there a setting on my hardware or OS (Win7) to keep those active?

Thanks

Tom

[BillP]

This reply was originally posted by Bill on APC forums on 7/29/2014

---

Hi,

When a computer sleeps it goes into a low power state. In this state PowerChute along with all other application are suspended so PowerChute cannot log what is happening. If you want PowerChute to log events it must remain running so you will have to disable sleep.

[BillP]

This reply was originally posted by Tom on APC forums on 7/30/2014

---

Thanks very much for your response.

I'm not willing to discontinue powering down for both energy and security reasons. I was hoping that there was another solution given that recording power outages would seem to be a high priority. For example, I was wondering if some units record events on a chip in the unit and update the software when it is live. Obviously that's not the case. I'll continue to look elsewhere for a solution to recording the outages.

[voidstar_apc · Accepted solution]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 8/6/2014

---

If you're willing to upgrade to a SmartUPS + Network Management Card, it has a data log that will log power outages and can optionally FTP them to a central location for preservation.

Or if you're more of a DIY type, a laptop running APCUPSd might do the trick.

However the UPS isn't really designed as a power quality analyzer -- it makes a go/no-go decision about the power quality based on what's necessary for the load to survive both a power outage and the UPS switching to battery. So if you need something specific beyond a general idea, you probably want something else.