Restart time after soft shutdown process

[Anonymous user]

I'd like to integrate a UPS with each of the PC's that controls the bench top electrical test equipment my company manufactures and sells. I've be testing this shutdown process with a Back-UPS CS 500 unit. A smaller APC I'm sure would do the job as well. All I want is to do a graceful shutdown if power good power goes away and is not restored within say 15 seconds to a minute. However, it would be nice to be able to turn the PC and bench top test equipment back on within a few seconds, not wait 180 seconds for the UPS to reset itself. It's a bit confusing to the novice user that the UPS will not reset itself for 180 seconds after the power down process completes. If a user tries to turn on the PC it immediately does a hard shutdown until the UPS resets itself to use line voltage. I don't like this scenario.

I understand the 180 second period (after going through 4 tech support calls and having a replacement UPS sent to me) is to allow the UPS to monitor the line voltage, assure it is good and stable, and then reset itself. I guess would just ask, is there any way to shorten this period on any of your UPS units, ideally on a smaller one since I'm really just wanting a "shutdown ups"? Please note that when the UPS is on line it continues to monitor the line voltage, and will continue to switch to battery power as needed. The 180 second "line monitoring period" seems a bit overboard. At least would be nice if this period could be shortened or eliminated with the PowerChute software. Can you make me aware of my options?

[Anonymous user]

Thanks,

It would be nice, even if we had to invest in a software update or something.

[voidstar_apc]

I'm not familiar with PowerChute, but I do want to clarify the reason for the reset behavior. In order for the computer to turn itself back on after a power outage, it has to experience a loss of AC. So PowerChute tells the computer to shut down and the UPS to shutdown with AC restart after 180 seconds. If the time were shorter, the OS might not have enough time to shut down before the UPS turns off.

If you don't find a setting in PowerChute to change this, then perhaps you can turn off and on the UPS after a power outage to turn the computer back on.

[Anonymous user]

Thanks for your response. I understand hopefully the correct reasoning for the behavior now, but I'm not enamored by it.

What I see is:

I set the PowerShute software to shut down the PC after some period of time. After the period has transpired, a warning message is issued that the power down will occur in 10 seconds. After 10 seconds the PC shut down process occurs.

The shutdown process on our PC's takes about 20 seconds. The UPS continues to "chirp" during these periods. That's OK with me.

After the PC has been shut down, the UPS continues to chirp for about 140 seconds. During this time the person using the PC should not turn the PC back on (even if power is restored) because if they do the PC will be shutdown hard!!! However, the operator can turn the PC back on if he knows to flip the power off and then back on the UPS. Good luck!

Again, it would be nice if the UPS could restored itself to online, when power is restored to it. It seems like the UPS should be able to be aware of when the PC has powered down (ie. no signal or voltage from the PC). If someone could answer whether there is a setting (maybe on the professional addition of PowerShute or otherwise) that allows us to vary this shutdown period it would be helpful.

Thanks,E

[voidstar_apc · Accepted solution]

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Again, it would be nice if the UPS could restored itself to online, when power is restored to it. It seems like the UPS should be able to be aware of when the PC has powered down (ie. no signal or voltage from the PC). If someone could answer whether there is a setting (maybe on the professional addition of PowerShute or otherwise) that allows us to vary this shutdown period it would be helpful.
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I agree. I'll float the idea... maybe we can find a way to do that.