OT UPS battery protection

[KenK]

I have a UPS protecting my computer's power with three 12v 7a batteries. Recently while I was away for a few hours the power went off and evidently the UPS ran the batteries down and they failed. I had to replace them. Perhaps they were about due for replacement anyway but I'll never know for sure.

Anyhow, anyone aware of a timer of some sort I can use on the UPS so after ten minutes (or whatever) after the AC goes off it turns off the UPS (or cuts power to omputer)? If I'm there I'd shut down long before ten minutes.

Suggestions?

TIA

[Frank]

Offhand, I think there is something in the UPS software to shut your computer down gracefully. I've never had the problem but I always turn my computers off when not in use.

[The Daring Dufas]

Most backup power supplies have a serial or USB connector for communicating with the computer. The software CD that is supplied with the UPS will have a program for monitoring the power and can shut down the computer after a set period of time or if the battery capacity reaches a certain point. If you post the make and model number of your UPS, I may know the characteristics of your unit because I have dozens of them around here and I picked up a case of batteries yesterday to repair some of my 1kw+ UPS systems. ^_^

TDD

[Arnie Goetchius]

If your UPS is APC, you can use their Powerchute program to set the time for shutting down. I use 5 minutes on mine. I also have a Belkin UPS which has its own shutdown software.

[Scott Lurndal]

Most quality UPS will come with a software application you can load on your computer that will shutdown the computer after it has been ON-BATTERY for a configurable amount of time (c.f. Powerchute).

UPS batteries should last 3 years in a consumer-grade UPS, and 5 years in a commercial grade UPS.

[KenK]

The Daring Dufas wrote in news:l34408$3t8$ [e-mail]:

Ancient Emerson UPS 600. No software I am aware of. No manual and I can't find one on line with Google. There is a Liebert but I'm pretty this is a different (and very large commercial) UPS.

[KenK]

Frank wrote in news:l343nq$246$ [e-mail]:

Ancient Emerson UPS 600. No software I am aware of. No manual and I can't find one on line with Google. There is a Liebert (evidently they bought Emerson?) but I'm pretty this is a different (and very large commercial) UPS.

I left it on for years while I am regularly away for a couple of hours in the morning. No lengthy power outages. Now I turn off the system while I'm away just in case but it is a PITA to reboot the system and restart all the software most every morning on my slow ancient system.

[mike]

What's your definition of failed? Open? Won't charge? low capacity? How long since your last test run?

I've only had half a dozen UPS's over the years, but ALL of them had low-battery shutoff that prevents battery failure from over-discharge. Failure from long-term overcharge is another issue.

Get one with a port and software that can shut off the computer.

My UPS battery has been "dead" for years. Runs the system for almost a minute. Around here, we have two types of outages:

1)glitches lasting a second or less that auto-reset themselves. My UPS works great on those. 2)Those that don't auto-reset and will take hours for manual fix. With a good battery, mine still wouldn't last long enough for those. If I press the sleep button before going out, it lasts much longer.

Don't remember anything a chkdsk or fsck wouldn't fix...but there's still a recent backup justincase.

I

[Frank]

I recall seeing the programs but never installed them on the three computers I have connected to them.

Got my first, an APC, many years ago which has since gone bad. Loss of power while computer was running had caused disasters before I had the APC. Newer machines might be better but I'd never take the risk again.

[Arnie Goetchius]

Does your Emerson 600 have either a serial port or a USB port? If yes, then somewhere there is software that will control the UPS 600. If there are no ports, then there is no software and you can stop looking.

[Arnie Goetchius]

See if this works:

[gregz]

The ups should shut down before battery rundown. Even with software, it still needs shutdown, monitor, etc.

Greg

[clare]

A REAL ups has monitoring software that when knstalled on the computer shuts it down before the battery goes dead.

[micky]

Have you tried Hiberrnate. I use it all the time. Takes much less time and you don't have to do anything, so if it does take time, you can be getting coffee or something.

[KenK]

Arnie Goetchius wrote in news:l34mds$r2i$ [e-mail]:

It has a nine-pin female connector marked 'Status'. That's it. With no manual I have no idea what it's for.

[KenK]

micky wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I'll have to check into that. I never tried it but recall reading about it many years ago. Thanks for the tip.

[krw]

It can take a significant amount of time for memory to be reloaded from disk and the system reinitialized when coming out of hibernate. Sleep mode is almost instantaneous, though. It still takes my laptop a minute to reconnect to the wireless network, though.

[The Daring Dufas]

I often put the desktops in the office in sleep mode because a lot of the protection software takes a few minutes to load from a cold start. ^_^

TDD

[Arnie Goetchius]

Good. Get a serial cable and connect it to your computer and then install the software located here:

[Nate Nagel]

DB9 is a standard serial connection.

nate