I have a line interactive ups that I would like to setup to shut down
XP nicely if there's a power failure. The UPS service is running, the
com port is connected to the UPS, and in control panel/power
options/UPS/configure/critical alarm I have set the option to shut down
on critical alarm, 5 minutes left on battery.
I think this is correct but if I simulate a failure by pulling the UPS
power cord to the wall the machine simply cuts out when battery is
drained.
Am I missing something?
How old are the batteries in the UPS? I end up having to change out
mine about every 3 years because they become too weak after awhile (the
uptime becomes shorter and shorter until eventually there isn't any).
The ones that I've bought allowed me to take them apart to get at the
battery to replace it. Usually BatteriesPlus had a replacement so I
didn't have to pay the exhorbitant price from the UPS maker.
Could be there isn't enough oomph in the batteries to keep the UPS
running for the 5-minute interval. Could be there isn't even enough
juice from the batteries to allow time for the software to properly
shutdown Windows (but that could also happen if the amperage draw of the
computer far exceeded the capacity of the UPS; i.e., you are draining
the current way too fast with an undersized UPS). Does the UPS software
show running time or remaining time (so you can see its guess as to how
long it will keep the computer running during a power outage)? That's
just a guess. If the computer doesn't shutdown immediately when you
yank the power cord to the UPS, and without changing what other software
is running on the computer during the test, watch the UPS software to
monitor the run time to see how closely it matches wall time. If it
starts guessing the runtime will be 30 minutes but it drops faster than
wall time and you only get 5 minutes of actual runtime then the
batteries are too weak.