UPS owners... quick question.

Joe42

Joe42

Joe42

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I need to know if a ups will make too much noise when powering a pc thats on standby.
I have heard that they make a lot of noise when on battery power, but could anyone with a ups just try putting their pc on standby whilst running off the ups and see if it makes much noise?
I also need to know if there is a minimum load, and if so would the load of a pc on standby be below this?

It doesn't matter which ups you have, as i imagine they are all fairly similar inside.

I need this because i'm thinking of running my fileserver off a ups on standby overnight, and using a ups i can put a timer on it and have it go into standby when the power goes off. Its in a spare bedroom so needs to be quiet.

Thanks
 
Ok I may be being stupid here, but I thought the idea of a ups was that it kept your pc going long enough when the power cuts out to allow you to do a controlled shut down. How does that add up to keeping the pc going on standby? What would be the benefit of that? Also all the ups's I've had, (and in 15 years in France I've had a few, 'cos the batterys don't last forever and we've got three pcs, on one each) they run silently or near as damn it in themselves but they all shriek at you that "the power has gone off, do something!!!" and I don't think you'd want that in your spare room :p

Mind you I'm quite happy to belive I'm being stupid and have totally misunderstood this post :D

turbotoes
 
Sorry, i'll make it clearer what i'm planning on doing with it.

I don't want to run my fileserver 24/7, i want it on a timer, and as it doesn't have one in the bios i could use a plug in timer and a ups to get it to shutdown overnight.
However, unfortunately it doesn't boot with the sata drives plugged in so rather than shutting down i would set it to go into standby instead.

So what i want to know is would it make a nasty buzzing noise when running off the ups and in standby?

And can you choose what it does when the power goes off, because i need it to standby rather than shut down?
I'm asuming the ups would have enough bettery capacity to run it in standby for a few hours.

Obviously if it has a power fail alarm that can't be disabled then thats no good either.
 
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Joe42 said:
So what i want to know is would it make a nasty buzzing noise when running off the ups and in standby?

And can you choose what it does when the power goes off, because i need it to standby rather than shut down?
I'm asuming the ups would have enough bettery capacity to run it in standby for a few hours.

Obviously if it has a power fail alarm that can't be disabled then thats no good either.
Click to expand...

I have a APC backups 650 (USB), when the power goes off it will beep quite loudly but when depends on the alarm time I choose. You cant get it to turn off at a certain time (atleast I cant see an option) but you can set the "low battery alarm" to come on at say 99% battery level and set the alarm action to what you like (shut down/hibernate/standby).
 
Does it only shut down when the alarm goes off?

Could i get it to standby immediately, but have the alarm to go off later when the battery is almost run out?

Does it buzz when running on the battery, and does it buzz when on battery with the pc on standby?

Thanks.
 
Joe42 said:
Does it only shut down when the alarm goes off?

Could i get it to standby immediately, but have the alarm to go off later when the battery is almost run out?

Does it buzz when running on the battery, and does it buzz when on battery with the pc on standby?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Yeah it takes a "Action" when the alarm goes off (although you can disable the action), and the action is either shut down/hibernate/stand by. I dont think you can get it to turn off imediatly, perhaps if you set the alarm to 100% ?

I just turned my wall socket off and it beeped a 2-3 times and there is a very slight buzzing noise - no idea about standby (not willing to try it either).

What is the point having the UPS when its in standby mode? You may aswell just hibernate it and by a surge protector?
 
It won't resume from hibernate, i have to unplug the sata drives to get it to resume or boot, but if i use standby i don't have to unplug them.

The whole point of this is to be able to get it to go into standby overnight by using a timer, and the only way i can think of doing this is attaching a timer and ups and setting it to go into standby when the timer switches the ups off.
 
dbmzk1 said:
Why not just use a timer to put the PC in standby at a set time?

Something like http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/ ?
Click to expand...
Indeed.

What is seems like you are tring to do is use a UPS for a reason it is not really used.

Their main purpose is to keep a PC running when there is no input.
(Or a laptop + stereo for 4 hours in the forest!)

I would sort out your boot order in the BIOS - Set it so you CAN have SATA drives installed and still boot-up.
Should only take a little time with the drives plugged in and pointing the BIOS to look for your normal system drive.

Then you could use a scheduled task and the shutdown command.

Or just use a 3rd party app as advised to put it into standby.
Even if the app is just a command line driven app - You can still set it to be a scheduled task.
 
dbmzk1 said:
Why not just use a timer to put the PC in standby at a set time?

Something like http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/ ?
Click to expand...
Thats brilliant, just the sort of thing i was looking for. I knew it was possible because windows media centre can bring itself out of standby at a set time without this being supported by the bios. Thanks.

Regarding the sata drives, they are plugged into a sata card and when plugged in the pc won't go past post for some reason, there is nothing in the bios i can change as far as i can tell.
If you know a way to get it to boot with the sata drives plugged in that would be brilliant.
 
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