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April 16, 2007

troubleshooting

Battery backups, timing, and the bug

Posted Apr. 16, ’07, 5:14 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Troubleshooting

Belkin UPS A long time ago, I bought an APC UPS (uninterruptible power supply) for little money. Unfortunately, it couldn’t handle my Mac Pro. The moment I pulled the plug, the entire system went dead. Oops. To save money, I went with Belkin’s 1500VA model. The reviews I read were good. It did the job, had ethernet and phone line protection, and even powered all 8 plugs using the battery.

The UPS arrived Friday. I let it charge, then hooked it up to my system. I then looked for the battery indicator that normally shows up on laptops and is also used by the native UPS support built into Tiger. It didn’t show. Energy Saver in System Preferences acted like it didn’t see it. I went to double check that the Belkin was natively supported when I came across a Mac OS X talk thread-t3410686.html). It seems that Mac OS X 10.4.9 will not see attached UPS devices after boot until you disconnect and reconnect the USB cord. Then it seems to be just fine and dandy. That stinks, but since I normally sleep my Mac Pro, it wouldn’t be an issue.

I was wrong. This past night, the power went out at my house. I sat at my Mac Pro, fairly surprised at the coincidence as it’s been nearly half a year since my last power outage. Then I realized that it was just sitting there, innocently unaware it was running off a battery that based upon estimates given by the battery monitor, would last about two minutes (I guess those four hard drives take juice). I immediately issued a shut down with plenty of time to spare. It then hit me. If I didn’t make sure the UPS was recognized after every bootup, it was utterly useless. This bug is single handedly negating the safety net I purposely went out and purchased.

For those of you protective of your data (you are backing up, right?), this is a rather large concern. Hopefully between now and October, Apple will release a fix as part of the 10.4.10 update (that shall never appear, according to Dan) or some other way. Data loss is not a trivial matter.


4 Comments

peter said:

I use a APC UPS with thier USB powerchute software. Works fine on 10.4.x. If the UPC is diconnected during start up, it automatically complains. Saved my computer lots of times as I have a power glitch at least once a week and a major outage (> 3 minutes) approximately every 4 months.

April 16, 2007 7:19 AM
Walt Basil said:

One of the big reasons I chose to stick with the laptop line is for this situation, loss of power. Yes, I regularly backup on 2 schedules, nightly and weekly, but I also BackUPS. Not for my laptop mind you, it has its own, but for my cable modem and printer. Power goes out… boom! (here comes the C&D letter from Steve) I’m still good for an hour or so of surfing, and can even print if I want to. Usually long enough to withstand the duration of the outage. Powering up a little wireless cable modem can last for some time on a BackUPS when that’s all it has to power, and not some desktop unit.

April 16, 2007 7:34 AM
Dave said:

In Dan's defense, Apple is too busy with the iPhone to release 10.4.10 :)

April 16, 2007 11:11 AM
Anthony Alva said:

I've used a laptop for years because of frequent power outages, or sporadic storm related power flickerings/outages lasting anywhere from a second to ten seconds. Nobody else at my office does so, and nobody else uses a battery backed surge suppressor. It's saved me from disaster numerous times.

April 21, 2007 4:13 PM

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