Reply to: UPS advice?

[EqualOpportunities]

Okay, I come clean. With 3 out of 4 sockets to choose from I used the fourth...

All working now, thanks for the help in diagnosis

Firkwit. That's my kind of trick

[r0bly0ns]

I'm surprised Belkin technical support didn't ask you to check that.


But then again...........

[gadgetman]

Okay, I come clean. With 3 out of 4 sockets to choose from I used the fourth...

All working now, thanks for the help in diagnosis

[r0bly0ns]

By the way I talked it through with Belkin's live support chat thing and they reckon its broken - the load figure is at 0%. Windows shows that the charge is at 100% so it does at least see a battery.

We have the Belkin 800 version, the software shows a load of around 45% with 2 PC's running off it, so you should definately see some load.

I think that 1 of 2 suggestions you have been given sound like they could be the answer, either you have the pc plugged in to the wrong socket or the UPS is faulty

[gadgetman]

That would be really dumb wouldn't it? Erm, I'll get back to you.

[Platypus]

From what you suggest I guess this is not the case and that its all going via the battery which is continuously being charged?

That's my understanding.

By the way I talked it through with Belkin's live support chat thing and they reckon its broken

Humm I did wonder about that hence my suggestion.

Although I note this from their website:

Features

* Provides 4 Sockets: 3 Battery Backup Sockets w/Surge Protection; 1 Socket with Surge Protection Only

Have you got the PC plugged into the SP socket by mistake?

EDIT: info from here
http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/...&sourceid=2024

[Ardesco]

A bit late I know, but I would suggest buying an APC one. Decent kit at a reasonable price:

http://www.dabs4work.com/productview...ey=50555,11032

Just in case you decide to return the Belkin and buy something else

[gadgetman]

Thanks, I'll try that tonight.

My naive view of how these work was that the Power goes through the UPS and charges the battery as needed and in parallel supplies the PC. In the event of power loss the UPS switches its output to be from the battery.

From what you suggest I guess this is not the case and that its all going via the battery which is continuously being charged?

By the way I talked it through with Belkin's live support chat thing and they reckon its broken - the load figure is at 0%. Windows shows that the charge is at 100% so it does at least see a battery.

[Platypus]

Okay, finally got round to testing this thing at the weekend and I can't make it work at all.

I tried using the wizard and selected for the UPS to activate on power on, switched off the power at the mains and then PC powered off. After a few seconds the UPS alarm beeped to tell me I'd lost power (doh!).

I manually set up the 'Action' screen to activate the UPS and to send email etc but I just couldn't get it to kick in.

Next to the "Power Failed" event I have Shutdown, Logging, Alarm, Email and Broadcast option buttons all with green ticks on them. If I click on the Shutdown option this has Enable ticked, followed by Shutdown OS after 0 minutes. Shutdown Delay is set to 300 seconds.

The software appears to be installed, the monitors and tests all look okay and I can even access it through the web interface. I just can't get the thing to fulfil its primary function!

One oddity on the software; within Action there's a whole list of option buttons next to each 'Event'. These have a Green tick or Red cross on the left of the button presumably to indicate it is enabled and they also have a check box on the right of each one.

I'm not sure what this check box is for (it doesn't changed the cross or tick on the option button) but regardless it will not stay checked i.e. when I go back in it has been cleared.

Anyone using the Belkin 1200 successfully? What am I missing?

By the way I am using 4.0.1 Build 1115.

I'm not using the exact make/model as you but I do use a couple of Belkin UPS, one with Bulldog and one without. First thing's first. Forget about the software. Unplug the USB connection. When you switch off the mains, does the UPS keep the PC running?

[Diver]

which is more than enough time.

Hi DS

[gadgetman]

Okay, finally got round to testing this thing at the weekend and I can't make it work at all.

I tried using the wizard and selected for the UPS to activate on power on, switched off the power at the mains and then PC powered off. After a few seconds the UPS alarm beeped to tell me I'd lost power (doh!).

I manually set up the 'Action' screen to activate the UPS and to send email etc but I just couldn't get it to kick in.

Next to the "Power Failed" event I have Shutdown, Logging, Alarm, Email and Broadcast option buttons all with green ticks on them. If I click on the Shutdown option this has Enable ticked, followed by Shutdown OS after 0 minutes. Shutdown Delay is set to 300 seconds.

The software appears to be installed, the monitors and tests all look okay and I can even access it through the web interface. I just can't get the thing to fulfil its primary function!

One oddity on the software; within Action there's a whole list of option buttons next to each 'Event'. These have a Green tick or Red cross on the left of the button presumably to indicate it is enabled and they also have a check box on the right of each one.

I'm not sure what this check box is for (it doesn't changed the cross or tick on the option button) but regardless it will not stay checked i.e. when I go back in it has been cleared.

Anyone using the Belkin 1200 successfully? What am I missing?

By the way I am using 4.0.1 Build 1115.

[gadgetman]

Tried and works fine.

Just realised that 4NT (which I use as my shell) has a sendmail command built in. Doh!

[KevinS]

Blat - not sure if it still being developed, but the page is still live..

Edit: Appears to be as the last release is Feb last year..

[gadgetman]

Finally got the Belkin unit installed last night.

The Bulldog software looks useful (I'm remote monitoring it over the net) but the only thing is that the email notification seems limited i.e. there's no way to specify non-standard ports or to specify a login for the smtp server.

Is there a way to do this?

Alternatively I presume I could get the s/w to run an external command that sends me an email. If so any suggestions on a command line driven app for Windows that can do this e.g. something like sendmail on Unix?

[Sockpuppet]

I use laptops as servers now.

One as a web server, another as a database server etc.

A dual core 2GB RAM laptop is about £400 inc VAT.

Gives me about an hour of uptime even with no power. I use a small UPS for the router, firewall appliances etc only.

I've got a server farm of laptops at ClientCo.

They all run the same program currently there are 4 stacked on top of each other on my desk. Actually quiet cool..the "program" is an entire scripting language that is written in excel/vba by a client bod. Its actually quiet clever.