Is APC PowerChute necessary with Win7?  

Being a newbi I may be doing this wrong so please forgive me if this is the case.

I have been running a serial connected smartups1000 on a XPpro machine which was serving as a data server.
It is/was using a home made 0024C cable and worked well.

I have now graduated to Win7 Pro but can not find any way of using it.
The APC software seems to be looking for a USB connection.

Can anyone help please?
Regards John

johnsiddle said:

Being a newbi I may be doing this wrong so please forgive me if this is the case.

I have been running a serial connected smartups1000 on a XPpro machine which was serving as a data server.
It is/was using a home made 0024C cable and worked well.

I have now graduated to Win7 Pro but can not find any way of using it.
The APC software seems to be looking for a USB connection.

Can anyone help please?
Regards John

The USB connection is for the normally present ability of the external UPC battery to be interrogated by the PowerChute software installed in the Win7 system and running in the background all the time.

If a power outage occurs and the battery begins to be "drained" by use during the outage, when the remaining battery life drops below your user-setting value, PowerChute will want to shut down Windows while there's still battery power available, so as to protect your system and data.

All of this is facilitated through the USB connection so that PowerChute running in Windows can assess the state of the UPS battery. This requires the USB connection, using the special 2-ended USB cable provided by APC and which has an extra-wide plastic USB connector for the USB end, and a standard USB connector for the computer end.

Don't know what your options might be, other than (a) phoning APC for support, or (b) investing in a new current day UPS unit which includes the required USB cable.

dsperber said:

johnsiddle said:

Being a newbi I may be doing this wrong so please forgive me if this is the case.

I have been running a serial connected smartups1000 on a XPpro machine which was serving as a data server.
It is/was using a home made 0024C cable and worked well.

I have now graduated to Win7 Pro but can not find any way of using it.
The APC software seems to be looking for a USB connection.

Can anyone help please?
Regards John

The USB connection is for the normally present ability of the external UPC battery to be interrogated by the PowerChute software installed in the Win7 system and running in the background all the time.

If a power outage occurs and the battery begins to be "drained" by use during the outage, when the remaining battery life drops below your user-setting value, PowerChute will want to shut down Windows while there's still battery power available, so as to protect your system and data.

All of this is facilitated through the USB connection so that PowerChute running in Windows can assess the state of the UPS battery. This requires the USB connection, using the special 2-ended USB cable provided by APC and which has an extra-wide plastic USB connector for the USB end, and a standard USB connector for the computer end.

Don't know what your options might be, other than (a) phoning APC for support, or (b) investing in a new current day UPS unit which includes the required USB cable.

Thanks for your reply.
I understand this but I have an older UPS which only has a serial connection which I have connected to com1, but the problem I have is that the PowerChute software I have for WIN7 seems to only want to look at a USB connection, which this UPS does not have. Prevoiusly I was using the built in program in XP.
I am hoping someone knows of a way to use this UPS with Windows 7 and the serial port.
regards John

johnsiddle said:

Thanks for your reply.
I understand this but I have an older UPS which only has a serial connection which I have connected to com1, but the problem I have is that the PowerChute software I have for WIN7 seems to only want to look at a USB connection, which this UPS does not have. Prevoiusly I was using the built in program in XP.
I am hoping someone knows of a way to use this UPS with Windows 7 and the serial port.
regards John

Hi,

It would help to know which UPS model you have? Is it an APC?

That said, the Personal Edition (home user) of PowerChute software needs a USB connection to communicate with the backup UPS, thus if you're unable to communicate from PC to UPS via USB, then there's no need to have the software installed since it's sole purpose is to monitor and control the (APC) UPS backup power supply.

I've been using APC UPS backup power systems for a while now but can't remember any of them using a serial port. Again, which model is this? If it's an APC, you'll have to go here Support and input your model number to see which software you should be using.

Let us know.

Oh, and yes... PowerChute works under both Windows 7, as well as Windows 8.1, as I currently have it installed on my 8.1 system now.

Yes it is an APC it is a smartups1000, I thought I mentioned that at the start.
It deffo has a serial port on it and came with a 0024C cable.
There are a number of early APC's that use this system.

It worked fine on XP Pro using the built in system, but as you say the Personal Edition uses the USB port.
Thanks anyway.
John

In a word, No it is not necessary. I have an APC Battery Backup and do not use the software. When I worked for EDS, they recommended not to use it as it was crashing PC's. That was back in the mid 90's, so maybe their software has improved. I personally have no use for it. If I have a Power Failure the APC unit keeps my 2 PC's up for awhile. I always just turn them of then.

As has been stated, the PowerChute software is for communication with and control of the battery backup. This is identical in concept to all the other UPS battery products out there (e.g. Belkin, CyberPower, etc.) all of which also include software you can use. The software isn't mandatory to run in order for the UPS to do its job, but much of the overall functionality depends on the software.

First, information about any power outages that might have occurred (and which were handled by the UPS) is available through the software display.

Also, current status about the UPS, battery life and replacement recommendations, estimated max battery time available, etc., is available through the software.

And of course auto-shutdown (actually hibernation I believe) if a power outage happens and might last probably longer than the max battery time available. Say with five minutes of remaining battery charge left, the software will automatically shut down Windows while there is still power available in the battery. Again, this happens through the software.

And the software can do all this because of the USB cable connection.

I wouldn't run a UPS without the proper cable connection as well as the associated vendor software to manage that UPS. That's certainly how I run my own APC UPS (on my HTPC).

My problem is, the server runs 24/7 and I live 30+ miles from it so a quick trip to turn off the server is not really on, unless I get a couple of big car batteries to run it.
I think my wife might object to a trip in the middle of the night.
Thanks anyway.
John

Could you consider purchasing a current model UPS (from APC or another vendor), that utilizes USB instead of serial and whose software runs under Win7/8?