New iMac would not boot with ups , kindly guide ...

[amitshrivastava]

Hi,

I purchased a new iMac 21.5 inch 4k just a week back and today it was not booting up , I have connected it to an ups , its an old one , but worked well with iMac till last 5-6 days ....

Today however it did not boot and then I connected the power plug directly , the iMac booted this time, then again connected it to ups and its working for now...

Is it too risky to connect it to ups , or should I buy a new ups(and which one and what capacity?), kindly suggest I will do the needful ...

Also just wondering if the wrong kind of ups can damage the iMac, its an old 600va ups ...

Also will i need 1000va for iMac 21.5 or a 600va will suffice , I am very confused as I read more and more on google ...

Just one final query as well, could there be something wrong with iMac as well ?

Thanks

Regards
Amit Shrivastava

 

[amitshrivastava]

Ok so I went to this electric shop and he says the APC 600va will be enough for my iMac 21.5 which needs about 160watt max and the UPS will give me 356 watt output, is this correct can any one suggest if I should buy it ...

I only connect the iMac to ups nothing else at all

thanks

 

[mikehalloran]

I only connect the iMac to ups nothing else at all

That makes no sense if it doesn't work.

How old is the battery? If too low, a UPS is useless and your iMac may not have enough juice to boot. A bad battery is far worse than no battery.

 

[amitshrivastava]

@mikehalloran - thanks, the current ups battery is about 3 years old, I went to buy a new one and to my surprise they now tell me that iMac only works on pure sine wave ups , they suggested a model of apc smart ups which is $640, I simply cannot afford it, but they say its needed for iMac , kindly guide here...

Amit Shrivastava

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

You are being conned.

 

[old-wiz]

I think you are being conned also. I have had UPS devices fail but the battery can be replaced if they still offer them for that model. I have 3 UPS Devices fail (over about 8 years) and had to buy new ones since APC no longer had batteries available, but they do offer a discount on a new one provided you send the old battery to them.

BTW set up your iMac to not automatically restart after a power failure - often when the power comes back on there will be a power surge, which is not good.

 

[amitshrivastava]

@nambuccaheadsau , @old-wiz - thanks , after reading your comments , I went ahead and purchased a $55 APC with 660va and surge protection, it has max capacity of 360watt which is more then iMac 4k max power consumption of 161 watt , so hope every thing will work out well ...

The thing is on apple forum there are so many. threads where people suggest that one must use pure sine wave UPS ranging from $250 to $1000 that I was too confused...

However I also read there that if one wants to keep the iMac on for long durations during power outages then pure sine wave if OK , but if one will shut down in 5-10 minute of power outage then any decent UPS even non pure sine wave will do ...

Thanks for the guidance once again ....

Amit Shrivastava

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

Spot on Amit.

 

[old-wiz]

APC has a cable you can use to link the UPS via USB to the iMac - when power goes out it sends a signal to OSX telling it to shut down. This is very useful if you are out of the house for an afternoon.

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

It is a USB cable and you cant set a decent UPS to shut down after a time ninterval if say you are working on a new document. Fifteen minutes does me.

The UPS Power Pane appears in the Energy Saver section of System Preferences.