Surge Protector issue

[BigJohno]

Hey everyone, I have a APC Surge protector I have recently encountered an problem when waking from sleep. Every so often, maybe once a week I try to wake the computer up and it shuts off immediately and there is a loud continuos beep from the surge protector. I have to turn off the surge and then turn the mac pro back on. I have replaced the battery in the protector but still encountering the issue. Has anyone experienced this?

 

[Macman45]

It sounds like you may be suffering from the same issue I have...A "Dirty" electricity supply...The AS is pciking that up and doing it's job. I have just ordered two of them as the cheaper models seem to go regularly, usually at night, and they are not resettable.....New ones arrive today. I guess the only sure fire fix is a UPS.

 

[BigJohno]

It sounds like you may be suffering from the same issue I have...A "Dirty" electricity supply...The AS is pciking that up and doing it's job. I have just ordered two of them as the cheaper models seem to go regularly, usually at night, and they are not resettable.....New ones arrive today. I guess the only sure fire fix is a UPS.

What causes dirty power? Outlet? Old apartment?

 

[Macman45]

What causes dirty power? Outlet? Old apartment?

Old wiring/ poor supply outside...A lot of factors come into it...I live in a pretty small lane and the sub-station isn't really up to the job any more...They have no room to put in anything larger though, so we get poor quality supply.

 

[Lancer]

I used to have an APC (still have it kicking around somewhere) but I gave up on it years ago on my G5 tower. It never did what the OP has reported but all too often it would go to battery for no apparent reason and being a power hungry tower it didn't leave much time to shut down the G5 and that was to annoying part, having to shut down the computer, rest the UPS then start up the Mac again.

It much be a bad power supply, so in a way the UPS is doing its job. Right now I have another brand on my new iMac, so far I have not heard a beep out of it, knock on wood I won't unless we actually have a power outage.

 

[DanielCoffey]

It is also possible that the Mac Pro on initial startup is drawing more power than the small UPS that you have can supply.

If you have a monitor plugged into the UPS, temporarily move it to a power socket not on the UPS and see if that stops the beeping on startup.

I would also be surprised if you get more than a couple of minutes of battery on a UPS that small.

For modern Mac pros such as the 2010 onwards (not sure about 2009 and earlier) Apple advise a Pure Sine Wave UPS like the APC Smart-UPS SMT1000 or SMT1500. CyberPower also do a Pure Sine Wave UPS at a slightly lower price but there are a few small differences in the features the APC/CyberPower units and warranties cover.

All the Back-UPS range are Stepped Sine Wave which is not recommended on the newer Mac Pros due to their more efficient power supplies. Search this forum and you will find a lot of very detailed posts about APC and CyberPower UPS models for mac Pros. and remember that APC might still be running their Trade-UPS scheme where they give you a discount off a new UPS for trading in your old one.

 

[BigJohno]

It is also possible that the Mac Pro on initial startup is drawing more power than the small UPS that you have can supply.

If you have a monitor plugged into the UPS, temporarily move it to a power socket not on the UPS and see if that stops the beeping on startup.

I would also be surprised if you get more than a couple of minutes of battery on a UPS that small.

For modern Mac pros such as the 2010 onwards (not sure about 2009 and earlier) Apple advise a Pure Sine Wave UPS like the APC Smart-UPS SMT1000 or SMT1500. CyberPower also do a Pure Sine Wave UPS at a slightly lower price but there are a few small differences in the features the APC/CyberPower units and warranties cover.

All the Back-UPS range are Stepped Sine Wave which is not recommended on the newer Mac Pros due to their more efficient power supplies. Search this forum and you will find a lot of very detailed posts about APC and CyberPower UPS models for mac Pros. and remember that APC might still be running their Trade-UPS scheme where they give you a discount off a new UPS for trading in your old one.

Thank you for the info. I will start searching around and try your suggestion.

 

[Tesselator]

It is also possible that the Mac Pro on initial startup is drawing more power than the small UPS that you have can supply.

Mac Pro is known for this actually. When MacPro1,1 was released everyone's UPS's would fritz and fuse out. There were a whole slew of threads about it both here and on Apple's forums. MP1,1 with the initial firmware would draw 8 to 10 amps for about 0.7 seconds - just enough to set off alarms and cause havoc. Apple changed the firmware and then it only drew like 1/2 that and for about 3 times longer (still quite massive). This fixed most people's issues but a wimpy little unit such as linked to would likely still have problems. I assume your newer MacPro (and all MacPros really) is similar if not worse than MP1,1 was after the FW revision.

I don't think such a device would actually save you from anything anyway. Just my hunch...

 

[westom]

What causes dirty power? Outlet? Old apartment?

'Dirty' power defines numerous and completely different anomalies. A useful discussion about 'dirty' power says specifically which anomaly. For example, one type of dirty power is low voltage. Incandescent bulbs dim. But then Mac specifications say it will work even when incandescent bulbs dim to 40% intensity.

How often do your bulbs dim that much? Never?

'Dirtiest' power is created by a 120 volt UPS. In battery backup mode, its voltage is 200 volt square waves with a spike of up to 270 volts. That 'dirty' power is also ideal power for any Mac. Because Macs are so robust.

One problem with that UPS is battery degradation. A UPS battery typically lasts three years. Your symptoms are classic of a UPS switching to seriously degraded batteries. However, many other anomalies can also explain that behavior.

Noise created by a Mac on power up can confuse monitoring circuits in a UPS. So the UPS temporarily switches to batteries - that may have degraded too much.

Connect an incandescent bulb to the other wall duplex receptacle. Does it change intensity when the Mac powers? If not, wiring is perfectly fine.

Finally, that APC is not a surge protector. Claims near zero protection. The APC only does something useful when voltages drop - approaches zero. Surges are high voltages - ie thousands of volts. APC's specs make no claims for protecting from thousands of volts. It is a UPS. It creates temporary and 'dirty' power during a blackout. Nothing more.