[mythtv-users] Power outages and UPSs

[Preston Crow]

On Thu, 2007-07-26 at 21:13 -0700, DaveD wrote:
> You can get away with the cheapest 
> version available if you just have the CPU plugged into it with a 
> 2-minute unconditional shutdown (system goes down clean if power not 
> back within two minutes).  That's how I have mine  configured, but 
> they're smart enough to calculate percent of battery left and wait
> until 
> the last minute to tell the machine to shut itself down (default 
> configuration).

I have several problems that I haven't figured out a solution to yet
concerning using a UPS.

Mostly, how do you insure that the system will power back up once the
power is restored?  You can configure the BIOS to power on when power is
applied, but that's not good enough.

*) What if the system is in the shutdown process when the power comes
back on?  It will complete the shutdown, and it will stay off.

*) What if the battery is nearly dead, the power comes back on, but goes
back out after the system has started booting?  You might not have
enough power left in the battery to power down completely.

What is really needed is to tell the UPS that you're done, and have it
cut power until it is recharged.  Can any consumer-grade UPSs do that?