[FellowConspirator]

This article is erroneous. APC UPSs work just fine. It's true that PowerChute is not supported beyond OS X 10.4.8, but that's primarily because it's no longer required. Simply plug your UPS in and you are good to go - OS X recognizes it and uses it properly.

[joelw135]

I am also using an APC Back-UPS XS 800 wirh out a problem with an iMac. I am not using the APC software, just the Energey Saver Preference Pane.

[ted_landau]

I understand about the distinction between the PowerChute software problem vs. a potential APC hardware problem. I am also aware that not everyone using an APC unit will have such problems. Finally, I am aware that part of the problem may be more a general issue with Energy Saver software than with APC hardware. I believe all of this is covered in the article.

That said, there are clearly a group of people, confirmed from various sources, having some issues with their APC units and who are NOT using the PowerChute software. I tried to make this clear as well. Based on the replies to this article, it may be that I overstated their number. If so, I regret doing so. Beyond that, I stand by what I wrote.

[Scuzuliak]

APCUPSD is a great piece of open source software: http://www.apcupsd.com/

Maybe not the most user friendly to install and setup, but it works great and is very customizable. You can even set up your other computers as "clients", so if power goes out, your main "host" computer will publish that information to the network, and the clients can shut themselves down.

I've been running an APC UPS for a couple years without problems, but always with APCUPSD.

[tracyvalleau]

Got to say I agree with the others: this article need a lot more explanation.
1) to get the basic benefit from a UPS, you only need to plug in the AC cords.
2) if you want your machine to gracefully shut down by itself when it's on battery backup (because you're not there to do it yourself) you need to connect the USB cable between the UPS and your computer, and then set up the Energy Control Panel for it.
The best set up is a fixed time (not percentage) which is long enough to let you do it manually if you're sitting there at the time the power goes out, and short enough to be well within the power range of the particular UPS.
Some power supplies (though thankfully none from Apple that I know of) -require- a pure sine wave signal, which is a much more expensive unit (in the $350 and up range) and without it will shut down instantly, regardless of the presence of the UPS.
Upshot: I think saying "avoid this particular brand" is a disservice to the community. They have some obsolete software, but the software was obsoleted by its inclusion in the OS. I have 4 APC UPS units, as the power both browns out, and goes out with some frequency around here. I have never had an APC unit fail (other than old batteries) in the 20+ years I've been using them.

[celtdkey]

How about MGE as an alternative... From the last page of the user manual, which one generally reads after purchasing a product:

Mandatory configuration with Mac OS X 10.5 & 10.5.1

The information about the Battery level and the Backup Time is not correctly read by the Power management.

Specific Power Management configuration for Mac OSX 10.5.

The only way to execute graceful shutdown is to set the first shutdown criteria from the power management. If we select the two others criteria, we do instant shutdown when the UPS goes to battery mode.

[isean]

I also disagree with this article in the fact that you don't need APC's software at all. The units themselves are fully compatible with Intel Macs running Leopard. My 2.8 24" iMac recognized my APC unit automatically, and added the appropriate options in my Energy Saver control panel, including shut-down options on what to do when the power goes out.
I never used a backup until we had a power outage, and when the power came back up, my iMac was acting erratically, then completely stopped doing anything. The hard drive wasn't trashed, but it had to be reformatted. It is definitely a good idea to have a battery backup on your Mac, and APC units are a great buy, and they work just like they should... plug n' play baby!

[mrbach]

Why use Powerchute? My APC shows up in my Energy savings pref pane and works perfectly and provides full functionality.

Powerchute is not required on the Mac. You will find that many 3rd party utilities on not required on the Mac, because the Mac has them built in already.

(on a side note, it should be noted that there will be many users who install 3rd party software that may interfere with the Mac OS, or they may be unfamiliar with proper maintenance that keeps things running smoothly. I have never heard of this issue before today)

[mretondo]

Do you need the APC USB cable plugged in?

[MacKayaker]

mretondo said:

Do you need the APC USB cable plugged in?

No - totally not needed. It's only needed if you intend to have communication between your computer and the UPS. I've never had a need for such communication, and have never had a problem with a UPS interfeering with my computer.



Clearly, some few people have had issues, but the article seems to have lacked the research needed to really document the circumstances which can be problematic. Clearly APCs software is outdated. But it also sounds like some may have had issue when plugging in the USB cable and using Apple's options to control the UPS. Since I've never considered Apple an expert at power management, I've not even attempted to lean on their expertise in this area. YMMV

[sjk]

Scuzuliak said:

APCUPSD is a great piece of open source software: http://www.apcupsd.com/

Thanks for the reminder about this software. I want to try using it at least to disable the beep-every-30-seconds alarm, which has rudely awoken me a few times bleeping from my home office in the middle of the night when I'd rather sleep through any power outage.

Unfortunately the Apcupsd-3.14.5.dmg file on SourceForge might be damaged (but its PGP signature is okay); opening it gets a warning dialog on my system. That spoiled my hope for immediate gratification.

Edit: I've risked opening it and the package looks okay. Moving on to installation/configuration ?
Edit 2: It works, well enough for my Back-UPS ES 725. Btw, this is with an iMac G5 running 10.5.6, not an Intel-based system.

[folklore]

It would have been nice if the model numbers for the troublesome APC UPS units were mentioned in the article. Like other posters here, I have an APC UPS that's running fine under 10.5.6, attached to an iMac.

Still, if APC's software isn't Leopard-compatible and isn't going to be updated to be Leopard-compatible, it shouldn't allow itself to be installed in Leopard. There's no reason the end user should have to just magically know that APC's software doesn't work. Coupled with APC's legendarily outdated Mac help pages on the website, that is enough for Mac users to be wary of APC.

That is especially true if you're spending a lot on a UPS - you might as well spend your money with a company that supports your preferred operating system a bit better than APC does.

[bastion]

jpmm said:

(I know this is a bit off topic, but I wish the USB ports wouldn't wake the Mac from sleep).

Part one of the problem is that there's some USB activity that absolutely must wake up the Mac. Like, for example, a UPS that needs to give the machine time to clean up and shut down before it runs out of power.

Part two of the problem is that the machine can't tell what kind of USB activity it's getting without waking up. There's no filtering in firmware at the port, for example. It's all up to the software actually running on the machine to receive and interpret the signal and react appropriately.

[bastion]

leicaman said:

APCs reluctance to do anything about this problem shows they should most certainly be recommended against until they fix their software.

This response suggests that you have knowledge that APC can do anything about the things described in this article. I'd be curious how you came by such knowledge.

The interaction between a computer and a UPS is very simple and almost entirely driven by the host computer. That's one of the reasons USB sucks compared to nominally slower FW400; requires too much of the host. The UPS really can't do much beyond sending a little electrical blip that tells the host it's time to wake up. After that the machine does what it does when it's awake. Polls the UPS for power info and, if on battery, time remaining.

So when a problem in a previously stable system crops up with the installation of a new OS version, with 99.9% of the responsibility for playing nice on the software, why does the hardware vendor need to "do something." What gives you the impression they're able to?