[Martian]

Anyone have an idea how to make a Belkin UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) wake up a sleeping Power Mac?
After a power failure, the UPS issues a shutdown command to give the computer time to shut down before the UPS actually interrupts its supply of (uninterruptible) power. But the Mac sleeps right through the shutdown command.
Or am I making a big deal out of nothing in other words, is cutting power to a sleeping computer totally harmless?

[sgmorr]

No, Martian, you are not making a big deal about nothing. You do your sleeping Mac no good by pulling the plug. In fact I had this same question when I first bought my APC UPS about a year ago. I decided to do a test with mine, so I pulled the UPS's AC plug out of the wall while my iMac was asleep. Much to my relief the iMac immediately woke from sleep and I saw a power outage message on my screen. I did not want to watch all the way to shutdown (too timid) so I just plugged the UPS back into the wall. I'm just using OS X's built-in UPS management capability in Energy Saver.
Are you using Energy Saver or did you install something from Belkin? What OS version are you using? What sleep settings are you using for your Mac?
I find this to be a very interesting problem. Post back and let me know.

[macnuke]

Hi
I am running the APC UPS's just as sgmorr is.
and not familiar with the belkin's.
I also use the power management for the UPS that is built into OS X.
have you tried it with your belkin?
Grant_G turned me on to using the OS instead of the APC powerchute.app which seemed to give many of us using the APC's problems.
it does a nice job even when you let your Mac sleep.

[wdatkinson]

Where do you let OS X know you have a UPS? I've looked around in System Prefs and Apps/Utils, not seeing anything. I have an APC with a USB connection that I'd like to get working with my iMac.

[macnuke]

if the UPS is connected with a USB, the OS will detect it.
then open your Preferences >>Energy Saver.
you will see a tab in the middle for it.

[wdatkinson]

Excellent, I looked in energy saver and found nothing. I'll go plug in the UPS.... Thanks!

[macnuke]

yeah.. kinda crazy, but if it aint there hooked up and running, it doesn't show the preference for it.

[Martian]

I havent looked too hard at the OS's own UPS management, but it seems its settings seem to be simplistically limited to specifying a totally arbitrary number of minutes, and still doesnt solve my sleeping computer potential problem. I am running OS 10.3.9.
I have the Belkin software set to shutdown after the earlier of:
-60 power failure duration (the maximum setting), and
-35% remaining battery power (Belkin's default). This seems to allow 20-25 minutes of backup for the running computer, monitor, cable modem, and router.
If the computer and monitor are sleeping when the line current goes off, the battery could carry the small load for hours without dropping to the shutdown setting of 35%, thus the UPS would stay on for the full 60 minutes.
However, the lousy Belkin documentation doesnt say what the UPS unit will do if it cant communicate with the computer during a power failure. Do the Belkin software user settings rely on the computer to tell the UPS when to shut down in real-time, or are the user settings actually storred in the UPS itself thus enabling the UPS to autonomously manage itself during power failure? When I get around to it, I will experiment. This isnt the kind of question I would expect to be reliably answered by Belkin tech support.
Meanwhile, does anyone know if cutting power while the computer is sleeping is potentially harmful?