Software to shut off PC in unstable voltage conditions?

[The VCR King]

Where I live the power is very unstable and we get outages often and as im typing this there is a storm and my lights are dimming very bad so I shut off the PC. Is there any free software out there I can use so when the voltage to my house gets too bad it'll automatically power itself off?

 

[johnb35]

Nope, thats what a battery backup(APC) is for.

 

[The VCR King]

Nope, thats what a battery backup(APC) is for.

My grandpa has tons of old ones that he used to use on his old PCs, maybe he'll lend me one. Basically an APC is just a huge battery with a power inverter like you can put in a car righT?

 

[johnb35]

Sort of I guess. Hooks up to AC power and provides stable power to your devices in the event of a surge. When a power outage happens, it will give you so many minutes to save your work and shut down your system.

http://www.newegg.com/APC-UPS/BrandSubCat/ID-1317-72

 

[spirit]

Yeah you'll need to buy an APC UPS if you want to do that. I don't know of any software that can do it. Don't think I've ever heard of any software that does or have had any need for it since most people who are concerned with these APC UPS units.

 

[voyagerfan99]

Yeah you'll need to buy an APC UPS if you want to do that. I don't know of any software that can do it. Don't think I've ever heard of any software that does or have had any need for it since most people who are concerned with these APC UPS units.

The power chute software that comes with a ups is installed on the computer and can gracefully shut it down when the system receives notice from the ups that it is on battery. The battery connects to the computer via USB for communication while also being plugged into the ups with he power cable.

 

[spirit]

The power chute software that comes with a ups is installed on the computer and can gracefully shut it down when the system receives notice from the ups that it is on battery. The battery connects to the computer via USB for communication while also being plugged into the ups with he power cable.

Yeah got a brand new Synology NAS for a customer downstairs which now supports APC UPS chute software and that's working nicely with the APC UPS unit they've bought for it.

I don't think there's any software that does it without the UPS though.

 

[beers]

Keep in mind the DC voltage might not necessarily sag as well, so software would be unreliable.

Some sort of UPS would smooth out sags and brown outs to a certain degree. I wouldn't use an ancient one though since the batteries usually only last a couple of years. You might have issues if it isn't pure sine and your PSU has active PFC as well.

 

[The VCR King]

Keep in mind the DC voltage might not necessarily sag as well, so software would be unreliable.

Some sort of UPS would smooth out sags and brown outs to a certain degree. I wouldn't use an ancient one though since the batteries usually only last a couple of years. You might have issues if it isn't pure sine and your PSU has active PFC as well.

The ones my grandpa has are huge ones that are beige from the 1990s but he replaces the batteries regularly and they're good units.