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How to configure Dell T710 with APC BackUPS XS1300 to boot after power failure
They're doing some serious remodeling in our building which means we've lost power twice in the last week...usually after hours. The UPS does a fine job in starting a graceful shutdown, but I want the server to boot up after the utility power is returned.
How do I configure this? Couldn't find anything in the BIOS...or iDRAC6...or Win2008.
Anonymous
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February 25th, 2011 06:00
Within the BIOS, there is a setting specific to power recovery. In BIOS, go to System Security then AC Power Recovery. By default, it is set to last. In the case of a graceful shutdown, you can try to set to on.
If set to Last, the system returns to the last power state.
If set to On, the system turns on the system after power is restored.
If set to Off, the system remains off after power is restored.
Doug Clutter
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February 25th, 2011 09:00
Thanks for your quick reply. We made the change you suggested, and set the restart delay to 60s. While this gets us closer it doesn't solve the problem. Here's what we're observing:
Our hypothesis is that the BIOS never "sees" a power loss because Windows shuts down gracefully and the UPS battery is never depleted.
To test this hypothesis:
It seems that the BIOS needs to see a complete power loss...which will never happen with a graceful shutdown.
What we really need is a BIOS setting that powers up the machine whenever a) it is off, and b) it has utility power. Is such a thing available and/or possible?
Dev Mgr
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February 28th, 2011 08:00
If you set the bios to "last", the last state as far as the bios is concerned is "off" as Windows did a graceful shutdown.
Have you tried setting the bios power setting to "on". This should force the server to power on any time it gets power (e.g. after a graceful shutdown and losing power completely and then power being restored).
There is one gotcha though; if power is restored before the battery was completely dead, the server may remain in an off state as the power never was completely lost.
Doug Clutter
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February 28th, 2011 10:00
Thanks for your suggestion. We are using the "on" setting, but we are trying to get around the "gotcha" you've described. The server does a graceful shutdown...which removes almost all load from the UPS...so the UPS battery never depletes and the server is never restarted.
Any ideas on how we can get around this "gotcha"?
Doug Clutter
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February 28th, 2011 10:00
Bump...still looking for an answer to this.
Mike01236
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April 18th, 2011 08:00
Switched PDU maybe? It would at least give you the ability to remotely cut power to the server after a clean shutdown.
Doug Clutter
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April 18th, 2011 09:00
Thanks Mike, but I'd like to solve the problem without buying new hardware.
Dev Mgr
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April 18th, 2011 19:00
Judging from the lack of responses, I'd say there probably isn't a way to do this w/o buying extra hardware.
Doug Clutter
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April 19th, 2011 04:00
Agreed. I'm not losing sleep over it.
DELL-Rey G
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April 19th, 2011 08:00
Just out of curiosity, what does APC say about this? Isnt there a way for the UPS to send a "wakeup" call to the server?
Doug Clutter
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May 4th, 2011 06:00
Didn't get an official answer from them but I'd be surprised if it did. The BackUPS line is not really designed for servers, so the software they provide doesn't support Win2008 R2. I am relying on the built in support that Win2008 provides.
I was hoping that Windows would inform the BIOS and/or the UPS that the shutdown was "forced" by a low battery condition....and that it would power back on when line power was restored. Seems like such a simple, obvious thing, but I guess not.
LCallander
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December 18th, 2012 07:00
Don't know if this would help you or not, but...
We have a half dozen smart UPS form APC powering our servers.
If power goes off here, we have the UPS hold for a minute or two, and then graceful shutdown starts. (We'd like to leave the system up longer, but it turns out that the loss of the air conditioning is the powerful limiting factor). Thus, the servers are down when the UPS still have a fair charge - they could hold the server up for 10 - 30 minutes. So we also program (via Power Chute software) the UPS units themselves to power down after the servers are down (and restart on power restore). I think this might appear to your PC as a power outage, even after a graceful shutdown, and thus trigger the needed boot at power restore.
robstewart
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January 7th, 2013 23:00
Hi There
Not sure if you have already tried this or not
From elevated command prompt
omconfig chassis biossetup attribute=acpwrrecovery setting=on
you could also try
omconfig chassis biossetup attribute=acpwrrecovery setting=last
See how you go. Note with some Dell Bios versions, you have to use omconfig mainsystem instead
yannstlo
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September 17th, 2013 13:00
Have you ever found a solution? I'm trying to accomplish the exact same thing without any success.
Thanks
Yann
mpbello
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November 28th, 2013 09:00
The only solution is clear: one must make sure the UPS will shutdown after the server is down.
If the UPS is not shutdown, the server will not be able to tell if the power it is receiving from the UPS is from the battery (which will take long to be depleted) or if it is coming from the wall because power has been restored.
Hence, let's keep in mind that one must be able to find a way to poweroff the UPS after (and not while) the server shutdown.
There are ways to send a killpower signal to the UPS when the computer is turning off. On linux, the apcupsd daemon has provision for just that. Do not know how to handle that on Windows.