Question UPS shutting off pc on high loads

[rounakr94]

Hello,

I am facing some issue with my UPS and PSU. Need some help here.



Case 1:

Whenever I do high load tasks like gaming and power cuts off my UPS goes into backup mode but my PC shuts down. Now when I try to power on the PC it doesn't respond which means PSU Protection Circuit was tripped.

Case 2: While UPS is in backup mode if I game it shuts off backup power and same happens as in case 1.

Case 3: If there is a minor power surge mouse led shuts off for a split second.

Also as seen in the video after shutdown the led lights up for a second and then the PSU trips itself. Why is this happening?


My Full specs is in signature and my UPS is a 1Kva unit from a well known tier 2 brand and is approx 11months old. It was brought brand new.

My PC max power draw is around 300w at max.

Is this indication of faulty UPS or something else.

System specs:

Ryzen 5 3500 Stock Cooler

Asrock x570 Phantom Gaming 4

G.Skill Ripjaws V 2x8gb @3000

Zotac 1660s Twin Fan

Matrix Evolve Case

860 evo + Wd Blue 1tb + Bx500 480gb

 

[thesmokingman]

Take it off the UPS and test again.

 

[rounakr94]

Take it off the UPS and test again.

It works fine on direct mains power. Doesn't shutoff on high load.

 

[thesmokingman]

It works fine on direct mains power. Doesn't shutoff on high load.

There's your answer. The UPS is degraded. Btw, a lot of these UPS units suck hard even from majors. I've had terrible success with APC, and a bit better luck with Cyberpower. But they still suck.

 

[rounakr94]

Looks like UPSes are redacted now. Just 11 months of usage and it decides to poop itself.



Profanity is not allowed in the tech forums.

AT Mod Usandthem

 

[thesmokingman]

Looks like UPSes are redacted now. Just 11 months of usage and it decides to poop itself.

If you really need a UPS and the electrics of the unit is good, you could always research modding it to use a car battery. It's really easy to do.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Is your UPS a "pure sine" product? If not, then it MAY NOT work with APFC PSUs, which are the most common types sold today. (Some AFPC PSUs, are "non-pure-sine UPS tolerant", but that's no guarantee of interoperability with UPS units that use an "approximate sine wave" (sawtooth).

Chances are, if the UPS itself isn't actually bad, that that's the issue.

Also, are you sure that your rig is only drawing 300W? 1000VA is not that much in related wattage, like 600W max.

If your rig is drawing 300W DC, then it's probably drawing 350-400W AT THE WALL, which is what the UPS "sees".

Once you add in your monitor (40-120W), and your peripherals (USB hub, printer, modem, router, etc.) it may be pushing you over the "edge".

Edit: You didn't list what PSU your PC has, under your system specs.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

You didn't mention what UPS you have. "Tier 2 from Major brand" doesn't indicate what kind of unit it is. You also didn't mention your PSU. Also, you say your UPS is going into Battery Mode, but is it truly doing that, or going into Bypass Mode?

If you're going into Battery Mode, that usually indicates that incoming voltage is sagging below a set threshold (10-20% depending on the unit and how it's configured), and switching to Battery Mode to compensate. If the Battery mode itself can't handle it, it should be switching to Bypass Mode to just pass the AC Voltage through without regulation. If you have a Modified Sine Wave unit, your PSU may be tripping off the voltage transition between the square/sawtooth wave from your UPS and the sine wave from the wall. But again, we don't know any of those specifics.

UPS's are commonly measured in VA (Voltage x Amps), because that measures the Apparent Power a UPS can tolerate. This is different from the Real Power measured in watts, which on budget line-interactive units is often far lower than Apparent Power numbers. The difference between them is the Reactive Power (VAR). This used to be very important in the older days before manufacturers cared about efficiency, and Power Supplies came with either no PFC or Passive PFC. In those cases, Power Factor was often horrendous figures like 0.6 - 0.75. That meant a 225 watt Desktop could easily "appear" as a 350 watt load on the UPS, and UPS's had to be measured in a way to account for this.

Nowadays, with the much higher prevalence of Active PFC PSUs, many use cases measure between 0.97 - 0.99, making VA rating matter much less than it used to in home or business use (but still very important in large scale applications like Datacenter UPS units).

So knowing your UPS's real wattage output is important to knowing if your UPS can handle it. Many Tier 1 home use 1000VA UPS units will do 700 Watts of real power, so your figures need to come in under that number.

 

[Red Squirrel]

It almost sounds like something is dropping the voltage, the issue with a voltage drop, vs a cut, is that the UPS may not kick on fast enough or worse, it might switch back and forth really fast, and the PC gets the brunt of that nasty power. I've seen laser printers cause this, seems to be an issue in my parent's house for some reason. The laser printer will cause the voltage to drop, the UPS will hesitate and trip to battery, but then go back to AC and do this a bunch of time. I think the fuser uses PWM which causes the voltage drop to be intermittent.

This does not sound like an issue with a printer though but the system itself, but I wonder if it's the same idea, the circuit voltage drops when the PC starts to use more power perhaps. Just thought I'd mention it though in case there happens to be other loads in the picture that might be kicking on. Even if those loads are not plugged into the UPS like the case with the printer, it still can cause voltage drop that the UPS reacts to.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Also, are you sure that your rig is only drawing 300W? 1000VA is not that much in related wattage, like 600W max.

This. Also when you are running off the UPS, its using the battery. So as the battery ages, the power it can supply will degrade over time as well.

 

[rounakr94]

Guys it was a dud ups. The next day i took it in for servicing and they replaced the control circuit.
I got back home and put it on charge and its circuit board caught fire.