February 07, 2010

UPS

I've often wondered whether the battery in a notebook would automatically kick in if the power went out. Today I found out: yes, it does.

Quite a shock, as it were. About 1020PST suddenly it became very quiet around here as the refrigerator went off, as well as the cooling fans on Regulus and Deneb. Arcturus and Alcyone both kept running, though, off their batteries.

But they weren't very useful without internet connections, so I turned them off and went for a walk. It seems this entire area was down. Traffic lights out on Canyon Road were out. Lucky it's a weekend; I can't imagine what a mess it would have been during rush hour on a week day.

I imagine there were some football fans who were frustrated as hell, though, hoping that the power would come back on before the game begins. (heh heh heh...)

It took about 3 hours before PGE got it fixed, whatever the problem was.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Vista at 01:28 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
Post contains 162 words, total size 1 kb.

1 I think a lot of people on the east coast might be missing the game due to power outages.  Most of my family lives in Pittsburgh, and last I checked, only my sister had power.  My father, brother, grandfather, and grandmother were all without.

Not that I really care about it...

Posted by: EYanyo at February 07, 2010 03:08 PM (b3xo4)

2 I'd love to blame this one on snow, but it's pretty nice out today, relatively warm (for February, anyway) and not raining.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 07, 2010 03:10 PM (+rSRq)

3 We've toyed with the idea of replacing our key infrastructure servers with SSD-based laptops. No moving parts but the fan, and a built-in UPS. And you get a console and keyboard for free!

-j

Posted by: J Greely at February 07, 2010 05:07 PM (2XtN5)

4 I learned that you need to put these "lapservers" on pull-out trays. Another annoying thing about them is, you cannot powercycle them without pulling and opening.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at February 07, 2010 06:47 PM (/ppBw)

5

Perhaps interestingly, when you get FIOS, they install a UPS in your house.  If I were to plug my router, cable box, and TV into another UPS, I could watch TV until it died.

Actually the router is already on a UPS, so now that I've got a new laptop, I _can_ web surf without power.

Posted by: RickC at February 08, 2010 07:26 AM (US8a/)

6 Pete Zaitcev:  Fire up a command prompt, and type "shutdown -?"

Posted by: RickC at February 08, 2010 07:27 AM (US8a/)

7 RickC, as I understand it, standard practice is for FIOS installers to physically remove your old copper phone lines, so the UPS is necessary for supporting 911 calls, alarm systems, etc.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at February 08, 2010 07:46 AM (2XtN5)

8 J, that seems unlikely. They'd have to get into the walls.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 08, 2010 09:33 AM (+rSRq)

9 I don't see how the battery taking over is a surprise, it works fine as well when you unplug it to, say, move to another room.

Posted by: Jordi Vermeulen at February 08, 2010 09:57 AM (5EMw1)

10

RE: physically removing old copper phone lines.

That may be disconnect the wire leading from the phone line on the utility company's pole to the telephone-system-junction-box on the outside of the dwelling, rather than remove all the copper-wire from inside the house walls.

Of course, I'm thinking houses, not apartments...

Back in the day before anyone in the family got cell phones, my parents had several of the wireless-home-phone-on-a-cradle setups. Great for traveling all over the house while on the phone, terrible when you realize that the cradle assembly needs power so that you can report the power-outage to the Power Company...

Posted by: karrde at February 08, 2010 10:27 AM (+p8wd)

11 Jordi, I think I tried doing that once with a laptop, and when I pulled out the plug it rebooted. That was why I was pleasantly surprised that Alcyone and Arcturus didn't reboot yesterday when the power went down.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 08, 2010 11:01 AM (+rSRq)

12 Yup, I did in fact mean "all the copper leaving your building" rather than "internal wiring". I've seen complaints where they did this even when it wasn't their wiring, and the homeowner had explicitly told them to leave it alone.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at February 08, 2010 11:31 AM (fpXGN)

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