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Re: Strange UPS behavior



On Wed, 2003-05-07 at 21:31, ZephyrQ wrote:
> 	For the past few months, my UPS has 'blinked out' on me.  The rest of
> the power in the house was fine, but the items plugged into the UPS have
> tripped, causing the usual confusion and 20+ minute boot up sequence (12
> partitions, 90+ Gigs of hda/b including manually running fsck on my /var
> partition).
> 
> 	Can anyone help me figure out whether to buy a new UPS or not?  This
> problem is fairly recent as I have had the UPS for about 3 years.  
> 
> 	Also, my XFree86 (ver. 4.2.1) acts strange after these 'episodes'. 
> When I 'startx' after the above sequence, the computer locks up--causing
> another manual hardboot and the above (lather, rinse, repeat).  This
> includes re-running xf86config, restoring previous config files, etc.  
> 
> 	The only way it *does* work is if I let the machine sit 24+ hours. 
> Then everything is peachy.
> 
> 	What is going on?  And why do I have to *always* fix /var manually?
> 
> 	--running Woody 3.0 (not the latest...slow connection and all).
> 
> 
> 	Thanx.
> 
To be clear on this - the power from the UPS to the devices plugged into
it is failing, so you don't get a clean shutdown? That sounds like the
circuitry between the power regulator portion and the power distribution
area of the UPS has a faulty point. If it is still under warranty,
contact the manufacturer - the puppy is broken. The UPS should help you
avoid outages or permit clean shutdowns when they do happen - it
shouldn't introduce its own outages to the mix.

Does the UPS unit work roughly correctly when you pull the plug from the
wall? The only alternative that comes to mind is that the circuits might
be sensing a brown-out or power surge, switching to battery during the
power trouble, and the battery is not working - hence it just drops
power to the devices immediately. What make is the UPS, and what
software are you using to monitor it?

Beyond that, switch to a journal-based file system on those larger
volumes to speed up recovery. I use ext3 on /var, and it has yet to have
a discernable problem, either with lost data, or a huge journal to
replay.
-- 
Mark L. Kahnt, FLMI/M, ALHC, HIA, AIAA, ACS, MHP
ML Kahnt New Markets Consulting
Tel: (613) 531-8684 / (613) 539-0935
Email: kahnt@hosehead.dyndns.org

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