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Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

1 edit

Mele20 to JALevinworth

Premium Member

to JALevinworth

Re: [WIN8] Hibernation missing?!

I'm still confused because power management in XP is excellent and more easy to understand. In Win 8 it is extremely convoluted and I can't understand it. Plus, from Vista on the wording is absurd because wording is only for laptops and I don't have any laptops. What is somewhat confusing though in XP is that I have the setting to NEVER Hibernate in one Power Option but then have the setting to ALWAYS hibernate in another area of Power Options. But XP does try to show you how to set it so that the hard disk is never turned off, hibernation never occurs, or shutdown, during normal electrical power and then another setting for using hibernation ONLY if the electricity goes off. But where are these settings in Win 8?

I use BOTH XP Pro Power Management UPS tabs AND Power Chute. They don't conflict. They work together.

But the software for CyberPower is pitiful and I can't understand it. In XP, I enabled hibernation ONLY DURING POWER OUTAGE in XP not in Power Chute. But I still am not sure how to enable hibernation ONLY for power outage on Windows 8. I can't find any setting for that. I have hibernation DISabled for the hard drive. You said if I have hiberfil.sys that means hibernation is enabled for power outage? That doesn't make sense to me because there should be a SETTING to enable it or disable it not the presence or absence of a file. Requiring running a DOS command to see if it is enabled or not is absurd. Each succeeding OS is supposed to be easier to use not more difficult.

I should not need to use the CyberPower software if I don't like it and the computer should still go into hibernation as it is set to do in Windows....but I can't see how to set this in Windows 8. (I think it does go into hibernation rather than shut down as when my XP computer is turned back on after the power is restored it doesn't boot up ...it resumes from hibernation). This CyperPower has an LCD with about a zillion icons and commands so the software I think is optional. I installed it because I hate icons and I don't like LCD screens either and I found it very difficult to use the LCD to configure it so I installed the software as a workaround. My APC doesn't have an LCD and I like that much better. Who looks at that screen ever anyway? The UPS is not in a place where I can see it without great difficulty and interacting with the LCD is about impossible. That is unneeded "fluff". The software should be better so the fluff is not needed at all.

As for estimated time on battery, the old APC one says it has 92 minutes. That is absurd because the battery is 5.5 years old. The Powerchute software is wrong. This silliness started when I got a new battery 5.5 years ago and APC told me I needed to do a full recalibration of the unit if I wanted the software to correctly reflect the available time it can operate on battery. There are I think I recall 12 steps in a full recalibration and it is not a bit fun to do and takes many hours. I did it though and the software was accurate again for a short while and then went wacky again and I just left it that way. APC said I should have not replaced the battery but bought a new unit but the until was only 3 years old when I had to replace the battery (we had lots of power outages back then).

My XP computer went on battery for 5 seconds on Christmas morning (while I was sleeping) due to electrical noise. The Win 8 computer did NOT go on battery at that time. My XP computer goes on battery usually 3-6 times each month due to electrical noise. Seems to me the Cyberpower should go on battery at the same time. I'm wondering if I should try and return it if it is not going to intervene when there is electrical noise which I have quite a bit of on this line.

JALevinworth
@embarqhsd.net

JALevinworth

Anon

said by Mele20:

I'm still confused because power management in XP is excellent and more easy to understand. In Win 8 it is extremely convoluted and I can't understand it. Plus, from Vista on the wording is absurd because wording is only for laptops and I don't have any laptops.

I'm confused too because I thought you were trying to get CyberPanel going on Windows 8, and couldn't find the hibernate control on it. Everything I have stated is to help you specifically with that task. I'll do my best to modify where it applies to XP here.
said by Mele20:

What is somewhat confusing though in XP is that I have the setting to NEVER Hibernate in one Power Option but then have the setting to ALWAYS hibernate in another area of Power Options. But XP does try to show you how to set it so that the hard disk is never turned off, hibernation never occurs, or shutdown, during normal electrical power and then another setting for using hibernation ONLY if the electricity goes off.

As stated before, and it still applies here..
THIS Screen [Power Schemes] controls the OS (in an idle state/with power):
»/r0/do ··· 7001.png

And that has nothing to do with with THIS screen [UPS] controlling a power outage event:
»/r0/do ··· 2001.png

And THIS Screen [Hibernate] allows you to turn on or off the hibernation ability separate from both:

»/r0/do ··· 5001.png

So to answer your question, you can have everything in [Power Schemes] turned to always on and have NEVER as your time out when your OS (or anything) idles, but still have hibernation enabled in the [Hibernate] tab, and still can manage your UPS settings too. The three control 3 different activities that are separate from each other.

If you were to go to the [Hibernate] tab and uncheck enable hibernation, and then go back to the [Power Schemes] tab, you will notice that the "System Hibernates" option and drop down to set the time out, has disappeared. That's because you disabled the use of the hibernation utility in the [Hibernate] tab and therefore it is no longer available to use as part of your OS idle power scheme also.
said by Mele20:

But where are these settings in Win 8?

Which ones? In WIN8 you are trying to use CyberPanel and activate hibernation; now you are talking about WINXP and the UPS service and PowerChute. Do you have a serial cable hooked up and controlling your UPS on the WIN8 machine? All you need for your WIN8 machine to get your CyberPanel software to use it's full capability (or the XP with PowerChute too for that matter) is to have hibernation enabled. You did that already.
said by Mele20:

I use BOTH XP Pro Power Management UPS tabs AND Power Chute. They don't conflict. They work together.

I am going to warn you about this again. Doing this is like having 2 anti-virus software running at the same time. They will fight it out when the condition exists for either to do their thing. Who wins? Will one interfere with the other doing it's thing properly and then neither complete their task? Yes/No/Maybe. Just because you have them both running doesn't mean it's going to work properly. The Windows UPS service set to APC/BackUPS (not PRO) is not going to warn you of an electrical noise event or an under-voltage or over-voltage. It's only going to control when your system has switched from AC power to UPS power and what to do when the battery is running out. The switch over due to electrical noise and the information you got that it did was because you looked at your PowerChute software. That is not a UPS service activity.

What is going to happen when your do have a full power outage and your battery depletes and has to shut down? I don't know which service is going to control this, the PowerChute or the Windows UPS service and neither do you. If you want your system settings saved before shutdown, then the PowerChute is the way to go because it has that ability with using the hibernate utility to take a system snapshot first to use when power resumes. If you don't care and just want it to boot down as is no matter what is running, than use your UPS service. Only if you have a serial cable, though - because UPS service is doing squat if you don't with the standard APC ups hooked up that you do as it would ask you for a com port too. You can't even tell how much battery remaining or it's condition because that's grayed out for you in the UPS service window on the [UPS] tab. Why? Because you don't have smart signalling with a the basic APC ups using the windows UPS service (or it's not really hooked up to a serial cable). If you had the UPS Pro, you'd have those options available. You have PowerChute, use it ALONE - it has everything you need, tells you of voltage and noise events, etc. Also, make sure you have the latest version from the UPS site.
said by Mele20:

But the software for CyberPower is pitiful and I can't understand it.

You're back to the WIN8 Machine here - Then you'll have to go buy something else. CyberPower, although IMHO think PowerChute is much better, is meant to be simple. Just make sure your system has hibernation enabled, customize your settings, and that's it. Forget about what you have available in another OS and another software.
said by Mele20:

In XP, I enabled hibernation ONLY DURING POWER OUTAGE in XP not in Power Chute. But I still am not sure how to enable hibernation ONLY for power outage on Windows 8. I can't find any setting for that. I have hibernation DISabled for the hard drive.

Again - for both XP and WIN8 or any OS in between, the power settings, as in your XP example for [Power Schemes], those have nothing to do with controlling your UPS. They are for controlling your OS in an idle state *when you have power*. Even if you set a timeout for your PC to go to hibernation in your [Power Schemes], it still maintains a trickle amount of power to resume from when you wake it (WAKE on LAN via the NIC or WAKE on MOUSE/KEYBOARD). *This is not a power absence state* and has nothing to do with the UPS when you do have a power absence state. Also any mention of battery in this section [Power Schemes] when available, refers to laptops only. Do not confuse this, or any help section about it, with UPS battery time, it has nothing to do with it. .

When you say, "I have hibernation disabled for the hard drive", there is no hibernation for the hard drive setting. There is power down in the Power Schemes for the hard drive, and a time to set to when you want this to happen *when you have power* and you've reached an idle-time out. This is not hibernation. Allowing your system to hibernate controls your OS, your NIC, your monitor, etc., not just your hard-drive. When you do have power, and your OS does idle and times out per what you set, and you do want it to hibernate, it will take a system snapshot before powering down, BUT the BIOS still has trickle power to wake the system when you re-activate it. Again, this has nothing to do with controlling your system in a *power outage*.

Mele, all you need to understand here is that for both XP and WIN8, and for both PowerChute and CyberPanel, you have to have hibernation enabled on your machine. That's it. Forget about power schemes controlling the idle state with power on and all those settings with it. Make sure hibernation is enabled on both, period, no matter what you have set in your power schemes for the OS idle state with power. For XP, click enable hibernation. For WIN8, you can activate the hibernate button as you already did in the advanced options. Win8 uses the hybrid sleep as default (which is supposedly faster than plain ole hibernation), and it's not clear to me if showing the hibernate button enables it or just technically shows it or not. My understanding is that hibernate is actually already active as part of hybrid sleep, but either way you can be sure if that's active if hiberfil.sys is present, which you did.
said by Mele20:

You said if I have hiberfil.sys that means hibernation is enabled for power outage? That doesn't make sense to me because there should be a SETTING to enable it or disable it not the presence or absence of a file. Requiring running a DOS command to see if it is enabled or not is absurd. Each succeeding OS is supposed to be easier to use not more difficult.

Sorry I confused you here, Mele, but I introduced the hiberfil.sys and command line arguments to the discussion. Those aren't something people are expected to look for or use to manage these settings. A while back I had realized I had this hidden hiberfil.sys file and investigated it and figured out where it came from and what it did on my own. I thought it would be helpful to you to 1) ease your mind that hibernation is actually enabled if present; 2) using command lines you can personally see the file be written and removed per your actions enabling hibernation and also see how your settings in your power options change or not when you do. Only settings available to you are displayed in your power options control panel so if it's disabled, they would be missing.

IMHO setting this all up is easier if you don't go messing around with all this other stuff, such as turning on XP UPS service and trying to make that work too because you like those options better and icon size is more pleasing to you. All you really needed to do is make sure hibernation is on and follow the instructions in the software, which only has like 3 settings you can manage. The manual did tell you that you would get a pop-up if hibernation wasn't sensed and you didn't. Honestly, it was easy - you just wanted it to do and try more to your individual satisfaction. Straight up, it would have been install and that's it. You can customize those handful of preferences or you could have went default all the way... and it would run.
said by Mele20:

[snip]
As for estimated time on battery, the old APC one says it has 92 minutes. That is absurd because the battery is 5.5 years old. The Powerchute software is wrong. This silliness started when I got a new battery 5.5 years ago and APC told me I needed to do a full recalibration of the unit if I wanted the software to correctly reflect the available time it can operate on battery. There are I think I recall 12 steps in a full recalibration and it is not a bit fun to do and takes many hours. I did it though and the software was accurate again for a short while and then went wacky again and I just left it that way. APC said I should have not replaced the battery but bought a new unit but the until was only 3 years old when I had to replace the battery (we had lots of power outages back then).

You have not said what size battery you have, but I can bet you've probably outlived the recommended replacement age and then some. Since I know you are using Back UPS and not Back UPS Pro on one, and CyberPanel on another, those are most likely the personal editions and not business/pro ones.. therefore your expected life span is more like 2-3 years on those smaller batteries. Your using a battery that's 5.5 years old on that one. You really can't expect the software to give you an accurate calibration time. The reason these need to be replaced once the manufacturer expected lifespan has been exceeded is that you can't rely on them. You are no longer warranted past that for any outage incidents. If you want to push it past that, then your results cannot be guaranteed and is at your own risk. You have to live with your decision to use these past their recommended lifespan and not expect accurate results. It is the way it is.
said by Mele20:

My XP computer went on battery for 5 seconds on Christmas morning (while I was sleeping) due to electrical noise. The Win 8 computer did NOT go on battery at that time. My XP computer goes on battery usually 3-6 times each month due to electrical noise. Seems to me the Cyberpower should go on battery at the same time. I'm wondering if I should try and return it if it is not going to intervene when there is electrical noise which I have quite a bit of on this line.

Unless you are plugged into the exact plug, which you can't be, you can't measure why one system on one plug did one thing, and another system on another plug did another thing. That's aside the obvious that you have 2 different operating systems, 2 different UPS batteries of different ages, 2 different UPS software brands running them, and 1 also has the windows UPS service running too. There is different wiring for each plug and possibly different draw on those circuits at any given time.

I have systems right next to each other that are using the same exact set-ups (not like you do) and one goes from AC power to UPS on occasion because of noise and the other doesn't at that moment. One time it turned out it was because of another draw dimmed the power on that circuit (A/C cycling that someone turned on), but didn't effect the other system right next to it which turned out to be wired to another circuit. Another issue I had turned out we had a mice problem chewing wires and had to have an electrician replace the wires.

-Jim
2012-12-28 12:52:53

PS: I'm on vacation and don't know if I'll be back to this thread at any known time at this point. Might be heading out yonder through the weekend. Good luck with all this!