UPS for new Mac Mini Pro M2

Question

UPS for new Mac Mini Pro M2

I tried to use my older APC UPS 750VA from the old 2912 Mac Pro with my new 2023 Mini (Ventura), it shows in the Energy Saver screen, but the Options are not active, cannot be adjusted. APC only has their old PowerChute 3.1 for PCs, nothing for Macs, so then I'd like to find a replacement.

It's not just for the Mini, but also the Monitor, the external drive enclosure, they all need at least a graceful shutdown, with all the storms, outages, earlier firestorms, I really feel the need to protect it all..

Solutions? Other manufacturers? Thanks for any ideas...

Mac mini (M2 Pro, 2023)

Posted on Mar 23, 2023 12:59 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 23, 2023 09:50 AM in response to hcsitas

Well, there really are no settings, none of those are adjustable, so it defaults to the max, and is not interactive at all. Most likely this code is not, or has not been updated for ages. The default initially was these were all shut Off, and grayed out, I turned them on so they were visible, but notice there i no maker on any of the called settings, so also no moving, adjusting.. It also shows the battery at 100%, maybe that is possible, but I doubt it's accuracy.

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Answer 2

Mar 23, 2023 10:51 AM in response to hcsitas

OK, those markers are so faint, I barely saw them, only while on the phone, I had a chat session with AppleCare, and just now a phone call, and I do now see I can move them, there is no other indication, so since Apple doesn't control this screen, there is no way to make them more visible... I shared my screen, and they (Apple Support) saw how faint, and that's just how it is... Too bad APC isn't into readability much... Thanks for looking!

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Answer 3

Mar 23, 2023 01:57 PM in response to hcsitas

Latest foible, demonstrating the settings don't matter, was that the power here dropped at 11:30 AM, was down an hour, with no graceful shutdown, at all. Just blink, gone. Mini is plugged in the Master, of the UPS, monitor and OWC Quad enclosure were in the Protected outlets, but they all went down. When power came back, the Mini came up when I hit its power button, but not the monitor or OWC enclosure. So whatever is going on in the APC UPS, it is not working like it should have, so I had to move the monitor & enclosure plugs out to non-protected to get them back on... So all the UPS is doing is acting maybe as a surge protector, but who knows if that is really working.

OTOH, DW came home while the power was off, used the battery backed up Ryobi garage door opener just fine, so at least something related to power outages works right!

Fun times...

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Answer 4

Mar 24, 2023 05:33 AM in response to George Christensen

From your description when power returned it sounds like the UPS itself is borked and perhaps is not even reporting proper data to the Mac.

The fact that after power returned and the display and the enclosure were not functional unless switched to the "non-protected" outlets indicates an issue with the UPS and not the Mac.

I have an older CyberPower AVR 850VA (the one new ones have an LCD display) that has worked quite well for me. However, I do not believe there has been a power outage that I have not been aware of while I was not at home but there may have been since I have my system set to auto boot on power restore.

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