Suspending BOINC and Folding on UPS Windows 10

[Gorgon]

While trolling the Einstein Forms I got thinking again about getting my systems to suspend BOINC tasks when running off the UPS (e.g. during a Power Failure). The issue appears to be that both APC and Cyber Power UPSes install proprietary drivers and BOINC and likely F@H rely flags in the OS which don't get set by these proprietary drivers.

 

With a default installation of Power Chute Personal Edition on Win 10 Pro 20H1 unplugging the UPS does not Suspend the BOINC Tasks though the PowerChute software shows the UPS as being on battery.

 

This Video from Sneider Electric (APC) suggested a work-around. In device manager replace the APC Driver with the Microsoft HID Battery Driver then reboot. After the reboot the APC PowerChute software still works but now in the High Performance Power Plan advanced settings I see groups of Power Plan setting for both "Plugged In" and "On Battery." I unplugged the UPS and BOINC Manager shows the tasks going into "Suspended - On Battery" state and my UPS dropped from 127W to 40W.

[Gorgon]

Same process appears to work in Windows 10 for CyberPower UPSes connected via USB as well though if the Select Driver option is greyed out then you'd have to manually select the USB HID Battery Driver then reboot.

 

BTW - Once this works for BOINC it will also work for Folding at Home.

 

So you could enable the "Pause Work While on Battery Power" in the Advanced Config Tab and when your Utility power fails and your UPS transfers to battery BOINC and/or F@H will pause/suspend and your UPS run-time before shutdown will be much longer.