10 second PowerSupplies

willywalloowillywalloo
Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Remember back in the days of the Apple Power Supply that would sustain power for an extended period of time after a power out?



My question is whether or not Apple has decided to do this again? It was a good idea, as when everyone elses machine would turn off, mine would stay up and allow me to save for just a short while, with out the use of an APS.



-walloo

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    altivec_2.0altivec_2.0 Posts: 995member
    which mac's had this feature?
  • Reply 2 of 8
    g3prog3pro Posts: 669member
    yeah, which model had that?
  • Reply 3 of 8
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    perhaps it was just some fancy surge protector?
  • Reply 4 of 8
    bobthetomatobobthetomato Posts: 665member
    It used to be that Macs had pretty high quality power supplies. I know with my 68k Macs PCs and home appliances would be restarted by a dip in power but the Mac'd keep chugging. It wasn't anything like 10 seconds though, just when the power would blink off and on.
  • Reply 5 of 8
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    Like a brownout? If your computer doesn't use much power, I suppose it could last a bit on low power. Not good for the computer though. New computers have brownout sensors that lower the speed of the processors (and lower power requirements) when a light brownout occurs. If the power drops below the absolute minimum, the computer shuts off.



    The only apple computers I know of that can do this are the laptops.
  • Reply 6 of 8
    utmostutmost Posts: 15member
    My MDD G4 stays on whenever the power occasionally blinks out.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    tjmtjm Posts: 367member
    Like Utmost, my Quicksilver G4 (even my old 7500) routinely stays on during momentary power outages. The two Windows boxes on the home network shut down instantly, but the Macs seem to hang on for a second or two. The display goes dark, but if the power comes back on quickly enough, they will pick up right where they were. The PS may have a big capacitor to smooth out voltage ripples in the DC, which then takes a moment to discharge, is my guess. Macs have behaved like this as long as I can remember.
  • Reply 8 of 8
    willywalloowillywalloo Posts: 408member
    ya, they were nothing like 10 seconds, I had just heard that somewhere. My 7600/120 would always do that, it would outlast everyone's in the building for brown outs.



    The best case I had was one with about 5 seconds of lights going out, computer was in sleep mode(probably deep sleep) and the computer continued to function after that, no restart at all, right after the brown out, all of the Apps were still open on it!!



    This computer has also been run over by a car, and still works (had to fix the metal casing), so if these numbers are odd, it wouldn't surprise me. I generally didn't have it plugged into a surge protector, i don't own one actually, the ones we do have are 6 outlet power strips that are about 3-4$ @ walmart. The only function they have is to shut off the power to everthing in case they pull too much power, much like a fuse.
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