AP9630 Battery Current Threshold

[Anonymous user]

I have recently taken over a network.  There are various UPS models throughout different locations.  The company had some (but not all) populated with AP9617 NMCs.  I'm using a Nagios derivative to monitor these UPS's.  I ordered AP9630 to install in UPS's without management.  Those two AP9630's were installed and immediately generated alarms on the monitoring system.  The alarm is related to battery current.  The odd thing is when I moved two of the cards the errors followed the cards.  I.E.

SU2200 RM [UPS 1] -> AP9617 -> bat. curr. 0A

SU2200 RM [UPS 2] -> AP9630 -> bat. curr. 3A [CRITICAL]

SU2200 RM [UPS 1] -> AP9630 -> bat. curr. 3A [CRITICAL]

SU2200 RM [UPS 2] -> AP9617 -> bat. curr. 0A

This value is being pulled via -    PowerNet-MIB::upsAdvBatteryCurrent.0     .1.3.6.1.4.1.318.1.1.1.2.2.9.0

Is this an incorrect threshold for the above measurement?  The only difference between UPS 1 and UPS 2 is UPS 1 has an external battery attached.  The result of 3A is occurring with both AP9630 cards.  I'm just trying to verify that this is a problem with my monitoring system and not my UPS or batteries.  I assume that's the case because the error follows the card but knowing why MIB gets different results based on NMC in the same battery model would be helpful. 

[Anonymous user]

Probably not, but a thought; does the AP9630 firmware match the SU2200?

[voidstar_apc]

Hi rhayes,

I'm guessing the alarms are generated by the monitoring system based on the SNMP value, not from traps? The battery current sounds like a network management card (NMC) bug. What version of the NMC firmware are you running? You might try updating to SUMX606 if you haven't already.

[Anonymous user]

Correct it's a query not a trap.  Yes SUMX606 and AOS606.

[BillP]

I did a little testing on this OID with a few firmwares on AP9630/31. Not every UPS appears to support this OID and the ones that do, I couldn't get one to mistakenly report a value. They all showed zero which is what I expected.

voidstar - any other ideas? I only had SU700 and SUAs to check and couldn't find an issue. The only thing I can think of (since this value does not show anywhere in the web I can find) is to ignore it and monitor other important OIDs or the UPSs are actually discharging or on battery (which I doubt).

[voidstar_apc]

I asked an engineer who used to work on the SmartUPS and he told me the battery charger typically targets C/5. So for a 17 Amp-hour battery, that would be 17/5 = 3.4 Amps. That being the case, I'm not sure it's warranted to alarm on a 3A battery current.

I'm curious whether the cards that show 3A battery current have the same firmware as the ones that don't.

[BillP]

Oh, so when this was polled, the battery was likely charging? And AP9617 is NOT reporting that properly?

[voidstar_apc]

That would make sense to me.

[BillP]

I guess the big question is now if rhayes could see if the issue still persists and if indeed the UPS was/is still charging when 3A is reported?

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

All cards are running latest firmware.  I may have one to two queries a day that will report that it's at 0A.  That never lasts more than two check cycles.  So out of multiple checks per hour over the month it's stayed constant at 3A.  What's interesting is when I checked this morning the other AP9630 that is plugged into a 1500 and the one that I tested with (currently plugged into a 2200) increased to 4A this weekend and have been steady 4A since. 

Self test passes so if this is not an error per se, I'll just edit the code on the check and increase the threshold.  I just don't want to ignore a problem and couldn't find reference via web as to what this "should" be.   The check seems well thought out so I'm sure I'll catch problems anyway... I would just feel better knowing why before I alter things. Consequently we have a 9630 NMC in a SUA 5000 and it reports 0A and has since installation.