Dead AP8959

[Anonymous user]

Hi all,

I seem to have a dead AP8959 rack PDU on my hands 😞  I'm grasping at straws here because 1) we're out of warranty and 2) we don't have a support contract in place.

Symptom: When 15A input power is applied, the LCD lights up, but that's about all that happens. The LCD remains blank and the audible 'click' on each outlet never takes place. We've left the PDU in this state for up to an hour and nothing changes.

After calling APC support and determining that there were really no options (even paying for a service call), we had a qualified electrician take a look at it. His assessment was:

"One of the major ICs is pulling one of the rails down. I can’t tell which one but they are proprietary 120pin chips anyway. The board is 640-2812A-Z. That part seems to be available but only if you want 100 of them."

Is there any hope of resurrecting this PDU? What is the 640-2812A-Z board and are these available from APC as a spare part?

Thanks!

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Hi Dale,

The only thing we can advise service on is either the display/management module or the stick itself.

My first thought was do you know what firmware was on the PDU? If the display/management module won't boot, it cannot initiate the outlet relays to power the outlets. It sounds like we have a problem with a display module. The part number you referenced is part of the display module.

You may be able to bring the display back to life by reviewing this knowledge base article (http://www.apc.com/support/index?page=content&country=ITB〈=en&locale=en_US&id=FA237061) and following the steps to access bootmonitor and try to recover the display. If you had firmware v6.0.9, this could explain to you what may have happened.

If the instructions outlined in that article do not work, whether the same cause or not, you'd want to look into replacing the display/management module for this PDU using spare part number 0J-0G-9470.

[Anonymous user]

Hi Angela,

I'm pleased to report that following this procedure has resurrected my PDU!  Thanks.

For the record, my PDU was running the following code:

*********** FLASH MODULE INFMORMATION *****************

Boot Monitor:
  Name      : apc_hw05_bootmon_102.bin
  Version   : 102
  Cookie    : 963200
  Build Date: Jan 21 2010
  Header Crc: F23A(PASS)
  Module Crc: 1198(PASS)

AOS:
  Name      : apc_hw05_aos_512.bin
  Version   : 512
  Cookie    : 963201
  Build Date: Apr  5 2010
  Header Crc: 5D7A(PASS)
  Module Crc: 9871(FAIL)

APP:
  Name      : apc_hw05_rpdu2g_510.bin
  Version   : 510
  Cookie    : 963201
  Build Date: Apr 14 2010
  Header Crc: 8041(PASS)
  Module Crc: C27C(PASS)

As you can see, there was a CRC fail on the AOS component. It looks like the PDU was starting up and failing to boot the AOS image, then getting stuck in the boot monitor stage (BM> prompt).

So, while it doesn't look like I was affected by the problem described in the article you linked, the recovery process worked for me anyway. I am now running current versions of the various software images and my PDU makes a very satisfying 'click' noise across all of its outlets when it starts up!

Thanks again!

[BillP]

You're very welcome! Glad it worked. And that is exactly why we have this bootmonitor component.