New Smart-UPS X 1500VA and bizarre noises...

[Anonymous user]

Hi,

I just acquired a Smart-UPS X 1500VA to support two servers in a improvised rack in my home office. When both servers are up, the max. load is at most 10% as shown by the display; I know it is massive overkill but I am planning a few more machines... Ok, now the situation: everyone once in a while, at different moments during the day, the UPS emits noises that are quite freakish: it goes from a loud single "klak" to brief moments of intense clicking noise. I shut the UPS down and up again, letting the auto diagnostic do its thing but it always tells me that everything is working a-ok.

Any ideas?

Best regards

Sylvain Foisy, Ph. D.
Bioinformatics Consultant
Diploide BioIT
Montreal,Qc

[BillP]

Hi Sylvain,

Whenever the UPS makes that sound do you see any LED that comes on? It is possible that the UPS detects power disturbances and to ensure that your load gets clean power it, it transfers over to battery.

[Anonymous user]

Hi,

Not sure about this: most of the time, I am not close to the UPS when th noises are emitted. I'll be paying more attention to answer your question.

Sylvain

[BillP]

might be helpful if you have a network management card or powerchute software to review it and see if there are any transfers to battery or AVR.

i was curious to know what firmware is on your UPS as well for UBL, UPS, CBL, and COM versions. you can get this via NMC/software or via the LCD menu. make sure the menu is set to advanced mode to get all of the versions i mentioned though. i think thats changed under the configuration menu and then firmware listed in About.

[Anonymous user]

Hi,

I was planning on installing apcupsd on one of the servers to monitor the UPS; I guess I'll move forward on this. As for the extra pieces of data, I'll post when I get home tonight 🙂

Best regards

Sylvain

[BillP]

ok. we'll wait for the info

[Anonymous user]

Hi,

Ok, here are the firmware versions:

UPS : 03.7
COM: 03.6
UBL : 05.0
CBL : 02.1

There has been no noise for the past ~24 hrs and apcupsd hasn't reported anything out of the ordinary... Keeping the watch 🙂

Best

Sylvain

[BillP]

There's a possibility that it is the UPS either boosting or trimming your input voltage and from time-to-time it goes to battery once it can no longer boost or trim it.

[Anonymous user]

Hi,

I went through the menu of the UPS and found that there is a setting telling it what type of power gets into the UPS in the first place. I downgraded the parameter to Fair, and ever since, no more noise... It probably doe not try to work so hard so few opportunities for cliking and clacking 🙂

Best

Sylvain

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Hi,

A simple progress report... Now a week with the power quality setting at Fair and no more noise 😉 A guess: this setting males the UPS more tolerant to input power issues?

Thanks for the inpues

Sylvain