Smart-UPS 1500 Battery Change date limited to 2009?

[Anonymous user]

I have several SUA1500 units that have come up for battery replacement this last year. However it will not let me select a year later than 2009. NMC is AP9617. Firmware on NMC is 3..7.3/3.7.3. I have the same card in Smart-UPS 3000 units, same firmware, but I do not have that year limitation. Can I assume this is planned obsolescence?

[Anonymous user]

No. Manufacture date on this particular group is 2006. Some newer, some older.

[BillP]

well i tried the oldest UPS I could fine..it was a Symmetra. i probably should have done a Smart UPS. oops. the closest I have is a 2006 Smart UPS 1500 XLM (SUM1500RMXL2U) and I am not seeing an issue there. I see 2013 listed on manual time and NTP.

what does the last battery replacement date show as right now? 2006? or is it blank or something weird?

[Anonymous user]

It shows 2006. So these in question are just past the 5-year mark, which is why I noticed it. Like I mentioned, it's only on the AP9617 cards in the SUA1500. That same card works fine in the other models, same firmware version. And another model card works fine in the SUA1500.

[BillP]

no, this usually happens when the date and time is not set correctly on your card. verify the date and time is set correctly under Administration->General->(date and time)->Mode. apply the correct date and see what you get.

[Anonymous user]

I confirmed that the date/time was set correctly. They are set via NTP by the way. I installed a AP9606 card and it let me correctly set the date of battery replacement. I did more comparisons and it seems it is specific to the Smart-UPS 1500 and AP9617 combination. I have about 5 samples of that particular combination. Any other combination works fine. I will assume it is a firmware issue at this point.

[BillP]

strange. so considering you have reseated at least one card, have you already tried to reboot the management interfaces on the cards?

i sort of assumed the Smart UPS you had was newer. Are they more than 10 years old?

[BillP]

hmm. i think its an isolated case that we can try and figure it out. we have a UPS from 2003 here and it has an AP9619 which runs the same firmware application and it allows me to go to 2013 without issue. i am using manual date and time on it though - have you tried that as a test versus NTP?

i tried moving my card to NTP and re-checked the drop down list for the replacement year and i did not see it change - still gave me 2013 as an option.

[Anonymous user]

Which model UPS? I do not have that issue with any of my Smart-UPS 3000, 5000, or 6000, just the Smart-UPS 1500.

[BillP]

ok, if it were me i'd try two things. first thing is go to the management card, go to Administration->General->Reset/reboot and i'd try resetting the UPS to defaults under "reset only." i did some further researching and varied some of this has to do with the UPS side. i know you said it wasn't the issue but i have also definitely seen it when the NMC date and time is wrong but we have ruled that out. strange that the info i found points to the UPS as a possible cause too. i am wondering if there is something corrupted with how the last battery replacement is stored in the UPS.

i am convinced this is something that we can get to work properly, assuming there is not an issue with the UPS programming. i don't think there is an issue with the NMC firmware or a problem because the UPS is from 2006.

[Anonymous user]

I agree with Angela. One thing I've found is you need to have the date / time set correctly, since the UPS won't allow a battery replacement date change to a year newer than the UPS thinks it is. Note that this is the time the UPS thinks it is, not the management card.

If you try it from either a telnet / ssh session or a local serial port, you'll get text-based menus and something like "Attempting to issue command... Command failed" if the UPS rejects the battery date request from the management card.

I just tried this on a SUA1000 from 2008, running firmware 652.18.D and management card 3.7.2/3.7.3 and was able to change the battery replacement date to February 2013. The drop-down list for replacement year shows 2007-2013. A much older SU1000 from 1999 with firmware 60.11.D and the same management card software as the other UPS also shows 2007-2013 as the available replacement years, so that doesn't seem to depend on the age of the UPS.

[Anonymous user]

Thank you for the help. I would like to restate a few details I have learned so far.

ALL cards have the time set correctly, and they stay correct because they get it from NTP. I have verified this both through telent, web interface, and InfraStruXure Manager on several units, especially the ones exhibiting the problem.

Yes, setting the battery date via telnet won't take, gives an error.

It is only specific to the model combination of SUA1500 and AP9617. Any other card in the SUA1500 works fine. AP9617 works fine in any other model UPS. Even in a SUA1500 I pulled from the field that had the issue, it works fine if I replace the NMC with a different model. I set the battery date using an AP9606. It shows correctly using telnet, web, and InfraStruXure Manager. If I put ANY AP9617 card back in it, it goes back to the 2009 limitation.

The AP9617 works correctly in any other model UPS I have, and I have several, 3000, 5000, and 6000 of different versions.

[BillP]

were you able to try the steps I suggested?

[Anonymous user]

I did, I think, previously. I had been messing with a unit at my desk for some time. The AP9606 cards don't have NTP, so they just kind of picked whatever time they wanted. The AP9606 let me set battery replacement year way out no matter what the local time was. This is what I "think" happened. The AP9617 when updated via NTP only changed the NMC time, not UPS time. When I "hard entered" the date with the AP9606, it did update the UPS time. Now when I slide in an AP9617 card, it shows the later years for battery replacement. Same card/ups combination that I had issues with. The other 1500's are now working right too.

Thanks for your help, was definieltey related to time. Not sure what happened there.

[BillP]

glad its all set.

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Yes, all have been rebooted.