Smart-UPS 2200 with replaced batteries fails self test...

[Anonymous user]

Hi all, hopefully someone can explain what is going on with my UPS.

I have a 4 year old Smart-UPS 2200 which the batteries failed the last scheduled self test.  Battery indicator light on UPS is on solid - red.

(Windows Server R2 Standard SP1; PowerChute Business Edition Version 8.5 build 626)

Ordered and installed 2 new APC RBC55 batteries.  Powered up.  Battery indicator light still solid red.  Digital display indicates failed battery.

Let charge for 13 hours.

Battery indicator light still solid red.  Digital display indicates failed battery and runtime of 92 minutes.

Manually ran PowerChute self test - runs for about 10 seconds and then fails.

Ran PowerChute calibration - this turned off power to the UPS outlets crashing the server and network equipment.  Ouch.

Powered equipment back on.

Watching PowerChute battery status (refreshing data) when it hit around 45% charged it then jumped immediately to 100% charged.

Ran self test again.  Failed.  Battery charge went from 100% to 1% immediately.  Red battery indicator light still on solid red.

Battery slowly charged all the way up to 100% this time.

Ran self test again. Failed, but this time battery charge stayed at 100%.

PowerChute Battery status:  Replace Battery, Battery Voltage 54.53 VDC, Runtime remaining 99 min.

UPS status: Load Power 14% VA; Load Current 2.7A.

----

Ran another self test.  This time it appears to have told the server to shut down as I watched it log me off and shut down gracefully.  Double ouch.

I turned the server back on and as it was booting I noticed on the UPS display it indicated a USB count down timer for shut down.  I thought, crap, this can't be good.

Sure enough at the end of the countdown it shut the server down again.  Didn't have time to figure out how to stop the countdown.

Press the power button on the server but it wouldn't power on.  Pressed the power button on the UPS and that returned power to the server.

At this point the red battery indicator light has finally turned off.  Powerchute indicates a battery status of Normal now and it is in the process of charging.

And, no, I'm not running any more self tests until I schedule downtime with the users!

What the heck is going on?  What did I do wrong?  I'll run another self test after hours tomorrow but do you think all is good with the unit now?

I have an identical setup at a remote office where I'll be swapping out the batteries in a couple weeks and sure would like to not have this much trouble swapping out the batteries.

Thanks for any input,

Dan

[BillP]

Hi Dan,

We have a few Smart-UPS 2200's - can you confirm the exact model/SKU off the white sticker on the back of it so we can be sure? I am guessing a variety of SUA2200 but I don't want to make an assumption or learn it is an X-option (what we call any custom UPSs). You also mention an LCD display and a timer so that is why I am thinking it could also be SMT/SMX with the fancier display or something else I haven't accounted for.

Is it a genuine APC battery used? Or a third party battery? If APC battery, did it have a serial number on the RBC55 box?

For most of the time reading this, I was thinking a battery issue (either faulty or just charging really slow and not supporting a load) but we'd also want to verify your current PowerChute/shutdown configuration in general to see if anything is configured to shutdown the attached server based on available runtime/low battery to explain the graceful shutdown you saw. And just in case it matters at some point, is PowerChute connected via USB or serial? You said "USB count down timer" at some point but I didn't quite know what you meant or if that should just say UPS instead.

I think we really need to look at the PowerChute logs for all of these strange happenings if you have it (copy and paste or I think you can maybe get event.txt somehow and if there is a data log anywhere.

The replace battery LED illuminates when the UPS does a self test and puts the load on battery and measures the voltage drop against a little table internal to the UPS to see if it falls outside a specified range.

[Anonymous user]

Hi Angela, thanks for the reply.

At this point everything 'appears' to be operating normal.  I'm going to run a self test during the noon hour today so if that passes I think I should be ok.  Just not sure why it gave me such trouble in the beginning.

If is a model SMT2200 and the replacement batteries were APC batteries, s/n 8H1409F13372.

Powerchute shut down settings that may been part of my problem:  Power Failure - When power returns, reboot UPS:  After the following occur: Battery charges to 15% And the elapsed time is 0 seconds.

UPS is connected to the server via a USB cable.  The display did show a timer that said USB that ticked down and then shut down the equipment.

Data log appears normal.  I'm not finding an Event.txt file or any way to export the event log so here's an image of the time period in question.

9/9/14 at 18:04 would be when I shut everything down to replace the batteries.

9/10/14 at 13:58 is when the final crash happened due to the self test.  This is where I had to press the on/off button on the UPS to get things to turn back on.  It is also where the red battery indicator finally went out.

9/10/14 at 14:08:44 is the last entry in the log.

I think when I replace the batteries at the next office location I'll let the batteries charge for awhile before powering things back up.

Also, I'm off work next week so won't be replying...

Dan

[BillP]

Hi Dan,

When you put the new battery in, did you tell the UPS it had a new battery? This type of issue could be caused by not doing that and the UPS thinking it still had the old battery which may cause issues with reported runtime and cause the strange behavior perhaps.

Can you verify the firmware on the actual UPS, just for reference? It should be something like UPS 08.8 for something like SMT2200. It'd likely be listed wherever it shows SMT2200 as the model number.

[Anonymous user]

So much for being optimistic.  Ran the self test, it shut everything down and the red battery indicator is on solid again.

[Anonymous user]

After installing the new batteries the UPS display panel asked if the batteries were replaced and I answered yes.  I also changed the battery date in Powerchute.

Powerchute lists the UPS firmware as:  650.UPS 05.0 /COM 02.1

The UPS display lists:

UPS Firmware 1: 05.0

UPS Firmware 2: COM 02.1

UPS Firmware 3: UBL 05.0

UPS Firmware 4: CBL 5.21

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Hmm, OK. If it has charged for at least 24 hours (which should be more than enough) and still causes this type of issue, I'd say we may want to get a new battery to try under RMA. Just provide this thread, that serial number for the RBC you bought (which I know is also in this thread), and then ask tech support for an RMA on it. Let me know if there are any problems with doing that.

[Anonymous user]

Finally got time to install the 2nd set of new batteries I had already purchased for my other office location.  Installed this other set of batteries last night and let them charge over night.  Ran a self test this morning and it passed so one or both of the other set of new batteries must be bad.  I'll follow your recommendation of getting an RMA to get the bad batteries replaced.  Thanks for your assistance Angela!

Dan

[BillP]

No problem. You're very welcome. Glad you had a spare set to verify with so that we can be sure that a battery RMA will likely resolve the issue.