Smart UPS 5000I VA - Replace battery LED, No communication via NMC or COM

[Anonymous user]

Hi, I have a Smart-UPS 5000 that I only just replaced the batteries in last week. Everything was fine for a few days, till I noticed the UPS replace battery LED was on. First thing I tried was reseating the batteries and pushing the Self test button on the front of the UPS but nothing happened. So I tried to log onto the WebUI of the Network Management Card with no luck, couldn't even ping the IP. I then tried to connect to the serial port of the UPS not the NMC to open a console to find out what was going on but it didn't connect either. Could a DOA battery do this or is my UPS on the out? Please help.
Additional Info
UPS- Smart 5000I VA
NMC- AP9617
Batteries - (2) RBC12 APC

[BillP]

this does not sound like a battery issue.

regarding the AP9617 installed, are there any LEDs on it? if so, what color and are they solid/flashing? please note what side of the RJ-45 jack they are on. what serial cable part number were you using and port settings?

[Anonymous user]

The lights on the NMC are as follows; flashing amber on the left and solid yellow on the right (looking at the card with the writing facing up). The network cable is then plugged into a switch. I have tried changing cables/ports and plugging a new cable straight into a laptop but I couldn't ping or log on WebUI. I borrowed a APC serial cable from a friend and tried to connect to the UPS COM port. I know there are differences in APC cables so I also made a 940-0024c cable out of a normal serial cable to test as well. Here are the settings I used in hyperterminal 2400bps/8databits/noparity/1stopflow/noflow also tried 9400bps. Pushed "enter" a bunch of times but the user prompt didn't appear. Thanks for replying.

[Anonymous user]

I see that reseating the NMC requires the UPS to be turned off. This will have to been out of hours as it's running mission critical servers. I'll schedule server downtime and post a update on the outcome when complete. Thanks for you patience.

[BillP]

hmm well solid amber on the bottom right hand corner status LED, with the checkmark or X next to it for an icon indicates a hardware failure. this card should connect at 2400 unless it was specifically changed. i'd suggest reseating the card in the slot and see if the status LED on the bottom right hand corner changes from solid amber to anything else. if it does not change, i'd see if you can get a different card in the UPS to at least test at the very least. OR you could try this card in a different UPS if you had one.

[BillP · Accepted solution]

i would just hot swap it. technically, yes you should power down the UPS and brain dead it but i haven't done that in years since yes, it is difficult to do during the day. i would just hot swap it since I think the risk is extremely minimal compared to the hassle of powering down mission critical stuff.

[Anonymous user]

Thank You!!! I put in a bunch of redundancy in place and shutdown the database servers as a worse case but this work flawlessly. Just left the UPS on reseated the card and it started working. Took all of 5 minutes and i had time to do some other maintenance always.