SmartUPS 2200XL, no communication, did NMC die ?

[BillP]

Hello,

Our company has been utilizing APC SmartUPS 2200XL with a Network management Card for over 4 years with zero trouble. We keep 4 servers and a NAS connected to that UPS (daily load below 75%). Last thing UPS reported before communication failures started (about a month ago) was "Battery replacement is needed". then a week later NMC stopped working (for all 4 servers). All lights on front of UPS itself look good (except for red Battery Replacement Needed). Lights on the NMC are offline, none of them is lit up, even ethernet activity stays offline right after plugging the cable in it blinks once (GREEN) and then stays dead.
i tried pressing RESET button on NMC repeatedly but nothing happens.

Recently wanted to check the estimated runtime on its old battery, but i cannot connect to UPS by any means. NMC stopped responding to pings, however ethernet cable itself is good (tested).
Today i tried connecting directly to UPS via a serial cable to no avail. Tried connecting via serial cable to 3 different servers (all running Windows 2003) and none of them can get connected.

should I replace the NMC since it seems dead, or any troubleshooting suggested ?

thanks for help.

Message was edited by: cd10036

[Erasmus_apc]

To clarify, is there just this one UPS/NMC combination you are having trouble with, or several UPS' and NMC's? Have you tried swapping the NMC to another UPS, or trying one of your other UPS systems with the communication cables you used for serial connection? What is the part number on the serial cable you used, and also, what port/baud settings did you use for your serial terminal connection?

[BillP]

thanks for reply Erasmus.

we are a small company, we have just one such UPS unit for our small server room. network switches, routers, gateway and modem are running on a separate (smaller) UPS system which is not compatible with NMC/serial cable connections. i have no means to test suspicious NMC in another UPS and vice versa.

I tested connection to SU2200XL with 2 serial cables: one was older that used to work in past and the other one (same model) was brand new from a sealed package (came with NMC upgrade from past) which was never used before.
Cable p/n is same for both: 940-0024C

I used Hyperterminal configured for COM1 (tried also COM2 as i was confused which one was what) with either:
a) 9600; 8N1; N
B) 2400; 8N1; N

I cannot think of anything else I could do besides reseating the NMC (it seems offline), but that will not be easy in the middle of the working week...

However I thought that in case NMC fails I still can use serial cable. it seems this one is not responding either. i cannot get to user prompt using Hyperterminal. there's nothing, blank, no response at all.

Message was edited by: cd10036

[Erasmus_apc]

Well, if you cannot hyperterminal to the unit with a known good 940-0024C,D,E etc. cable with the settings you used, that's a bad sign. Did you try the same procedure without the NMC installed, just to absolutely rule out all possibilities (i.e. that the card is interfering with comm but cannot actually engage its LEDs or any of the "subsystems" that are indicated by LEDs being on)? The best test, which I believe you said is not possible for you, would have been to put the card in another UPS, or put another card in this UPS. Either way, both have a very low failure rate, but the NMC's is even lower, which is of course because there are less points of failure in terms of parts. So, going with a new UPS is the best choice considering the limited troubleshooting options.

[Erasmus_apc]

If the NMC has failed, you should be able to use hyperterminal/putty, yes. It is possible the UPS communication and/or SmartSlot bay has failed though. Reseating the card is a good idea, and you can also try hyperterminaling to the UPS without the card installed using 2400 baud, 8 data bits, 1 stop, no parity, and flow control Xon/Xoff. When the session starts hit "Shift Y", as in typing a capital Y, and you should get SM as a response. Then hit Shift R, as in capital R, and the UPS should return "BYE".

[BillP]

tried again connecting via serial cable with 2400baud 8N1, this time used Xon/Xoff flow control. tried it on both COM1 and COM2 (same physical port used on server) just to be sure I'm not mislabeling the ports.
there is no other software using COM ports, all SHOULD work fine... however UPS is not responding at all, when i press Shift+Y or Shift+R nothing happens, same as I press ENTER to bring up user prompt - no luck.

As per NMC, I looked at the network switch NMC is plugged into and on switch end it reports 100Mbit connection (no traffic flowing), but on NMC end it's dead offline.

Is it possible that UPS serial communication port failed and somehow it disabled Smartbay's NMC as well ? is there any way to do a factory reset or cold reset on UPS to revert everything to defaults ? I guess simple UPS reboot won't solve it ...

Seems like we will be shopping for new SmartUPS very soon... what a pity that device's communications failed before first battery cell replacement, shame.

[BillP]

so it's been decided. we are trading in the old SU2200XL unit for new stronger SUA3000XL using APC store - Trade-UPS. we got a good deal, paying only $1,252 total with tax and shipping (including free return of old unit).

I will try using old NMC card in new unit's SmartSlot - it's compatible, right? I hope it still works and only UPS makes it look dead. in case it doesn't we will get a new NMC as well.

[BillP]

we installed new SUA3000XL, i simply moved old NMC to this unit and it works great. it kept same TCP/IP config settings, all works like a charm (LEDs are lit up correctly, all reposnsive). old unit must have blown the SmartSlot and serial port somehow. nice that NMC still works 🙂

[Erasmus_apc]

That is good...at least for the NMC. The NMC's have an extremely low failure rate. Not to say all our units don't have very low failure rates, but many of the experienced techs at APC can count the number of NMC failures on two hands, or less :). If the old unit is out of warranty (sounds like it is) you can contact our sales department to inquire about our "Trade-UPS" program, which will give you a discount on a new unit and pay for the return of the old unit so that we can recycle or refurbish it.

[BillP]

We did use APC Trade-UPS program 🙂 thanks for info anyways 🙂

One thing though I noticed 2.64 firmware on that NMC (AP9617), very old. tried upgrading it to latest 3.73 using windows executable and something went wrong.

i used 3.73 windows fw upgrade tool for AP961x NMC. gave it the IP address and login/pass. all seemed going well but in the end it says aborted the upgrade due to NMC communication failure, why ?

this is what it did:

"Using AOS file : AOS = apc_hw02_aos_373.bin
Using Application file: APP = apc_hw02_sumx_372.bin


Checking network connection ... Checking version information ...
*************** Next **************

Before Upgrading the NMC the AOS is: apc_hw02_aos_264.bin
Attempting to log in to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx ... Log in sucessful
Loading OS, please wait ... OK
Please wait (2 minutes ) for system restart OK
Attempting connection to verify restart Failed to ping at xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
System reboot failed. Aborting this Upgrade.

Not all Network Management Cards were upgraded successfully:
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx: The Management Card at this address is not responsive.

Encountered 1 failures during upgrade."


now when i browse to NMC ip address over http it says this:



Error: The application was not able to load.

You are attempting to access an APC device.

There was a problem loading the application. Please login to the device via telnet for more details.


I can still connect to UPS via telnet or serial connection (hyperTerminal) and it shows proper tcp/ip settings and new f/w revision (3.73), I tried rebooting Management Interface from tenlnet system menu, but it still cannot run over http. what else needs to be done ?

Message was edited by: cd10036

Message was edited by: cd10036

[voidstar_apc]

Just run the windows firmware upgrade tool again.

[BillP]

thank you. it went successfully this time 🙂

[BillP]

Is there any way to reset the smart card bay on a SmartUPS 2200XL. I have 6 - 2200xl which had AP9619 cards in them and I replaced the batteries on all six of them but I can't get the cards to work on none of them. They have been offline for over a year because it was alarming that batteries needed to be replaced and nobody really managed them. I've now been task trying to get these online. Once I replaced the batteries, the UPS's alarms have gone away and the UPS's seem to be work fine but without the NMC functionality. I know the cards all work because I tested them on an APC 1500 which I configured them on it as well.

[BillP · Accepted solution]

can you be more specific? are there no LEDs on them (meaning the management cards are not powering on) or do you need to configure network settings on them again?