APC 3000 New Battery Problem?

[Anonymous user]

Hi

I have an APC 3000 UPS supporting for my small office network servers.

A few weeks ago I realised the UPS was interrupting the power during its auto-test routine which I think was due to worn out batteries. So I bought new batteries and fitted them.

I haven't had any power interruptions since, however the indicator lights do not appear as I would expect.

The left hand side (load) show 1 light, which suggests my loading is fairly light (5 Pc's just base-units - no monitors etc). The right hand side lights (for battery quality?) are flashing on 1 light... I would have expected that this would be solid lights on maybe 4 or 5 lights to show well-charged batteries.

Has anyone any suggestions?

Many thanks for your help!

[BillP]

Hi Craig,

The LEDs on the left are used to determine how much load you have in percentage while the one on the right is what do we call as the battery bar graph/ battery charge graph. What LED is blinking on the right side? Is it the one at the very bottom? If it is it means that you have a low battery, normally it should move stop flashing and recharge back again. Did you bought APC genuine batteries for your unit?

[Anonymous user]

Hi

On the right hand side the bottom one is flashing... The batteries are brand new RBC55 from a reputable supplier with 12 month guarantee, they looked like good quality, I only fitted them on 8th June.

[BillP]

What is the serial number of the battery? Let's start by reseating the batteries, while doing this can you check the battery voltage? Do you have any APC software installed on your PC or a network management card attached on the UPS? These things would help us know the current state of the UPS.

[Anonymous user]

Hi

By re-seating the batteries, do you mean remove them carefully check all connections and re-fit into the unit?

I can measure the voltage when I do this. I don't have any software installed on the PC's and I don't have a network management card fitted.

I assume I will have to power down the UPS which means I have to wait until out of hours when I can shut my network down.

Is there software I could download/install onto my laptop for UPS diagnosis?

Thanks

[BillP]

Craig,

The batteries can be removed without taking down the UPS, they are hot swappable but we need to be sure that there are no power interruptions scheduled on your area. If you are uncertain then a scheduled downtime is the best thing to do. Do you have any estimate on how long the new batteries were being charged already? Also, the batteries are connected to a battery charging terminal on the UPS, you would normally see a voltage coming from that terminal I hope you can measure it as well.

Prior to installing the software you need to make sure that you have the proprietary cables of APC. The UPS comes with a serial and a USB cable which you will use to attach the unit to a computer. You can only use one cable at a time, if your laptop has a serial port I suggest that you use it first and the cable part number would be 940-0024 or 940-1524. The software that you can use is the PowerChute Business Edition (http://www.apc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=125), you can download and use the PCBE Free Single Node Agent.

JonPro

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Hi

I have an APC 3000 UPS supporting for my small office network servers.

A few weeks ago I realised the UPS was interrupting the power during its auto-test routine which I think was due to worn out batteries. So I bought new batteries and fitted them.

I haven't had any power interruptions since, however the indicator lights do not appear as I would expect.

The left hand side (load) show 1 light, which suggests my loading is fairly light (5 Pc's just base-units - no monitors etc). The right hand side lights (for battery quality?) are flashing on 1 light... I would have expected that this would be solid lights on maybe 4 or 5 lights to show well-charged batteries.

Has anyone any suggestions?

Many thanks for your help!