Back-UPS 350 beeps, then my PC shuts off but the monitors stay on

[Anonymous user]

I have PowerChute installed, but it reports no sort of incident regarding power. My PC just shuts down, though I do hear a beep at the UPS. When this first happened, it was giving off a continuous squeal and had to be reset. I adjusted the sensitivity to LOW in PowerChute, and now it just lets it shut down with a single beep.

My two monitors are on the second and third battery-backed outlets, but they stay on.

So is this just my PC shutting down on it's own, or is the backup faulty?

I have used this UPS since it was purchased new in 2011, but it's only been on this particular PC since last winter. It has always supported two monitors, and a few peripherals on the surge protected circuit.

[BillP]

The UPS do have two sets of outlets, Surge Only and Battery Backedup outlet.  Make sure that critical equipment goes on the battery backedup outlet.  Also, the PC that has been shutdown shouldn't cause the UPS to beep.

[Anonymous user]

Yes, as I was describing, I have kept the monitors and the PC on those three batter-backed outlets. The PC has been in the one which could be considered "special", in that it is slightly separated from the other two (the one to the left). I was speculating it might be a circuit unto itself, as well as backed by the battery. I will experiment further and see if anything else gets shut off in that socket. Currently nothing is plugged into it, so I will test a single monitor and see what happens.

The beep happens at exactly the moment it shuts off the PC.

[BillP]

What if you remove the PC and just leave the monitor attached on your UPS?  Would it still beep?  If it does, what would happen on the unit?

[Anonymous user]

There may be something more afoot than an old battery, yes, but I have an old battery nonetheless. If it continues to fail after that, I will move to another brand.

[Anonymous user]

Since my last response a week ago, I have had only the two monitors on the battery side of this UPS. Just a few minutes ago, they both went off and the unit started beeping. A 1-2 second sound followed by continuous short beeps. This continues until you power off the unit. It wouldn't run two monitors, but it is now running one.

Does this indicate the battery needs replacement, or should I just abandon this thing for a new one?

Unfortunately, I uninstalled the PowerChute application, so I can't see what was happened on the unit side.

[BillP]

Have you tried a pull plug test at all (pull the plug yourself and see what happens to simulate an outage)? Sometimes I find these units so simple that they are difficult to deal with

Anyway, do you see any LEDs with the beeping?

[Anonymous user]

That's an interesting idea, Angela N. I just tried it. There was a single beep, the green LED stayed on (it has in past tragedies, as well - to answer your question), then 4 short beeps, then just continuous power to my monitors. I plugged it back in, and it seemed to reset itself. Is that what I should have expected?

I have ordered an OEM replacement battery already this past weekend, just in case that's the problem.

[BillP]

Well, we were just trying to simulate a power failure. It seems like it acted normally during your simulation so I don't see why it would not during a normal power failure (if that is even what happened during the last scenario).

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

I have PowerChute installed, but it reports no sort of incident regarding power. My PC just shuts down, though I do hear a beep at the UPS. When this first happened, it was giving off a continuous squeal and had to be reset. I adjusted the sensitivity to LOW in PowerChute, and now it just lets it shut down with a single beep.

My two monitors are on the second and third battery-backed outlets, but they stay on.

So is this just my PC shutting down on it's own, or is the backup faulty?

I have used this UPS since it was purchased new in 2011, but it's only been on this particular PC since last winter. It has always supported two monitors, and a few peripherals on the surge protected circuit.