Back-UPS CS 650 unexplained behaviours

[iainmackay]

I have a Back-UPS CS 650 that had been running fine for over a year and that I recently reconfigured as follows.  The load is one WiFi router, one Synology NAS and one unmanaged network switch.  I had also just loaded PCPE 3.1.0 on a Windows 10 laptop (not part of the load) connected to the UPS with AP9827 cable, and this was showing no errors.  I configured "Notification" to "Disable the battery backup alarms at all times" and tested this by removing mains power - no alarms sounded.

Last night I was awoken by the alarm sounding on the UPS.  The NAS had powered off and although the laptop was fully charged and able to be started, PowerChute appeared not to be running.  At this point I just shut everything down and went back to bed.  This morning on powering back up, everything has come up, and PowerChute shows no evidence in its history of any events having occurred. I infer that this may be because PowerChute wasn't running at the time of the incident.

My questions:

1.  Should the UPS not remember its alarm settings, even if not connected to an active PowerChute session?

2.  Can anyone think of a set of circumstances in which the behaviours described above could manifest themselves?  There is no evidence of a power outage having occurred overnight.

3.  I have just noticed that PowerChute Notification Module was listed in Startup as not selected, so I have set that to "on".  APC Data Service and APC UPS Service are both "Running" and "Automatic", but is there anything more I should have done to ensure that PowerChute always starts and that the UPS retains its settings? 

Ultimately, I want the UPS to remain silent whatever happens, and to continue to function within the limits of its battery capacity when I'm away from home and take my laptop with me.

[JonPro]

Hi @iainmackay 

Thank you for reaching out to the SE Community, my name is Jon and I will assist you with this query.

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My questions:

1.  Should the UPS not remember its alarm settings, even if not connected to an active PowerChute session?

2.  Can anyone think of a set of circumstances in which the behaviours described above could manifest themselves?  There is no evidence of a power outage having occurred overnight.

3.  I have just noticed that PowerChute Notification Module was listed in Startup as not selected, so I have set that to "on".  APC Data Service and APC UPS Service are both "Running" and "Automatic", but is there anything more I should have done to ensure that PowerChute always starts and that the UPS retains its settings? 

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Let me do my best to address your questions.

1. From my experience, the on-battery alarm settings will be disabled after it has been configured in PowerChute Personal Edition (PCPE).  The UPS that you have doesn't have the ability to record the event that has happened, PCPE should be running and communicating with the UPS to record the events.
2. In relation to the first question, will you be able to share what kind of tone you've heard?  There is a possibility that the alarm that your UPS made was a long continuous tone which in most cases signals an overload or fault.  Were you able to recall if the alarm was accompanied by LEDs that are turned on?
3. The APC Data Service is the one that PCPE uses to record the logs/events while the APC UPS Service is the one responsible for the communication and configuration of the UPS.

[iainmackay]

Thank you @JonPro for your response.  Continuing to use my numbering...

1.  It looks as if the UPS is remembering its settings - I have tested removing power from it more than once, and each time it goes to battery without giving any audible alarm.

2.  I think the tone was the usual intermittent beep denoting going onto battery.  However the fact that the NAS had stopped may imply that the battery was getting low - although I wasn't aware that the NAS could know it is on UPS, as I have no direct connection between it and the UPS and the section in the NAS control panel relating to UPS says it can't see one (as expected, since the Back-UPS isn't on the network).  Could the Back-UPS decide to stop giving power to the load because its battery was critically low?

3.  Thanks for the info about the Startup items.  I have since added the PowerChute System Tray Power Icon to Startup, to try to maintain that item after restarting the PC.

I am reaching the conclusion that the cause of the incident that prompted me to post here may have simply been a badly seated mains input lead to the UPS.  Since the various actions I've taken in the intervening days, I have not had a recurrence of the problem and indeed this and the second UPS I recently installed have done their job through a number of small outages, which are unfortunately part of life as normal in my village!  If you think of any more points that may help me diagnose and/or avoid such issues in future, I shall be most grateful.

[JonPro]

Thank you for sharing @iainmackay 

At this point, my suggestion is to continuously monitor the UPS and ensure that the computer where PCPE is installed is always available to record the events that the UPS will see.