Back-UPS ES 550 drops all load when power fails, but beeps

[Anonymous user]

If the power supply is turned off, my ES 550 beeps, but does not supply power to devices on the battery backup connections.  Not even very low power devices.  It continues beeping, and the battery has been replaced.  Is there anything further that I can do, or is the unit failed?

[BillP]

1. Can you clarify the exact model of the UPS (located on the bottom of the UPS on a white sticker)?
2. Also, could you verify if you see any LEDs during this scenario and what kind of beeping? i.e. more like a chirp, four beeps every 30 seconds, etc.
3. Lastly, do you have everything connected to battery back up + surge outlets? Do the surge only outlets work?

[Anonymous user]

1. BES550G-UK

2. The power LED is solid green after power off except when the beeps sound, during which it goes off.  The other LED is off at all times.  The sound is four short beeps approx every 40 seconds.

3. Things I want protected (e.g. PC) are connected to the battery backed outlets; other things (e.g. monitor) are connected to the surge outlets.  When the power supply to the APC unit goes off, everything goes off immediately.

[BillP]

Is this under warranty? Assuming its the four beeps every 30 seconds really is what you're hearing, indicating battery operation, sounds like an internal issue with the unit because it thinks its outputting power but it is not really.

How did this issue come about? Just random one day?

[Anonymous user]

It isn't very old, but I doubt if it is under warranty.  How do you mean "really what I'm hearing"?  I did a test immediately before writing the above, and reported exactly what I observed.  There were four beeps in quick succession, and when I timed the interval between the sets of beeps, it was 40 seconds.  Maybe it is nominally 30 seconds, but that is what I observed.  And the power LED was continuously green except during the beeps.

The unit has been tested occasionally by turning off the power supply, but the fault manifested itself because an electrician turned off the power supply to my office without warning at a time when I was not present and all the equipment (it included several low powered networking devices and a web server) immediately crashed and failed to recover (because PCs don't reboot themselves after power loss, and networking equipment doesn't always work correctly when turned off and on arbitrarily).  In other words, given a real life power problem, I didn't actually get any protection and had no prior warning that I would not have protection.  Nor is there now any indication of a fault - it's only by turning the power off and crashing things that it becomes visible.

[BillP]

Hi again. I just wanted to check to verify the beeping pattern indicates as you mentioned, four beeps every 30 seconds is typical and not 40. As I was researching, someone mentioned to verify so that is all I was trying to do.

To me, this could be a battery issue where it is unable to support the load because it does not have any capacity left or a UPS issue. If you wanted, you could plug in a lamp or similar to the battery outlets and pull the plug to see if it can support that device. I would do this after the battery has had time to recover from any other testing and let it try to charge for at least maybe overnight to get an accurate result. I would think if its a battery issue, the UPS itself would also turn off but it could still just be a battery even so.

[Anonymous user]

Hmm.  So I have a failed UPS with a usable battery, and also a brand new battery.  And now I have to go and buy a new UPS.  I don't think it will be an APC one.

[Anonymous user]

The battery has already been replaced, as started at the start of the thread.  Even if the only battery load is a phone, turning off the power kills it.  The unit had been powered for more than 24 hours continuously prior to the last test.

So I'm back to my original question - is there anything I can do with the APC unit, or is it a write off?

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately, If a new battery didn't fix the problem, you would need to replace the UPS.  The battery is the only user replaceable part.