Back-Ups XS1300LCD: Battery Fully Charged-Meter Shows 1 Bar Down?

[Anonymous user]

I recently had to change the batteries in my Back-UPS XS1300LCD, which like most UPS batteries, seemed to go bad shortly after the warranty ran out. Everything seems to work as normal except that when the batteries should be fully charged, the battery meter on the lcd display shows 1 bar down. It only seems to happen if you let it charge with the UPS turned on. If you turn it off from the button on the front and let it sit and charge for a while, the battery meter will then stay at full bars when turned back on.
I ran the batteries all the way down under load (a tv and a lamp) and then let them recharge, with the UPS turned on, and I got the same results with the meter bar. The run times seem to be about the same as with the old batteries, it shows about 140 minutes with a 30w load and didn't falter or die off quickly when I turned on the computer which brought the run times down to around 60 minutes. So from what I can tell, the UPS runs fine on battery power, my only concern is that because the battery meter never shows full (unless switched off for a while), that the unit could be trying to overcharge the batteries. The UPS does seem a bit warm, but I'm not sure if it's any warmer then it was before I swapped the batteries. It's not scorching hot or anything, but pretty warm to the touch.
Is this a problem or is it nothing I should be worried about? Does the battery meter not being full even indicate if it's still charging? Would there be any benefits to installing Powerchute to diagnose this problem?

Thank you for any answers.

Message was edited by: jcuervo

Message was edited by: jcuervo

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Hi jcuervo,

Are you using a genuine APC battery? I suggest that you brain dead the UPS. Instructions here then check if the battery meter stays the same or not. You can also install Powerchute Personal Edition so you can see the percentage of the battery charge via the GUI.