Continued Low Battery Time After Battery Replacement

[BillP]

I have an BX 1500 / RS 1500 / XS 1500 (depending upon whether I look online, within Powerchute, etc). According to the Powerchute software, the unit is providing ~ 285 watts of battery power; however, I only have 4-5 minutes of estimated battery time left. Per this link, http://www.apc.com/products/runtime_for_extendedruntime.cfm?upsfamily=23, I should have in the area of 24 minutes. A couple weeks ago, I contacted support via chat and after looking up my unit, discovered it was out of warranty and probably due for a battery replacement, which they felt might be linked the low battery time I'm seeing. Given this, I went ahead and purchased a new battery (RBC33) and let it charge for about 20 hours with nothing connected in the last day. After powering things back up this morning, I'm still using ~ 285 watts of power yet my battery time is still only 4-5 minutes. In light of this, it appears I either received a bad battery or something else is amiss. I was planning to contact support again here in a few days but figured I would post something to see if anyone in the community had any thoughts. As a comparison point, I have a BX1000 unit in use on another PC that is using 200 watts of power but has roughly 40 minutes of battery time left. If anyone can offer any insight or suggestions as to what the issue(s) may be, it would be much appreciated. I can provide further details as needed / requested.

Thanks,

Bill

[BillP]

Hi Shyane,

What is the Operating System of the computer that you are using?

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc]

Bill,

Have you attempted to pull the plug on the UPS forcing it on battery to see if
a) Powerchute adjusts its runtime
or
b) the UPS runs longer than the software shows runtime for

I'd be interested to see if forcing it into a state where it has to re-calculate the runtime would change anything.

[BillP]

When I was running with the old battery, I disconnected everything except for I think a USB hub, which I left plugged into the UPS. I then unplugged the UPS' AC adapter from the adapter. After about 30 minutes or so, the hub still had power yet when I powered the PC backup with the original equipment connected, it was still showing just 4 minutes or so. With that said, I may try running the test again and see what happens. I may also uninstalling / reinstalling Powerchute as well to see if that has any effect. As an interesting aside, I briefly lost power in my house (1 - 2 minutes tops) this evening. When I came to check on the PC, it had gone into hiberation (set to shutdown, etc with less than 5 minutest to go). After coming back up, I noticed the battery was charging, which in and of itself wasn't surprising. What was though was that during that brief outage, I lost about 20% battery life, which seems excessive unless considered relative to how much battery time Powerchute thinks I have left. In any case, I'll report back with a further update.

[BillP]

An uninstall / reinstall of the Powerchute software didn't help as I suspected as I still have just 5 minutes left of battery time. I ran a self-test though, which while it passed, drained 3% of the charge, which seems odd. I guess I will try unplugging everything except for one component and then pull the plug from the AC outlet to see how long it runs before powering off. More to come.......

[BillP]

I just wanted to follow-up with an update. After disconnecting all PC equipment and unplugging the unit from AC power, I connected a small lamp and let it run until the battery was drained per the advice of a support rep. After letting the battery recharge to full capacity, I plugged my equipment back in and checked Powerchute, which listed about 37 minutes of uptime. After verifying the specs based on the wattage connected, I found this was more in line with what should be showing. I'll continue to monitor things here for the next several days but the problem with this unit appears to be fixed for now. Time to move onto my other problematic unit

[BillP]

sometimes it takes a full and complete discharge/recharge to calibrate the unit to display the proper runtime.

[Anonymous user]

I am currently having the same problem, I have tried full discharge and recharge Power-chute still reports an erroneous time of five minutes. At 100% charge no load, the backup time is 198 mins, it should be 792 mins does anyone have Powerchute v1.3.1, I hear it can fix this problem. The UPS does run longer than indicated by Powerchute.

Spec: Powerchute Personal Edition V 2.2, APC Backup RS 1500

Message was edited by: shyane

[Anonymous user]

I am running Windows 7 Ultimate. I must inform you that the issue has been resolved.

I uninstalled Powerchute v2.2 and installed Powerchute v1.3.3, run a full discharge and recharge. Now Powerchute v1.3.3 shows the correct backup time for my system. I don't think I will reinstall Pwerchute v2.2 until all the bugs are fixed.

Thanks.

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Here is an undocumented solution, I think, it works for everyone.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAwMRn15z60]

Message was edited by: apctester2010