Is my battery truly bad?

[Anonymous user]

I have the APC Back-UPS XS 900 Which is virtually identical to the BX900R.

Used almost 2 years. Very few power outages & those few were 1 minute or less.
I wonder if my battery can really be bad so soon. If it matters, I have a computer, modem, router & external HD connected.

Transfer Voltage/Sensitivity Adjustment is set to the Medium factory default. (I checked)

For a few months I would occasionally find a window on my screen stating that the system is running on battery power but it was not. And I knew there had been no power outage since I had been home although not at the computer & no lights dimmed or went out. Lights on the unit were normal. Only the top green light on. I assume the UPS acted as though the power was lost & then restored.

Yesterday, it began chirping & the red, battery bad light was on along with the green top light. The two middle lights were NOT lit up. The status showed 65% battery & slowly went back up to 100%. Every few hours it would do that again although the battery status remained displayed as 100%.

I called APC & they had me unplug UPS from wall outlet & that turned off (crashed) the computer in a few seconds despite the battery status having been listed at 100%. Next, I unplugged everything from the UPS, remove & then replace the battery and w/o plugging the UPS back into the wall outlet, press/hold the power button 10 seconds. Nothing--no lights. Next, plug back into the wall outlet & press power. It did the normal start up self diagnostics (I forget what the lights did but the APC tech said that is normal when I explained at the time) I plugged all my equipment back in Rebooted my computer & the battery status was 11% and over the next several hours went back up to 100%. Now, only the top green “Online” light is on.

APC says bad battery & a new RBC5 is being sent to me.

I am wondering if, in fact, there is some defect in my UPS which will cause the same thing to happen to the new battery in a year or two. Why is my red, bad battery light not on now? It is the same supposedly bad battery in there as I await the replacement battery? Perhaps the UPS has a defect causing it to go on battery power unnecessarily for a minute or two very often & that shortens the battery life?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Steve