Loss of battery power

[Anonymous user]

Hi

I have three UPS's , a Backup UPS CS 500 , Backup UPS Pro 650 and Smart UPS 1000.

I shutdown all my systems each night, but I leave the power available to the UPS's.

This morning, both the CS 500 and the Pro 650 on switch on, went into alarm.

Further investigation showed that the battery power on both was depleted, i.e. not 100%, nearer 20%.

I am at a loss as to why this should have happened, as there was no load on the UPS's over night,
and no utility power outage.

Anybody got any ideas?

Thanks

[Anonymous user]

Hi

I have three UPS's , a Backup UPS CS 500 , Backup UPS Pro 650 and Smart UPS 1000.

I shutdown all my systems each night, but I leave the power available to the UPS's.

This morning, both the CS 500 and the Pro 650 on switch on, went into alarm.

Further investigation showed that the battery power on both was depleted, i.e. not 100%, nearer 20%.

I am at a loss as to why this should have happened, as there was no load on the UPS's over night,
and no utility power outage.

Anybody got any ideas?

Thanks

[Anonymous user]

Hi

yes they are all on the same power circuit.

[BillP]

may i ask how you know there was no power outage? i assume something caused them to go on battery whether it was electrical noise or some other power issue.

its hard to say what happened without having any logs to review or witnesses so we can only guess.

[Anonymous user]

Hi

Well there would be no logs as all the computers were shutdown, and the microwave
clock was ok in the morning, if there was an outage then the clock would show 88:88.

[Anonymous user]

This morning, no alarms, the Backup UPS 650 at 100%, the CS500 shows (via the Iomega IX2-200 NAS), 9%.

The microwave shows the correct time.

[BillP]

well i am sort of in the same boat as you. is there anyway to leave the devices on attached to it? i am sort of at a loss without seeing it in action and trying to check to see if there is a problem when the issue is occurring. i am only making guesses at this point and i am not sure if i can provide you with anything definitive unfortunately.

[BillP]

interesting. are the two UPSs on the same household circuit?

[Anonymous user]

Hi

in the same boat as me?

You have had this problem also?, of the UPS depleting while it is switched off, no power outage.

The UPS cannot by the way, isolate the load, so I assume its either a load leakage or the batteries deplete
due to load within the UPS, perhaps there is a design fault?

[BillP]

no, i havent had the issue. i meant that i am in the same boat as you in regards to not knowing what is causing the problem. i have never seen this type of issue before in my experience in APC tech support so i really doubt that there is a design issue here. i dont think its possible for the UPS to somehow drain the battery based on what load is plugged in.

the only thing i can think of is try to catch the UPS when this happens and see if there is input voltage present at the wall when it is happening.

has it happened again yet? has it always been overnight? do you have the beeping on battery disabled? if not, have you heard it beeping at all.

[Anonymous user]

Beeping is on, yes it has happened before, to the older UPS's (not the CS which is about three weeks old). very occasionally, but if I remove the power, with the UPS switched off, no load, the batteries deplete over time.

The older UPS's have had their batteries replaced in 2009.(previously lasting over 10 years), deep tests were carried out after reaching initial 10%.

The last time , CS, Backup both alarmed, & depleted, the Smart did not (on this occasion).

Microwave clock was ok!!.

[BillP]

well a UPS can go to battery for other reasons other than a complete blackout. there could be electrical noise, which the microwave might not care about, or something else causing it to go to battery. or, it could be not detecting input voltage erroneously. i am not sure and can only give you my best guess 🙂

[Anonymous user]

Hi

since I last posted, both the UPS's in question have disconnected overnight due to storm activity, and both came online with no long alarms or significant loss of stored power.

Today ( and once between the last post), the long alarm and power deletion issue occurred.

The CS ups is supporting my ix200 NAS with ups support, my router and hub. The other , the backup pro, is supporting a mac mini.

Nothing is in the log because this occurs prior to boot up.

Its weird that both ups choose the same period and day to do the long alarm.

Is there some self test built into the devices that activates approximately every 14 days?

The microwave clock is still ok!!

[BillP]

Hello,

Is the alarm accompanied with a UPS LED that is lit up?

Yes, our UPS is designed to perform a self-test every 2 weeks/14 days and it happens on the same time since the last self-test.

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Aha it starts to make sense now, maybe its coincidental that it happens on the same day to both ups's.

Thanks for the feedback.