RS 800 beeping when unplugged

[Anonymous user]

The hospital i work at just purchased 5 of these for our laptops to use on different floors.

The problem is when you unplug it from the wall the unit starts beeping. I've talked to several people in tech support here and they've basically said that we're s.o.l. and that thats what they are suppose to do. I've talked to one of the head guys that work ITS at the college i went to and said that you can get them to stop beeping when battery backup is in use. Is this true? Thanks for any help!

[Anonymous user]

Apreciate the help notorious. I seen them when they hooked them up and knew it wasn't what we needed. Like i said, our IT isn't all its cracked up to be. Hopefully we can get this taken care of.

[Anonymous user]

To disable the beeping notifications, just install the powerchute software and through the software, you can shut off the sounds as you wish. After doing that, you may remove the powerchute software if you like, since the settings are recorded on the unit itself. You're not S.O.L 🙂

[Anonymous user]

Thank you for your help. I did that, they want to keep putting the laptops into hybernation. I assume that its just because the backups are going dead and need plugged back in to charge?

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc]

The UPS's aren't designed to CONSTANTLY be powering equipment on battery - you're going to find out that you'll be replacing these batteries a lot faster than you had expected. It also wouldn't be covered by warranty since we would be aware of the cause of the deeply discharged batteries. They're designed to be called into use in the event of a power outage. They are not portable devices to provide power.

[Anonymous user]

Don't the laptops have an internal battery? Why do you need an UPS to power a laptop?

The beeping is telling you it is on emergency power mode. You can always turn the beeping off, but this kind of product is not made for this application. These UPSs put out a "dirty" kind of power when operating from the battery and for this reason are not made for keeping the equipament running indefinitely, this is not its purpose, unless is a bigger kind of UPS, an online or sinusoidal type, but either way, that's not what they are made for. An UPS is made for powering computers when there is power outages and most of them are made for keeping the computer running for a few minutes, giving you enough time to shut it down at a safe manner. .

If the laptop batteries are worn out, the right thing is to buy new batteries for them and bigger batteries if there is the option since the laptops will run most of the time on battery. The original batteries should give you 2 hours of power or more, isn't it enough for your usage? When there is an outlet close to the laptop you should plug its charger to keep the batteries as full as possible for the times you have to take the laptops to somewhere else.

If you can't find batteries for the laptops, there is also the options of universal batteries and APC have solutions, like these ones:

http://www.apc.com/products/category.cfm?id=5&subid=96

[Anonymous user]

So just a follow up on this discussion. I let the manager and I.T. know that these weren't what we needed to run our computers, and that the batteries would go eventually. Well not even a year later and we've had to replace a couple batteries already, plus 4 out of the 5 won't even stay on anymore. The red light of death flashes and it shuts itself off. At least I can say I told you so.

What SHOULD we have gotten to power our laptops?

[Anonymous user]

The beeping has been taken care of for a while now. So thats not a problem any more. The problem has become the UPS batts have been failing, not holding charge, just like you guys said they would.

The laptop batts are not enough to power the laptops long enough. We will have them on the floor for 2-3 hours, have them plugged in for an hour, then back out on the floor for a couple hours. As with every hospital, they don't want to spen the money for a bigger computer battery so they are replacing the UPS batteries (don't ask me why). I was just kind of curious if there was anything out there that would be the RIGHT product to buy for this usage.

[Anonymous user]

I gave you an option on the message above:

http://www.apc.com/products/category.cfm?id=5&subid=96

more specifically, this one:

http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=UPB90

but I think this model would power your laptops for more hours than you need. There are other cheaper and smaller units on the first link.

You should check the compatibility list before buying it.

Message was edited by: rau

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

My appologies, I must have missed your link when I was reading it. This is exactly what we need, not sure if our I.T. chose what they ordered for us on their own or if they even asked. I'll deffinatly forward this to my manager, hopefully she'll think about it instead of buying more new batteries for the rest of the laptops.