UPS battery fully discharges everynight around the same time.

[R3dNeckTech]

Hi!

I have no experience troubleshooting a UPS issue and could really use some help.

My company has an APC Smart UPS 700. I'm not sure how old it is. We have a Windows NT server, and one or two small things plugged into it. Every night around nine the batteries fully discharge for no apparent reason. This has been going on now for 11 days, and I can't figure it out.

I used the PowerChute application to check on the UPS, but did not find anything unusual. It passed the self-test, output is hanging out around 122 VAC, the temp fluctuates between 111 and 115 F, and the battery stays around 27 VDC. All of that is within the normal range. Also, it's only got a 40% load on it. I thought it might be the battery dying, but PowerChute says it's still charging to full capacity, and there has not been a replace battery message yet.

I did find this Microsoft Knowledge Base article, but I'm not sure.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=170817

I welcome your feedback!

Thank you!

 

[R3dNeckTech]

I need to add two things to this post.

1) The UPS is 5 years old.

2) The discharges are only happening on weeknights, not weekends.

 

[r2016]

Do you know if the software is causing the UPS to go into battery mode every night kind of like a selftest? Due to the fact that the UPS are 5 years old and if they still have the same batteries that they came with I would say that the batteries need to be replaced. If thats the case I would say that once the software is putting the UPS onto the battery that the batteries are being immediately depleted.

 

[R3dNeckTech]

Thanks for the response!

I have the UPS set to perform a selftest once each week. The event log only shows the selftest being run at that time, which does not correspond to the days/time the batteries discharge.

The batteries have been replaced once that I know of. It was either one year or two years ago, I can't remember. And of course, at the time I knew even less about the UPS than I do now, so I didn't notate the replacement in the designated field of the PowerChute software.

I agree with you, I really think the batteries need to be replaced. At least if we bought new batteries, even if they did not fix it, I would have ruled something out.

Unfortunatly, I work for a small (less than 20 people) company, that is excruciatingly tight with it's money. My supervisor needs me to justify spending the sixty dollars on the new batteries. I'll have to show why the batteries have to be replaced. [Don't laugh, it pays the bills, sort of]

Thanks again!

 

[FredWagner]

This sounds like one of those situations where the night cleaning crew is unplugging something to run their buffers, or plugging buffers into a wall outlet that's on the same breaker as your UPS, popping the circuit breaker. Try staying late on one of the weeknights when your battery drain event happens, and see what is going on to cause the UPS go stay on battery power long enough to run things down.

Fred Wagner

 

[R3dNeckTech]

Thanks for the response! And great suggestion. I'll try it out.

 

[FredWagner]

There have been several instances of this sort of thing reported in the Shark Tank column of ComputerWorld. You can get the feed by signing up for it - all sorts of IT misadventures - many things to learn to watch out for.
I've been dealing with UPS's large and small, and Line Conditioners, now for about 18 years (not the main part of my jobs, just part keeping things running reliably!)
I've replaced batteries in UPS's many times - interestingly enough, when an UPS give a bad battery light, the battery may have useful life in another application, like running ham radios in field operations. If their bulging and the like though, they're just hazardous waste to dispose of (or send back if you get the replacement packs from APC).

Fred Wagner