Is the 1st sign of a defective UPS battery that the cooling fan keep turn on?

Happy Hopping

Happy Hopping

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I notice the cooling fan of my UPS keep turning on lately. And the weather is not that hot at all

is it the UPS battery? my UPS is a Smart UPS 1500VA from APC
 
Happy Hopping said:
I notice the cooling fan of my UPS keep turning on lately. And the weather is not that hot at all

is it the UPS battery? my UPS is a Smart UPS 1500VA from APC
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Mines doing that too. Same 1500 Smart APC model. It’s an older black unit with green LEDs. It turns on and off a few times per gaming session. I think that’s a more recent observation — but I haven’t worried about it. My batteries I replaced within the last year. Figured it was heat or a power threshold being crossed or maybe just some unwanted variance in the incoming voltage it has to regulate. But I agree that I don’t think it’s always done it so frequently? I’ve got no trouble LEDs on mine so I haven’t worried about it.
 
my one is 10 yr. old. It seems like so is yours, as we both have the older model w/ green LED. The new model has digital display. You think this could be an age thing? My battery is quite new too. It's not this year, it could be last year. But these battery should last 4 yr. to 5 yr. But like you said, if there is a jump / drop in voltage, I find it hard to believe it happens so frequently, as in w/i the past 5 days. So it most likely is heat. And the only thing that is hot is the battery
 
Happy Hopping said:
my one is 10 yr. old. It seems like so is yours, as we both have the older model w/ green LED. The new model has digital display. You think this could be an age thing? My battery is quite new too. It's not this year, it could be last year. But these battery should last 4 yr. to 5 yr. But like you said, if there is a jump / drop in voltage, I find it hard to believe it happens so frequently, as in w/i the past 5 days. So it most likely is heat. And the only thing that is hot is the battery
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keep in mind if it only does it under gaming load? Mine isn't doing it right now and I've been browsing the web for like an hour.
 
okay, I open the flip, and check the temperature of the battery, it's only mildly warm. So it's not the battery. But it is doing it a few times a day. And the UPS is not under load. The first time today, the PC is not even on. And just now, I'm only web surfing. So either the fan sensor is defective, or something else in the UPS is hot, but what else is in the unit that causes it to heat up?
 
10 year old fan prolly needs to be replaced from dust buildup and wear.
 
The units run a self test and that will pick up the fan.

Your issue sounds more frequent than that though. Fan usually will pick up any time the battery is being used or charging regardless of temp. I don’t know if it had a temperature switch as well
 
Is the battery compartment warm? I would open it up and touch the batteries. They should not be warm to the touch unless they are charging after an outage. If they are warm from the trickle charge then likely they are going bad. One could be bad causing the second one to charge at too high of a voltage. Prolonged charging at too high of a voltage will kill the second battery. With that said if one is bad you most likely need to replace both because a new and a old together will not be in balance.


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And the only thing that is hot is the battery
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If you have a volt meter measure the voltage of each battery. Use caution as the batteries may not be totally isolated from the AC.
 
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battery is fine. The fan is inside. I don't know where you can clean the fan, I can spray some air and see

UPdate:

use a can of air spray w/ the tiny tube push into the left & right side of the rear end of UPS, hardly any dust come out. The front is where the battery is, it can come out but you can't air spray the back. Now the fan turns out many times a day. I don't think it's a dust problem.

https://cdn.cnetcontent.com/syndica...29872c8a3aa1504ff98f7155a4f2e/width(1200).png
 
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Take the metal case totally off the UPS to expose the fan. Do that with the UPS off and unplugged. Remove the batteries before you do this.
 
easy for you to say. All I can fix is dust build up. The design of this UPS is poor. I just check other brand, their fan is at the rear so people can air spray them. This UPS, the fan is ??

do you know any good brand name UPS that the battery just slide out (no screw needed) at the bottom or at the side, and you can slide a new one back in. I saw a video of a UPS that does that, and I can't find where it is now
 
easy for you to say
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I have opened my APC Smart UPS 1400XL several times. At the moment I have the batteries mounted external to the case. Although I modded it by increasing the length of the wire that goes between the batteries using 10 AWG stranded cable.

do you know any good brand name UPS that the battery just slide out (no screw needed) at the bottom or at the side, and you can slide a new one back in. I saw a video of a UPS that does that, and I can't find where it is now
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No I don't. I have several dozen different models between home and work and most are similar. Although my rackmount ones at work have a tray that slides out but you have to remove a few screws to get to the tray.
 
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so if I get it open, what do you want me to do? What's the most likely cause that the fan turns on every 45 min. to 1 hr. or so? is it really dust after 12 yr.? when you open yours, what do you see? for that matter, is that what happened to you? have you seen this? as my battery is only 1 to 2 yr. old, it's not hot at all. The fan is almost never on, it only on when there is a surge / no electricity etc. So in a single year, at the most, once a year. So that fan shouldn't fail.
 
if its turning on when its running on battery, ie a /"surge or not elec, etc", its working as intended.
 
I call APC this morning, either that technican is too green, or he doesn't want to help. He said for a 12 yr. old unit, I should buy a new one. And he said he never seen a APC smart UPS that the fan turn on when there is no / little load. As the fan turns on while I was at sleep, so the PC is off.

====================

Drescherjm, what do you want me to do when I get the unit open?
 
I was going to have you take a visual inspection of the fan and make sure you have got all the dust around the large heatsink and fan.

He said for a 12 yr. old unit, I should buy a new one.
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My home APC Smart UPS 1400XL unit was manufactured in 1998.
 
Archaea said:
Mines doing that too. Same 1500 Smart APC model. It’s an older black unit with green LEDs. It turns on and off a few times per gaming session.
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If the load on the UPS is near the maximum output level for the size of the UPS, the fan will turn on to help cool the electronics. I don't think temperature comes into play in this specific case - the fan just turns on preemptively and almost immediately upon high load introduced.
If the temperature sensor does rise above the trigger threshold due to extended high load duration, then the fan will continue to run even after the load is reduced until the temperature drops below the lower threshold.
How many load LEDs are lit (the stack of 5 LEDs on the left side) when the fan turns on during your gaming sessions? I'm going to bet that 4 out of 5 are lit or all 5 are lit. If this is not the case, then either the temperature sensor is "seeing" heat from something that is getting hot when it shouldn't be (electronics starting to fail?) or the firmware is wonky. But if it is a new symptom, that wouldn't make sense. Is the battery hot?

From what I know, the fan will turn on when:
1. The load is near the maximum output rating for the UPS
2. The temperature inside the UPS is above a threshold value according to the internal sensor
3. The UPS is running on battery (including during self test that happens every 2 weeks)
 
1) only 1 green dot, at all times. When PC is on, only 1 dot, when PC is off, only 1 dot.
2) I don't play any game, except a online facebook game called bubble witch 2
3) battery is only slightly warm, that's normal temperature
4) it's possible electronics is starting to fail, I mean, it's purchased back in 2007.

your smart ups is still going since 1998? did you have to replace anything besides the battery all these years?
 
UPSes can start acting strangely when the batteries start to fail.

Usually what happens to SLA batteries at the end of their life is the one or more of the individual cells inside the battery fails and the battery voltage drops. The UPS detects this as a battery with a low charge and will attempt to charge the battery back up to the float charge. The problem is that it's not possible to get there due to the failing battery, so UPSes without smart charging circuitry will just sit there and pump full charge current into the battery, which results in the other cells getting over charged and damaged. At first this will cause the battery to start to warm up, but eventually the electrolyte will start boiling and expand the casing of the battery. If left too long, the casing will crack and either leak sulfuric acid everywhere or blow the caps off the cells and vent.

I've rescued many very expensive 1000-1800VA UPSes that failed in service and were thrown out just because the batteries failed. Many people don't know the batteries can be changed, or see the absurd prices APC or other vendors want for replacement batteries. I just disassemble their packs and rebuild them with new batteries for less than half the cost with quality batteries. There are some shit brands out there like Cyberpower that use proprietary batteries that force you to purchase batteries from them if they're even available, they often slightly change the battery dimensions and stop making older ones to force you to buy new units.

Burg and fire panels suffer the same problem, they use the same types of SLA batteries and even worse dumb charging circuitry. The batteries will usually last about two years before they fail in usually catastrophic manner since the panels are usually tucked away in a closet or ceiling and forgotten about. batteries with exploded cases aren't uncommon, or heavily corroded terminal leads that have to be replaced, as well as the main power transformer from being grossly overloaded for so long trying to charge a failed battery.

I'd recommend replacing SLA batteries every 2-4 years, even if they appear to be fine. It'll save you a lot of grief down the road.
 
in the end, it's exactly as you describe it, although I'm quite verse in that problem from other clients. I post the original mesg. at sept 15, during that time, I did open up that box and feel the temperature of the battery. It's only slightly warm. So I assume it's dust like drescherjm said. As it turns out, it's the battery and the UPS keep trying to charge a dead battery. The battery was dated Mar. 2017. So it's only 2.5 yr. old. In the past, they last much longer. Further, the current battery was a new replacement as the prev. one also didn't last as long as it should be. So I wonder if there is an age factor of these UPS, that the longer I use it, the more damage it does to the batteries, so the lifespan of the battery is serously shorten

Anyhoo, the UPS is now dead. As I remove the presumably defective battery and re-plug in the UPS, it no longer turn on. And I have seen this before, like you describe, teh charging of the weak battery kill the UPS circuit. But it only happen in such a short time

Looking forward, there should be a better design UPS that the unit will NOT charge a defective battery. Do you know any brand? I check out Opti-UPS, they seems to have some potential, but I need to know if their fan is constantly on, or only on when there is a surge. Alternatively, since their fan is at the rear, if it's using std. size plug PC fan, then I can swap to a silent fan.

Having said that, I never like this UPS. The design is poor. There is this ribbon cable connect to the front PCB when you pull the battery out, such poor design. I saw a video w/ a battery that you can just slide out, but I can't remember which brand name it is.
 
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your smart ups is still going since 1998? did you have to replace anything besides the battery all these years?
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I got it refurbished for under $200 with new batteries over a decade ago. Not sure of the exact date. I have replaced the batteries at least 3 times. No other parts have been replaced.
 
CyberPower server grade models have given me the least trouble at work between APC, Tripp Lite, and several other brands. APC is the most used between my department at work and certainly the hospitals that I work at.


Eaton is supposed to make quality UPSs however I have no experience with that brand.
 
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Happy Hopping said:
Anyhoo, the UPS is now dead. As I remove the presumably defective battery and re-plug in the UPS, it no longer turn on. And I have seen this before, like you describe, teh charging of the weak battery kill the UPS circuit. But it only happen in such a short time
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Many UPSes will not power on at all if a battery is not installed, the same goes for a damaged battery, or completely dead battery. To test if a UPS is working properly, you need to have a known good battery/batteries (if the unit takes more than one) installed in the unit.

Happy Hopping said:
Looking forward, there should be a better design UPS that the unit will NOT charge a defective battery. Do you know any brand? I check out Opti-UPS, they seems to have some potential, but I need to know if their fan is constantly on, or only on when there is a surge. Alternatively, since their fan is at the rear, if it's using std. size plug PC fan, then I can swap to a silent fan.
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I've worked with hundreds of UPSes over the years, spanning several manufacturers and I have rarely ever seen an UPS with smart charging circuitry. Unlike other battery technologies, SLA batteries are very hard to build smart chargers for because many factors affect how the battery charges, some of which can't really be known like plate sulfination. Building such a charger would be very expensive and require all sorts of sensors, so most manufacturers just build a charger that makes assumptions of the state of the battery, which is why when the batteries start to wear out, you run into problems like battery destruction from overcharging.

Happy Hopping said:
Having said that, I never like this UPS. The design is poor. There is this ribbon cable connect to the front PCB when you pull the battery out, such poor design. I saw a video w/ a battery that you can just slide out, but I can't remember which brand name it is.
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Most UPS designs in the "long brick" form factor with the display/buttons/LEDs on the front and the plugs on the back are like that. There are a few of them that have the battery compartment on the bottom with a metal plate on a hinge, but these are problematic as well. The compartments are often so tight that if the battery fails and expands, you more or less have to chisel it out. Since the contents of the battery are highly corrosive and toxic, this isn't a fun task. It also easily allows leakage of acid onto the floor below if the battery starts leaking. At least with the front loading types, you have a solid floor inside the UPS to catch any leaking acid, for a time at least.
 
Great point on the battery leak thing, I never thought about that.

I'll go to that battery shop and see if that battery is the cause of the UPS not powering up.

Going forward, I wish I have a tower to save space. And a silent fan. The UPS industry is so lagging behind, that silent fan doesn't seem to be a standard. Cyber power is shit, definitely, their transfer time is 8 ms.

In the even of surge say caused by thunder and lightning, I just can't see how can 8 ms be useful. Isn't that like trying to board a plane after it takes off?
 
You're talking about the switchover time from power loss on the mains to the UPS powering the equipment. Anything under 10ms is fine, but the lower the better.

If you're concerned about the switchover time, you can buy a "line interactive" or "online" UPS, which offer more protection. The former regulates the line voltage with a transformer, so if you have dirty AC or frequent brownouts, it will be much better than a cheap standby unit that will probably burn up its relays from the constant switching. The latter online type uses double conversion, so connected devices never see the mains, the unit converts AC to DC and back to AC again continually. The downside to these units is they're much more expensive.

Any of the models on that page are probably OK if you're willing to spend the money on them.
 
Sounds to me like a temp sensor is flaking out or there could also be one or more bad solder connections.

As for APC, I won't touch their crap anymore after having to have a 3000VA server unit replaced 3 times.

Full story:
Bought a new 3000VA APC UPS for our little server room at work.

First time we have a power outage and one of the outlets on the UPS no longer outputs power.

Replacement 1: One whole bank of outlets will not come on unless turned on manually from the control panel on the front of the unit. Resetting to factory defaults doesn't help.
Replacement 2: Bad really noisy fan.
Replacement 3: Finally I get one that works fine for about 3 years and then starts giving strange error messages about a power board and will no longer work.

Oh.. and the kicker is that I had to pay return shipping for the first 2 replacements. APC finally agreed to pay shipping both ways for the 3rd replacement.

Never again.

I've been using CyberPower units ever since. Getting ready to replace the one that I replaced the APC piece of junk with as it is finally starting to have issues after about 5 years.
 
cyclone3D, under Lemon Law, when it fails the 2nd time, you should get a full replacement new unit. I had a lawn cutter back 10 yr. ago from Sears, it fails twice, on the 2nd time, they gave me a new one. And that's from Sears. Surely APC is better than Sears

I would recommend go w/ UPS that c/w a $250K or higher insurance w/ 3 yr. warranty
 
GiGaBiTe said:
You're talking about the switchover time from power loss on the mains to the UPS powering the equipment. Anything under 10ms is fine, but the lower the better.

If you're concerned about the switchover time, you can buy a "line interactive" or "online" UPS, which offer more protection. The former regulates the line voltage with a transformer, so if you have dirty AC or frequent brownouts, it will be much better than a cheap standby unit that will probably burn up its relays from the constant switching. The latter online type uses double conversion, so connected devices never see the mains, the unit converts AC to DC and back to AC again continually. The downside to these units is they're much more expensive.

Any of the models on that page are probably OK if you're willing to spend the money on them.
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I rather spend the $ and get it right. I switch from a very noisy HP workstation to silent PC. I can't deal w/ UPS that is noisy.

Without the noise, a great choice is Opti UPS Durable series. But I just got the reply from them today:

Yes it is, fan is constantly on

And it is loud since it spins fast for the online conversion,

It is for server environment.

Thanks
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I am waiting for MIddle Atlantic to get back to me on fan noise. Meanwhile, I do what you suggest, I'll see if I can find a UPS that is both Online and Line Interactive
 
cyclone3d said:
Sounds to me like a temp sensor is flaking out or there could also be one or more bad solder connections.

As for APC, I won't touch their crap anymore after having to have a 3000VA server unit replaced 3 times.

Full story:
Bought a new 3000VA APC UPS for our little server room at work.

First time we have a power outage and one of the outlets on the UPS no longer outputs power.

Replacement 1: One whole bank of outlets will not come on unless turned on manually from the control panel on the front of the unit. Resetting to factory defaults doesn't help.
Replacement 2: Bad really noisy fan.
Replacement 3: Finally I get one that works fine for about 3 years and then starts giving strange error messages about a power board and will no longer work.

Oh.. and the kicker is that I had to pay return shipping for the first 2 replacements. APC finally agreed to pay shipping both ways for the 3rd replacement.

Never again.

I've been using CyberPower units ever since. Getting ready to replace the one that I replaced the APC piece of junk with as it is finally starting to have issues after about 5 years.
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I actually had good service from APC. They gave me 2 free UPS's over the years.
My friend had a 5 year old APC Back-UPS Pro 1000 that failed after 5 years and she gave it to me. the unit would power on, beep, then power off. It did it with or without the battery plugged in.
I decided to remove the batteries from the unit and they were stuck, turns out they were pretty swollen but I was able to get them out.
I emailed APC and asked them if there was a procedure to test the UPS prior to buying new batteries since I told them the unit would turn on, beep, and then turn off, as well as that both batteries were really swollen.

They asked for pictures of the batteries and I sent them this pic,
Backups 1000 002.jpg


Got an email from them asking for my shipping address as they were going to send me a replacement UPS.
A few days later this arrived,
backups 1200 006.jpg


they didn't ask for any receipt or anything, just sent me a replacement unit free of charge.

Around 4 years later I had a power surge and my D-Link 8 port switch died. I emailed APC support asked them about it and they sent me paperwork for doing a claim and sent me a new UPS, a BR1300 with the LCD panel on it.
I didn't bother with the claim since the switch wasn't that expensive and shipping it to the claims center would have been more than half of what the claim amount would have been, plus the hassle of boxing it up, filling in all of the paperwork and then bringing to UPS.

That BR1200 they gave me around 11 years ago just recently started to act flaky. It says that the input voltage is only 95volts coming in from the wall so it just runs on the battery. I currently have it turned off and my Plex server and Gaming PC plugged into one of my BR1300's.
 
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if I can find a UPS that is both Online and Line Interactive
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Those will be better for your equipment however they are also likely less energy efficient on the AC->DC->AC mode. Each conversion has its losses. I see some dual conversion units advertise ECO mode efficiencies but that is in the line interactive mode meaning you don't get the benefit of the dual conversion.
 
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they are supposed to give you the replacement. Because their UPS causes those battery failure. It shouldn't happen, w/ or w/o warranty period. It's like Honda giving free replacement on air bag.
 
Happy Hopping said:
cyclone3D, under Lemon Law, when it fails the 2nd time, you should get a full replacement new unit. I had a lawn cutter back 10 yr. ago from Sears, it fails twice, on the 2nd time, they gave me a new one. And that's from Sears. Surely APC is better than Sears

I would recommend go w/ UPS that c/w a $250K or higher insurance w/ 3 yr. warranty
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Yeah.. it did have a 3 year warranty. with high insurance. Thing is, once APC was sold to Schneider they went down the toilet.
 
I heard that before. But overall APC is still better than Triplite. And certainly better than the techniican who lies to me from Minuteman: on an expensive top notch Enterprise Plus UPS, he said the fan only turns on when it's at heavy load or brown out, etc. But the truth is, the fan is always on w/ a noisy 50dB
 
I finally solved the mystery of my UPS. It's the battery. The battery is only 2.5 yr. old, send it back to the dealer, they admit 1 of the cell is over heat, and my charger keep trying to charge it, and the inside gets hot, so the fan keep turning on.

I got a new battery, plug it in, and it's been a no. of hr. sitting at the kitchen, there is no more fan turn on.

the old battery is 1 yr. warranty, and yet they give a free battery replacement, so they must have know something is wrong on their side

but going thru this exercise, make me wanted to try that MIddle Atlantic UPS, if I can sell my unit, as their one save a lot of space, and easier to replace battery when needed
 
I figured it was the battery, it almost always is.

Just remember to change your SLA batteries every two years at most, they get abused inside UPSes. I write dates on mine to know when they've been changed.
 
the older ones last 4 yr. 2 yr. is very fast. What about the newer UPS, is their UPS also new to change every 2 yr.? Or you're saying only for these older UPS
 
1 last question: is Middle Atlantic the only co. out there who makes this silent fan UPS? do you know any other brand?
 
I've only serviced two UPSes with fans in them, both APC SmartUPS 1500VA models. They have 24v 80mm fans and I've never heard them get annoyingly loud, even under load. I did have to swap the fan out on one unit on short notice and had to use a 12Vv 80mm fan with a buck converter to step the voltage down.

UPSes generally use standard sized computer fans, sometimes at 24v instead of 12v, so you can change the fan out with a different one. If the UPS uses 24v or some other voltage, you can get a cheap buck converter and put it between the fan and the UPS to lower the voltage.
 
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