[SOLVED] Issue setting up APC UPS, server won’t POST

[kunid]

Hi all, hoping someone can help. I purchased an APC Smart-UPS (SMT1500IC), to help my home server shutdown safely in an outage.

First time using a UPS, I followed the basic setup steps as described in the box, but I’m seeing some really strange behaviour. The server is the only device connected to the UPS.

I booted the server up and entered the Bios. I was about to select the boot device manually when the server suddenly died and then kept trying to turn on and off in a loop constantly. I had to kill the switch on the PSU to stop the loop.

After flicking the PSU back on I tried to turn it back on but no joy, so I unplugged the power cable coming from the PSU and reconnected a standard power cable from the mains socket. This time the server POSTed, although it showed a "Chassis Intrude! Please Check Your System Fatal Error" message.

I powered down and reconnected the power cable coming from the UPS. This time the server would power up (I can hear the drives spinning up), but the activity light didn’t flash nor did the POST screen appear.

I powered down and swapped to mains power, at which point it boots up as expected.


I’m probably missing something obvious, but something clearly isn’t sitting right between my PSU and the UPS. Any guidance anyone could give would be appreciated !

PSU: SuperFlower Leadex Titanium 750w
UPS: APC Smart-UPS SMT1500IC (showing input 251v, output 223v)

 

[RealBeast]

Insure that the UPS is charged (it's batteries may have been low when it arrived). Then power your computer down and attach the power cable to one of the grey plug in connectors on the UPS, those run on battery power when the unit loses AC power. Attach the USB cable from the UPS to computer and install the Power Chute software then configure it on how you want it to shutdown.

 

[kunid]

Insure that the UPS is charged (it's batteries may have been low when it arrived). Then power your computer down and attach the power cable to one of the grey plug in connectors on the UPS, those run on battery power when the unit loses AC power. Attach the USB cable from the UPS to computer and install the Power Chute software then configure it on how you want it to shutdown.

Hi RealBeast, the UPS was showing the battery as 99% charged when I first powered it on, although I have also left it for 24hrs with no device drawing power from it since these initial attempts to use it.
I tried to boot the server up again with power connected via the UPS this evening and it successfully booted.

I checked the screen on the APC at this time and it was showing input and output voltage at 249.
Everything was operating as expected for about 7hrs, when I noticed I could no longer remote into the server. I went to take a look and found that the monitor was off and keyboard/mouse didn't wake the system, server was on but no activity lights flashing. The screen on the APC now showed input 249v, output 221v.

I turned off the mains power socket leading to the APC, forcing it into battery mode. As soon as I did that the server came back to life and the monitor came on, showing that the system had rebooted.

I don’t understand why the output voltage is dropping and am wondering if this is causing the server to hang? If it is, is this expected behaviour for the UPS, config issue, product fault, etc?

 

[RealBeast]

No, that is not normal behavior. Contact APC support and provide them details of everything you did and a request for an RMA -- they should provide a UPS label to return it and ship you a new one.

I've used dozens, currently have 6 and none has ever shown any such behavior -- they just work. Although I do have to change the battery packs every 3 or 4 years.