I heard beeping from the room next door. It was not a beeping I heard
before. It almost sounded sickly. Poking my head into the server room I
hear for certain that the beeping was not just an angry piece of
equipment, but was an unhealthy angry one. The beeping fluctuated,
growing quieter and quieter before making a feeble attempt to shout for
attention at its former volume.
It turns out the beeping is from a UPS. Further investigation found
that the UPS had failed in a serious way as the monitor and kvm plugged
into it were no longer getting power. Moving those devices over to the
backup UPS (we are not big enough to justify a proper failover system), I
take note of the serial and model number of the dead UPS.
I am on hold with APC's technical
support line for less than five minutes before speaking with someone.
After hearing my explanation he asks for the serial number and asks if the
battery pack has been replaced in this unit. The tech was quite surprised
to hear that it had not been considering the unit was manufacturered in
late 2000. He went on to explain my options, providing me part numbers
for each; purchase a new battery pack (about $50), get a ChargeUPS pack
for the unit (about $90 and extends the warranty of the entire UPS), or
trade the unit in for a larger model ($50-100 discount off of MSRP). Kudos
to APC for a well run support group.
That phone call went exactly like it should have.
With a new battery in hand I set about pulling out the old one. After
a good deal of effort, I finally get the dead battery pack out, only to
find the top of the battery seriously distended and out of whack.
The new battery went in fine, charged, and went through the basic tests
provided by PowerChute
Personal Edition.
