Friday night I was getting ready to go out to see Marshall Tucker and Kansas at a free concert in Eisenhower Park. I was trying to figure out what to bring with me since it was supposed to be thunderstorms… and the lights all go out.
So now the only light in my room is the light from my monitor, thanks to my APC BX1300LCD. So I go over to my computer to hibernate it, since I was going out and wouldn’t be needing it on anyway.
I reach for the mouse and… the screen goes dark and I hear the computer fans whirring down.
So now I’m standing in darkness. My first thought is, I’d better go turn on the lights! Then I realized, the light switch probably wasn’t going to help.
Argh. So I searched for my flashlight, grabbed whatever seemed like it would be useful, and left.
Getting out of my neighborhood was difficult. Apparently this whole grid area was out — thus making the traffic light on the main road out and police were directing people away from the direction I needed to go.
Marshall Tucker must have started early and I got there a little late, so I only caught his last few songs. By the end, the sky was being lit constantly with bright lightning flashes and the crowd was going Oooh and Ahhh like it was Fourth of July fireworks.
It started to rain and the thunder was coming only a second or two after the lightning and we were all in this open field next to a lake — it seemed like a good time to leave. So I didn’t get to see Kansas after all.
As near as I can tell, my UPS battery has just given out. Although it isn’t showing the battery with an X through it, it just shows that the battery has zero charge. I don’t know what that means. I would think it should be showing the battery with an X through it.
Since the unit isn’t showing any error messages of any part failures, I’m guessing that it’s just that the battery is old and needs to be replaced.
APC doesn’t seem to have the battery in stock, so my choices are a reseller or a compatible. My concern is that any battery that’s been sitting around is likely to have started to lose its “goodness” even if it hasn’t been in service. If APC had the battery in stock I’d get it from them. Instead my choices are:
Get a compatible battery
This is from a seller that has a positive review of this item from August 17 – just a few days ago.
Since APC seems to have stopped selling the BX1300LCD, I wonder how long they will continue to make batteries for it? At some point, the compatible batteries will probably be much fresher than the APC batteries.
I don’t know which is the more right answer. However, both these solutions are cheaper than totally replacing the UPS.
Here’s some reference links I found regarding APC Battery Backups constantly beeping and such
Causes and solutions for a beeping APC Back-UPS Product (note this link is to an article from 2002)
My APC Surge Protector Won’t Stop Beeping
Disabling the poweroutage beeping for a Back-UPS Pro model #BPG650S (this is from 2007)
“Replace Battery” and annoying beeping on APC Back-UPS XS 1200 (this is from 2011)
APC battery backup turning off beeping noise? (this is from 2007)