Issue setting up APC UPS, server now unstable

Kunitron · February 7, 2020

PSU: SuperFlower Leadex Titanium 750w
UPS: APC Smart-UPS SMT1500IC

Hi all, hoping someone can help. I purchased the above UPS to help my Unraid server shutdown safely in an outage.

First time using a UPS, I followed the basic setup steps as described in the box (FYI battery was showing as 99% charged when first powering the unit on) 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 looked at the screen on the APC and it was showing input 251v, output 223v.

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

I then left the server for a couple days powered down, but the UPS turned on.

This afternoon I tried to boot the server up again with power connected via the UPS 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, but server was powered on with no activity lights flashing. The screen on the APC now read 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 was rebooting, post/bios screen etc

not sure if the output voltage dropping is an indicator of a problem or if the problem is setup elsewhere

Can anyone shed any light on where things are going wrong with my setup?

Thanks :)

BrinkGG · February 7, 2020

28 minutes ago, Kunitron said:

PSU: SuperFlower Leadex Titanium 750w
UPS: APC Smart-UPS SMT1500IC

Hi all, hoping someone can help. I purchased the above UPS to help my Unraid server shutdown safely in an outage.

First time using a UPS, I followed the basic setup steps as described in the box (FYI battery was showing as 99% charged when first powering the unit on) 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 looked at the screen on the APC and it was showing input 251v, output 223v.

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

I then left the server for a couple days powered down, but the UPS turned on.

This afternoon I tried to boot the server up again with power connected via the UPS 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, but server was powered on with no activity lights flashing. The screen on the APC now read 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 was rebooting, post/bios screen etc

not sure if the output voltage dropping is an indicator of a problem or if the problem is setup elsewhere

Can anyone shed any light on where things are going wrong with my setup?

Thanks

Make sure to configure it for 240v output, not 220v or 230v. According to APC's website, that is an option: https://www.apc.com/shop/hr/en/products/APC-Smart-UPS-1500VA-LCD-230V-with-SmartConnect/P-SMT1500IC If the PSU is getting undervolted, it'll have issues delivering clean power to your system, so that's my first guess.