Multiple UPS dead after ~1 year of use

[Paddo]

I have 2 APC Back-UPS Pro 900 and both of them died in the span of 1-2 years.

The batteries didn't charge anymore and even a new battery didn't help.

Sent them in for warranty and got 2 replacement units. Both brand new with new batteries.

Both had the same issue 1 year later and I got them replaced again.

 

3 days ago I wanted to install one of them. Connected the battery and pluged it in to the wall outlet but didn't turn it on because APC said to charge them for at least 16 hours before use.

Today I turned the UPS on without anything connected to it. It worked for 5 seconds and turned off. I then unplugged it from the wall and tried turning it on again. The display and buttons started flickering but nothing more. Took out the battery and waited a couple of minutes. Plugged it back in and turned the UPS on. After a few seconds the display got dim and sparks started flying out from the top. It sounded like some capacitors blew up.

 

I find it a bit suspicous that 5 UPS died in just 2-3 years.
Could it be that my outlets are at fault or did I just have the worst luck?
Any other devices I plug in to the same outlets work just fine.

[Sawa Takahashi]

Well, this is certainly not normal. You can expect devices to last at least as long as their warranty lasts. (And I expect more than warranty longevity to be Frank).

The duration of batteries is often expressed in discharge-recharge cycles. So, if you experience only a few power losses, your battery should last a long time. Frequent power losses means batteries will discharge then recharge more often and will degrade faster.

29 minutes ago, Paddo said:

After a few seconds the display got dim and sparks started flying out from the top.

Well, this is certainly unacceptable. I'd dispose of such a UPS for you can't be certain if repairs will fix it enough to be safe.

31 minutes ago, Paddo said:

Could it be that my outlets are at fault or did I just have the worst luck?
Any other devices I plug in to the same outlets work just fine.

You can check your outlets to see if the grounding is good (UPS requires a good ground). Also, if your UPS switches to battery often (while the power is still on) this can indicate that your electricity fluctuates and trips the protection often. Other devices may be more tolerant to fluctuations  and grounding than a UPS, so it makes sense that you should check your outlet anyway.

35 minutes ago, Paddo said:

I find it a bit suspicious that 5 UPS died in just 2-3 years.

I agree. But I can't tell if you are just unlucky with the bits of infos you shared in this post.

It may not be a solution, but I have a suggestion.

I owned a few APC UPSies over the years and I can't say they were than good overall. Since then, I changed them all for Cyberpower UPSes and been very happy with the performance. Cyberpower are using off the shelf batteries instead of the overpriced APC replacements. I got only 1 broken Cyberpower while I got 3 broken APC. The Cyberpower often have more features like USB charging ports or alarm silencing features that the APC did not have.

But it's from my own experience. Your mileage may vary and I'm sure other redditers had bad experience with Cyberpower and good experiences with APC

Good luck !

[manikyath]

i have plenty of APC units around the house, and the closest to a failure i have, is that the warning beeper on one of them has burnt out. probably bad luck.. but that's how it goes i guess. i personally refuse to buy anything gigabyte over eternal bad luck.

[OddOod]

53 minutes ago, Paddo said:

Could it be that my outlets are at fault or did I just have the worst luck?

Could be your wall power. Whereish in the world do you live? House or apt? Approximate age of the building? I'm not trying to hunt you down, just need to know if you're in an area/residence with less than perfectly reliable power.
Also, what else is on these circuits? Are there any compressors (AC/fridge)? A lot of other computers? Microwave/toaster/heater?
Do you plug the UPS into the PC? If so are you dropping back to battery power frequently?
 

[Paddo]

10 minutes ago, Sawa Takahashi said:

Frequent power losses means batteries will discharge then recharge more often and will degrade faster.

I've had one or two full on power outages but they didn't last longer than 30 seconds.

11 minutes ago, Sawa Takahashi said:

Also, if your UPS switches to battery often (while the power is still on) this can indicate that your electricity fluctuates and trips the protection often.

That might be it. I've noticed one of the 2 switching 3-4 times a day but only for a few seconds each time. It was plugged in to the same outlet that I connected the UPS to that "exploded" when not connected. Guess I should've checked the outlets a bit sooner ^^
The wiring is pretty old (20ish years or so) and it was done by "a friend of a friend" of the previous shop owner so it would make sense that it isn't the most reliable.

[Sawa Takahashi]

8 minutes ago, Paddo said:

The wiring is pretty old (20ish years or so) and it was done by "a friend of a friend" of the previous shop owner so it would make sense that it isn't the most reliable.

To be frank, my house wiring was done by an electrician 50 years ago and it wasn't reliable until I redone it myself

Well, good luck !

[Paddo]

15 minutes ago, OddOod said:

Could be your wall power. Whereish in the world do you live? House or apt? Approximate age of the building? I'm not trying to hunt you down, just need to know if you're in an area/residence with less than perfectly reliable power.
Also, what else is on these circuits? Are there any compressors (AC/fridge)? A lot of other computers? Microwave/toaster/heater?
Do you plug the UPS into the PC? If so are you dropping back to battery power frequently?
 

I'm in the EU, germany to be specific. It's at my workplace and the building is rather old.
The outlets are in pairs of 2 and each pair has it's own 230V/16A breaker. I guess the main problem is that the wiring was done by "a friend of a friend" of the previous owner 20 or 30 years ago and my boss did not care to replace it because "it was working fine the whole time". The RJ45 ports were installed at the same time and are still wired up to old CAT5 cables. Not even CAT5e and it's not because it was cheaper to do so but because back then 1GE was the exception and 16MBit/s was the max speed over ADSL.

[Paddo]

21 minutes ago, manikyath said:

i have plenty of APC units around the house, and the closest to a failure i have, is that the warning beeper on one of them has burnt out. probably bad luck.. but that's how it goes i guess. i personally refuse to buy anything gigabyte over eternal bad luck.

Funny, I buy alsomst everything from gigabyte but avoid MSI like the plague because the failure rate of their GPUs and motherboards was way higher than any other brand at least for me