PC Peripherals Avoid APC products

T

tvarad

Disciple
I have had a APC Smart-UPS XL 1000VA for about three years now and now it's developed a fault (panel lights blinking all the time). When I called their service dept., they sent out some third-party company fellow who was totally unprofessional (all the while discussing personal problems on the cell-phone while attending the service call) who said he had to take the UPS back to his company to get it checked which I let him do. After that I didn't hear from APC for days and when I called they started passing the buck and asked me to call the third party company and check with them. I insisted that APC sent them out and it was APC's responsibility to co-ordinate with them. After a lot of back and forth, I was told that a board had to be swapped out and it would cost me half the price I paid for the damned POS. I declined, saying that I would invest it with a UPS of a company that was not as flaky as APC and want my UPS back. After days of calling and getting the run-around, I posted my frustrations on the forum of APC's U.S. website who must have leaned on the Bangalore office, so today I got it back.

So why did I take it back without getting it fixed? Because a) this is the second APC UPS I've owned that's broken down and hence I have no confidence in their reliability and b) I have found a UPS dealer near my house who carries Su-Kam and other products who gives me door-to-door servicing of products (I have another UPS for my whole house which he is taking care of) rather than me having to call some droids in the cloud that APC has set up.

So please don't buy APC products. They just are not reliable and IMHO, it's a company set up to fleece you rather than provide you with a quality product.
 
about reliability part two APC UPS i have never really created any issue in last 3-4 years of use.
about service they are pathetic and big time cheats, when my battery died service centre put a used battery instead of new battery . total cheats. but i checked it before taking delivery and refused to pay for it.
 
APC UPS run on technology that is not field replaceable. Most of the others run on standard components that a village electrician can diagnose and fix. I used two APC units for 4 years, but once the warranties got over, we replaced them with a brand called Kevin.
 
Well i initially bought a 1000va ups and that went kaput in just 1 week and then i called them and requested for a new replacement and they sent a brand new unit.
later on i decided to swap it out with a 1500 va unit so i took it to the shop from where i bought and got it swapped by paying the extra mony.its been almost 6 months now and so far didnt face any issues.
 
On the night it malfunctioned, we had a thunderstorm where I live that knocked out the local transformer down the street and we lost power. I have phones, TV, refrigerator and other appliances that were running at that time either without UPS protection or on the Su-Kam inverter and absolutely nothing happened to them. But this APC POS UPS which is supposed to be protecting my computer/peripherals but didn't have any load on it at the time was the only one that blew. Go figure! You're only paying for the name; otherwise APC is worse than local brands. And the service from local brands is far superior to what this greedy company provides. My Su-Kam dealer tried to convince me at the time I bought the APC to go for another Su-Kam pure sine-wave UPS which he said I would not have any problems with and which was much cheaper. I should have listened to him.
 
My BR1000IN was replaced more than 10 times under warranty before it caught fire and blew in my face - switched to microtek 800VA which worked great for 2 yrs - i also used this microtek as a small time inverter to run 2 cfl lamps for hours every day - looking for a new set of battery now for the microtek - APC it seems have gone from bad to worse from that time sadly .
 
tvarad said:
On the night it malfunctioned, we had a thunderstorm where I live that knocked out the local transformer down the street and we lost power. I have phones, TV, refrigerator and other appliances that were running at that time either without UPS protection or on the Su-Kam inverter and absolutely nothing happened to them. But this APC POS UPS which is supposed to be protecting my computer/peripherals but didn't have any load on it at the time was the only one that blew. Go figure! You're only paying for the name; otherwise APC is worse than local brands. And the service from local brands is far superior to what this greedy company provides. My Su-Kam dealer tried to convince me at the time I bought the APC to go for another Su-Kam pure sine-wave UPS which he said I would not have any problems with and which was much cheaper. I should have listened to him.
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The UPS protected your equipment from the surge, but the UPS itself was not protected from surges - so it's not surprising that it went bust. The company might be greedy or whatever, but you can't be blaming the equipment here in this case.
 
sam000 said:
My BR1000IN was replaced more than 10 times under warranty before it caught fire and blew in my face - switched to microtek 800VA which worked great for 2 yrs - i also used this microtek as a small time inverter to run 2 cfl lamps for hours every day - looking for a new set of battery now for the microtek - APC it seems have gone from bad to worse from that time sadly .
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This is quite an amazing declaration !!

My Br1000IN has been working flawlessly since 2005. APC makes these units in my state and i really would not think of anybody else when it comes to UPS.

I recently replaced the battery that died after 6 years daily use. Called up APC that put me in touch with a cpl of people of which i picked one, they were over on time, had the battery replaced and were gone inside of 15 minutes after doing a basic check.

NEVER HAD A SINGLE PROBLEM WITH MY UNIT TILL DATE.
 
Had requetsed for sales person of APC UPS to come to my place & guide me on which one to take.

Guy said we cant come just for this as there is not much margin there. You give model number & we will come to fit. I mean you are not even ready to tell your customers that you have x products & they are good.

Thats the last day I thought of APC. Its all the way to Su Kam.. Amazing product with best after sales.
 
blr_p said:
This is quite an amazing declaration !!

My Br1000IN has been working flawlessly since 2005. APC makes these units in my state and i really would not think of anybody else when it comes to UPS.

I recently replaced the battery that died after 6 years daily use. Called up APC that put me in touch with a cpl of people of which i picked one, they were over on time, had the battery replaced and were gone inside of 15 minutes after doing a basic check.

NEVER HAD A SINGLE PROBLEM WITH MY UNIT TILL DATE.
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You can check out my old threads if you want - i myself have personally seen the same model UPS work flawlessly for years in chennai - but here in the country side the fluctuations are crazy - if you have decent power supply APC is the best UPS ever- but like me if you live in the countryside where the fluctuations are lot more worse then APC wont survive even for a month in this conditions - at least that has been my observation - even the APC service guys told me to go for microtek as APC was not surviving in my place - the microtek 800VA is working flawlessly for the past 2 yrs - whats more it does not go to battery mode evey time when AVR comes into play unlike APC BR1000.

my old threads lol :

http://www.techenclave.com/community/threads/apc-br1000-in-3rd-replacement-gone-kaput-again.76752/

http://www.techenclave.com/community/threads/apc-br1000-in-4th-replacement-problem-again.77436/

even bought a digital stabilizer for protecting this crap product what a waste of money that was :(:

http://www.techenclave.com/community/threads/stabilizer-for-apc-br1000.85378/
 
Well i have been using many APC UPS since 2001 ,i also have two 1000VA XLI models called UXI in india which run on external batteries don't have a single problem with them and they have been running strong for some years now.
If your UPS was damaged in thunderstorm that thats not the equipment fault your SU-kam inverter has no protection circuit built in all it would have done is pass on the surge to the appliances.

A ups on other hand has protection circuit to stop the surge from reaching devices like computers which are very sensitive to surges.APC or anyt surge protection device never mention about the actual product withstanding a surge but they do however protect the devices which are connected to it. Your UPS may also have not have no earthing even if its connected to a three pin socket.May houses/offices/banks have three pin socket but with no earthing.
My friend who also has this model went kaput after he unknowingly connected the input AC to one of the 8 output IEC while it was powered on in battery mode , he had a NON Standard three pin plug 5A to IEC 14 plug which are made in local market that he bought for his previous inverter and he made a seriously dangerous mistake .His UPS was out of warranty just like yours .

So what he and i did was called APC dealer and asked the dealer about the cost of repairing it, the dealer told us that its very expensive to replace the board or transformer as it will cost atleast 50% of the cost of the UPS but the dealer instead suggest to go for AMC ,so my friend paid around 2k for 1 year extended warranty and after 45 days after getting AMC(compulsory waiting period of atleast 45 days to lodge a complaint) he lodged a complaint that his UPS went kaput and APC game him a refurbished UPS in two days.The condition for AMC is that the UPS should be in working condition at the time of purchasing the AMC extended warranty and that the UPS should not be more then 4 years old ,which off course APC was not aware that his UPS had already gone kaput and they didn't bother to check it either.

Now unfortunately for you already called APC Customer care stating that your UPS is kaput .so they may already know that it doesn't meet the required condition for AMC since your issue with your APC serial number may have been recorded with their case ID.
 
sam000 said:
You can check out my old threads if you want - i myself have personally seen the same model UPS work flawlessly for years in chennai - but here in the country side the fluctuations are crazy - if you have decent power supply APC is the best UPS ever- but like me if you live in the countryside where the fluctuations are lot more worse then APC wont survive even for a month in this conditions - at least that has been my observation - even the APC service guys told me to go for microtek as APC was not surviving in my place - the microtek 800VA is working flawlessly for the past 2 yrs - whats more it does not go to battery mode evey time when AVR comes into play unlike APC BR1000.
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Very good, now that you've qualified your answer.

The KEY POINT is the fluctuations the device can handle or not in your case.

I take it that even the lowest sensitivity setting (allowing higher variations before the UPS switches on) was not workable for you ?

Mind you this subjects whatever devices that are connected to it to extreme swings which are not good for them at all. The UPS must handle these fluctuations in order to protect the devices downstream. Ideally, the UPS should sacrifice itself to protect these devices.

sam000 said:
my old threads lol :

http://www.techenclave.com/community/threads/apc-br1000-in-3rd-replacement-gone-kaput-again.76752/

http://www.techenclave.com/community/threads/apc-br1000-in-4th-replacement-problem-again.77436/

even bought a digital stabilizer for protecting this crap product what a waste of money that was :(:

http://www.techenclave.com/community/threads/stabilizer-for-apc-br1000.85378/
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Interesting read but its not clear why the stabiliser did not work out for you even though you replaced it a second time with a higher rated one.

About those voltage swings, since you have 3 phase power coming in, have you ever inspected the bus bar box. you would do this with a electrician and make sure the connections are good and there are no fused ring connectors on the bar. By fused i mean the ring connector got so hot it partially melted on the bar and its impossible to remove it by unscrewing the bolt its attached to. In this case you replace the bar, clip the connector off and replace it with a better quality connector and reattach back to the bar.

I had this problem some time back because the bus bar material and the ring connectors were poor quality ie low copper to save on money, well they use aluminium instead of copper and the thing gets much hotter and then starts sparking and causing the ring connector to fuse to the bar itself. naturally this results in an unpredictable erratic supply. I had to get a senior electrican to make some proper bars with better connectors than what came stock in the bus bar box.Things have been much more stable since.

Just thought i'd mention it. Voltage fluctuations can have many causes not always stemming from the ESCOM itself. Unless you see similar problems with neighbours in your area.
 
blr_p said:
Very good, now that you've qualified your answer.

The KEY POINT is the fluctuations the device can handle or not in your case.

I take it that even the lowest sensitivity setting (allowing higher variations before the UPS switches on) was not workable for you ?
Click to expand...

Yeah on the highest setting it will go to battery mode it will hit battery mode so often - the beeps were so constant i had to set it to the lowest setting .

blr_p said:
Mind you this subjects whatever devices that are connected to it to extreme swings which are not good for them at all. The UPS must handle these fluctuations in order to protect the devices downstream. Ideally, the UPS should sacrifice itself to protect these devices.


Interesting read but its not clear why the stabiliser did not work out for you even though you replaced it a second time with a higher rated one.

About those voltage swings, since you have 3 phase power coming in, have you ever inspected the bus bar box. you would do this with a electrician and make sure the connections are good and there are no fused ring connectors on the bar. By fused i mean the ring connector got so hot it partially melted on the bar and its impossible to remove it by unscrewing the bolt its attached to. In this case you replace the bar, clip the connector off and replace it with a better quality connector and reattach back to the bar.

I had this problem some time back because the bus bar material and the ring connectors were poor quality ie low copper to save on money, well they use aluminium instead of copper and the thing gets much hotter and then starts sparking and causing the ring connector to fuse to the bar itself. naturally this results in an unpredictable erratic supply. I had to get a senior electrican to make some proper bars with better connectors than what came stock in the bus bar box.Things have been much more stable since.

Just thought i'd mention it. Voltage fluctuations can have many causes not always stemming from the ESCOM itself. Unless you see similar problems with neighbours in your area.
Click to expand...

My whole area is like that only - lot of fluctuations - near by petrol bunk guy has a APC inverter which was replaced more than 3 times - there are lot of APC customers in my area - most of them have smaller models only - even they get replaced multiple times - whenever the APC guy comes with a new unit he always carries 1-3 smaller models which had gone kaput due to voltage fluctuations in my area - one more weird thing i observed with APC is whenever the battery becomes fully drained or weak it affects the board inside - the battery has to be in top condition at least in my model cant say about other models - but all my problems went away as soon as i plugged microtek 800VA double battery in my PC - it handles all the extreme fluctuations very easy - it has been doing it for 2 yrs now no problem whatsoever - few days back when i took it to SC to change battery they showed me how the AVR is working - they gave it lot more volts like 280V and it immediately bucked it to correct range - when i told them about my earlier APC even they were saying APC is such a great product - i dont think they believed me completely lol - frustrated by my constant fighting with the service people they told me go to microtek or numeric - i could have got my money back if i had involved my dealer delta peripherals from whom i got the UPS dont know why i didnt call for his intervention - anyway from that day onwards i suggest microtek over APC to everyone - if a UPS can survive this much of fluctuations like in my house then it can survive anything - even got 2 of my relatives to get the same microtek UPS :).
 
sam000 said:
Yeah on the highest setting it will go to battery mode it will hit battery mode so often - the beeps were so constant i had to set it to the lowest setting .
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And when you set it to the lowest level it blew up 10 times.

sam000 said:
one more weird thing i observed with APC is whenever the battery becomes fully drained or weak it affects the board inside - the battery has to be in top condition at least in my model cant say about other models
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I ran my battery until it was dead meaning it could not hold useful charge after 5 years, but the default is to hibernate once it reaches 5% of capacity, its not good to completely drain these batteries.

sam000 said:
but all my problems went away as soon as i plugged microtek 800VA double battery in my PC - it handles all the extreme fluctuations very easy - it has been doing it for 2 yrs now no problem whatsoever
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So what we need to understand is why the microtek handles it so well and not the APC. I find that odd. I think part of the answer is because each time you got a refurbished unit, there was something wrong with it that it could not take the fluctuations.

I'm not doubting what you've said about your experience, i just don't understand why it happened and since you got refurbs each time its impossible to say with any clarity.

You did not explain why the second stabiliser was a waste ? Did it not make any difference, the APC still died.
 
Have to agree with above post. You used a digital stabilizer which brings voltage down to around sane levels, then why did the ups still fail? Unless you're stabilizer was at fault in first place, can't understand how ups will fail after getting correct input voltage.
 
OK, so I went back and asked myself what exactly ticked me off and I figured out it was basically the third-rate service that was offered by APC repair and service. When I was told that they would charge me for just coming and diagnosing the faulty UPS, I expected someone who was knowledgeable about the product. Instead they sent some guy who had less knowledge than the guy who used to come and service some locally built inverters/UPS's that I owned before I switched over to brand names. He just turned it on, said yeah there's a problem and he'd have to take it back to his company, turned around and started yakking on his cellphone about his private life with someone. First world company attitude with third-rate service is something I cannot stand. Their call-center droids simply mouth the pithy customer-service friendly nonsense that is probably on a cheat-sheet next to their computer without wanting to do any work to actually find out what the customer's issue is and were passing the buck with no follow-up on the calls I had made despite promising to call me back. To rub it in, they promptly sent an SMS to rate my experience with the call-centre droid! And as if that were not enough, they were peddling an AMC to me right on the first call which shows how much confidence they have in their own products.

Anyway, I have had it fixed with my local UPS dealer who charged me half of what APC wanted, so I have it working again.
 
tifosi said:
The UPS protected your equipment from the surge, but the UPS itself was not protected from surges - so it's not surprising that it went bust. The company might be greedy or whatever, but you can't be blaming the equipment here in this case.
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This reminds me of an old story about how soothsayers in Africa would tell guys venturing into lion territory that they would be safe and would escape if a lion attacks. If the guy went out and got eaten by a lion he wouldn't come back so he wouldn't be able to blame the soothsayer, but if he came back alive he would praise the soothsayer saying he predicted his escape from a lion attack! We don't know if the APC worked; we have to take APC's word for it. That transformer next to my house blows all the time, especially in heavy rains and thunderstorms when the lines from it get shorted out due to falling branches. I've never had one failure of equipment except for the APC.
 
Have used 2 APC UPS. 1st one is 3 .5 years old & has been replaced 5-6 times + 1 year AMC charge + 1 Battery replacement. Another UPS is just 1 year old. - Already been replaced 4 times though still in warranty. Looking at 3-4 more replacements by the time warranty is over. Gonna throw it away after that.
Also been using a beetel ups since 1 year & no problems or replacements till date. :)
 
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