Hi, it’s John Sevel. In this video we are going to go over one of the more common problems when you first get your UPS back. You press the on button and nothing happens; what do you do?

You have your UPS unit and you just pressed the “on” button and nothing happened. There are two things we are going to try first:

1. Make sure that the unit is plugged into a good power source. If you press on and nothing happens, go to on to number two.

2. The other thing we are going to do is to try what is called a “cold start.” A cold start is when you press and hold the on button until you hear a long beep. When you hear a long beep you release. If you do not hear a long beep we will want to move on to the next troubleshooting step.

When you don’t get a long beep that means there is a problem with the DC Circuit or the battery circuit. We are going to do two things:

1. Disconnect the AC line.

2. In the back of the unit, there is a DC disconnect. Obviously, it is hanging out. We are going to re-engage the DC disconnect – you might hear a pop when this happens. You’ll re-engage the DC disconnect and plug the unit back in. We heard the unit come back up, turn it around and now we have power.

What if that didn’t work? You plug it back in and still, nothing is happening. What are we going to do now?

We are going to check the intro connection of the battery. Disconnect the plug. Grasp the bezel from the top at the two little indents. Apply a little bit of pressure and pull forward lift up, so disengage from the bottom and then carefully flip the bezel up to the top. Now take a flathead screwdriver, or a Philips head, whichever one and remove the two screws on the battery door. Now this particular battery (in the video) is for a 1000. The battery connection is off so you’ll want to put it back on. When it goes back on there is a slight spark, don’t be afraid. Now the battery is securely fastened, all of the rest of the connections look good. When you hear a “pop” that’s a good sign. Put the UPS back together – and if you don’t have a screwdriver you can very easily use a coin. A coin works well – you could use a quarter or a dime.

When it is securely back in place, carefully flip the bezel back down. There are two little feet in here and you’ll want to lift them fit them into the groove and give it a pop.

Now that you have it back together, plug it back into a known source, press the on button and we are good to go.

We are going to go back to the scenario here where you press the button, nothing happens and you are plugged in. We are going to try the cold start. So, we’ll press and hold the on button and wait for a long beep. If the long beep happens we are going to release it while it’s beeping.

Press and hold and the unit comes on. What this tells me is that the internal batteries are functioning and working properly; the whole DC side of the unit is functioning. What this also tells me is that the AC side of the unit is not functioning.

The first thing you want to do is look at the power source. You’ll have your power source; check that it is plugged in and on. If it were off, turn it on and the unit should now turn on and you are fine.

If that didn’t solve the problem and your power source seems to be fine, you’ll want to go back and check the outlet in the wall where the unit is ultimately plugged into, make sure you have voltage going into there by plugging a lamp into it, making sure that you have voltage coming out of that wall. If you don’t, go back to the breaker, the breaker panel in your building, and make sure you have power going to it. Another good test would just be to swapping it to another outlet in the wall – maybe that outlet is dead.

Another thing you can check is the breaker button on the back of the UPS unit. If this button is popped out or you see white on the sides of it, press it back in. There is a very slight chance that when you press it back in that you could hear a spark inside the unit, depending if something in the unit has failed and caused that pop back out. This is a reset breaker on the back of the UPS.

Of course as always, if all else fails give us a call here at CoastTec at 410-521-1000. Our tech support team can absolutely help you out.