This is a rant.  You have been warned.



So, I cruise into work early Saturday morning to change the tape for the
backup that happens every day at 2 AM and I find that the PowerTrust UPS is
beeping at me.  Checking the console reveals that, lo and behold, we are
running on UPS battery power.  The message (which must be the only one
available to the UPS) says that "The UPS reports loss of AC power".  Okay,
says I, let's see (I'm kinda skeptical since the lights are on and the AC
unit is running).  Figuring I can't do any more harm than has been done
already, I grab the twist lock plug and unplug it from the outlet.
Reinserting it in the outlet produces a "The UPS reports AC power has been
restored" message followed almost immediately by the "loss of AC power"
message again.  Grabbing my trusty VOM (analog, of course! - real techies
use analog meters) reveals a slight over voltage at the outlet (250 VAC
where it should be 240 VAC), but well within the tolerance or at least it
should be.  In fact, the UPS is putting out close to 250 VAC itself (checked
at the power strip in the back of the cabinet).

Figuring we have a "bad" UPS, I place the call to the HPRC.  Imagine my
surprise when, after negotiating the mind-numbing phone menus, and getting
the phone answerer to agree that, yes, we do have 24 x 7 support, I am
informed that HP won't even talk to me about the PowerTrust - I have to call
Best at their 800 number.  Further increasing my warm and fuzzy feeling, the
HPRC gives me a second number for Best, just in case there is a problem with
the first one.  And that's it - Thank you for calling and good-bye.  No call
id.  No nothing.

Having no other recourse, I call the Best number where I give the unit's
serial number and am told that a technician will call me back, but there are
two other calls in front of mine.  That was Saturday, July 1, 2000 at about
9:00 AM EDT.  I'm still waiting for the call back.  Those other two calls
must be real doozies.  Either that or the Best technicians are not.  The
Best, that is.

Anyway, we finally figured out that it was an overvoltage condition that was
affecting the entire plant, not just the HP.  The delicate machinery we use
that has variable speed drives that are driven synchronously weren't so
happy about it.  They crashed and burned.  At least I had a chance to shut
my HP down.

But my questions are:

1)  When did HP decide not to service the PowerTrust UPS's?  And why?

2)  The PowerTrust is still listed on my support contract.  Does HP pay Best
to handle these calls?  I don't have to pay for it, do I?  (To be honest,
the UPS is listed as a zero-cost item, which is different from last year.
However there are a lot of things listed on the support agreement as
zero-cost that HP supports.)

3)  When do you suppose Best will call back?

4)  What would I have done had this been a real problem with the UPS?  Is
there any way of bypassing the UPS so the system runs off of wall power
only?

5)  Oh, thats's enough for now.  I think I've reached my rant allocation for
the month, and it's only July 3rd.



Jim Phillips