I have a new (6 week old) Optiplex 960. The computer and monitors are plugged into an APC 1500VA UPS, along with a small router and network switch. The load on the UPS is about 18%.
When I unplug the UPS from the wall, the Optiplex dies immediately. All other peripherals remain running while the UPS is on battery. The 1 and 3 lights, plus the power button on the front flash. When normal power is restored, the computer will come back on. This happens regardless of what state the computer is in. (It happens while in Windows or the Bios setup screens.) The UPS is not overloaded. I've tried with two different UPSes and with only the computer plugged into the UPS. And yes, it's plugged into the battery outlets on the UPS, not the surge-only outlets. My previous computer, an XPS, never had this problem.
I spent an hour or so on the phone with APC testing various items. They think the power supply may be sensitive to going from straight utility sine-wave power to the "step-approximated sine wave" power that the UPS puts out while on battery. In more than 12 years of using all range of Dell Optiplex desktops, I've never seen this problem.
I spent another couple hours on the phone with Dell support over two days. So far nobody seems to know why this happens. Dell shipped me a replacement power supply today. I swapped it and the same problem persists.
I did put a voltmeter on the UPS and found that it is normally putting out about 118VAC; when it goes to battery that drops to about 110VAC. I think that is well within its tolerance.
My next logical step will be to move up to a more expensive UPS that outputs pure sine-wave power while on battery. I really don't think this should be necessary. Anyone else ever see this problem?
Hi,
thats indeed a very strange problem, i ve once read somewhere that Hipro PSU have sometimes difficulty to remain on-line with lower input voltage. As far as I know some Power supplies used by Dell are manufactuerd by Hipro. If you could send me an screenshot of the PSU, I could tell whether its made by Hipro or not.
Best regards
olaf
Has this been resolved? I am having the same problem with a new OptiPlex 960 MT, and a APC Back-UPS RS 1500. I also have a Dimension 8200 plugged into the UPS. Both PCs share the same flat panel. Cable modem, Netgear router, etc. When I run a manual self test from the APC app, the 960MT shuts down immediately, as you describe. The DIM8200, and everything else, run fine on battery power. The battery should provide 17 minutes of run time with this load.
I did not see this problem reported in the apc.com knowledgebase. This does seem to be some issue with the 960MT power supply, but I can imagine Dell and APC pointing fingers at each other. I also agree that it should not be necessary to buy a more expensive UPS. My PS is Dell item # 330-2010 Standard Power Supply. I would need to look at the PS to see who makes it.
I will probably start my own thread, and continue to look everywhere for more detail.
I'm having the same problem with my new Optiplex 960; however, I'm using an APC 1300 LCD. I've had my Precision and monitor plugged into this UPS for years and never had a problem. Now I have the new Optiplex plugged in with a new monitor and the Optiplex shuts down without notice and reboots. I'm expecting a replacement power supply and system board, but I have a feeling that the problem will persist. Any suggestions would be helpful. I really need to have the hardware plugged into a UPS for security here on the "range." Thank you!
DTivoNut, have you figured out a solution yet?
I too have the same problem. My computer turned off when the power blinked even though I was on a APC 750. All my other machines, stayed online on thier APC's. I thought that I may have a bad UPS so I swapped UPS's and tried pulling the plug from the wall and once again, my Optiplex 960 died.
Anyone have any thoughts on if it is the power supply or MB?
I too have the same problem. I have been chatting with dell to find a solution but what I got was. Thank you for giving us your $1,800 but its up to you to research and buy the right UPS. This computer power supply that is in the Optiplex 960 has Active Power Factor Correction (APFC). This type of power supply requires a pure sine wave UPS. It is not compatible with standard UPS's. Dell does not tell you this when you buy a computer from them so you go out and buy a UPS from the internet & will cost you $50.00 to ship it back.
Just seems like Dell would insert one of those little " STOP READ THIS FIRST " cards in the box. This would save the customer a lot of time & money.
Does anyone know what power supply I can use to replace the one that's in the 960....
Many thanks for taking the time to post and share your experience and information. Have you found a UPS that satisfies this type of power requirement? I Googled "pure sine wave UPS" and found the following as one of the returns: http://www.novaelectric.com/ups_power_systems/free_standing/aet_series.php I'm still researching, but would appreciate posts with additional links. Thank you!
We do not have the 960 MT we have three Optiplex 760 MT but we are faced with the same problem. The orignal psu's would not work when on battery power from a ups. After chatting with a couple of the techs and being told it was a known problem they sent out a psu model pw113 to see if it would fix the problem. It did but afterwards the warehouse only shipped psu's model cy827 which is the same model as came in the computers. We tried and tried to get different psu's that worked and have a stack of the wrong psu's to show for our efforts. How we got the first psu model pw113 still seems a mystery as the warehouse claims it is discontinued. These all are 305w psu.
We went through all the different model ups we had and could find locally and found that one of the older model APC units a 900va would work with it but it is not a model you can get now and the newer models do not work at all with the Dell psu. Now we are looking at buying non Dell psu's as they are cheaper and easier than trying to find a ups that works with Dell's mistake. It is a real shame to buy recommended units and pay top dollar only to have this problem show up. We use large data bases that could have real problems with uncontrolled shut downs plus we have had to repair windows due to a power faliure that happened we think during boot up.
I hope that others here have better luck at this than we have and for now it looks like this will be the only 760 units we buy because of this problem.
We have two 960 MT systems which developed this problem -- one within two weeks of receiving the unit. The first system was exchanged by Dell and has been acting normally for the past couple of months. The second system began powering off unexpectedly last week during some minor power fluctuations. Both systems are on brand new APC UPS systems (1000 KVA and 750 KVA). Dell is sending a tech to our site to replace the mainboard and the PSU, so we'll see if that fixes the problem. I figured that this might be a common problem, and sure enough I stumbled across this thread in the community forums. I really hope Dell does their homework on this issue so that it doesn't appear in other product lines.
We ended up buying a new power supply from Best Buy which fixed it.
Dell sent us a new power supply and we tried it but the same problem persisted.
I've seen similar problems on the Inspiron 530, and read about similar problems on the XPS 9000.
Newer Dell power-supplies seem "less than ideal"...
In my opinion, this is an indication that Dell has purchased cheap and/or poorly designed and/or poorly manufatured power supplies. We have 100+ 960's that do not have this issue. We order the 80% efficient PSU's at 255 Watts. H255E is the model number. We order our UPS's from Dell as well.
The fact that the PSU is AVR should not be an issue. I have a high quality PSU in two of my home system and both have AVR and it has no issue with modified sine UPS's.
I had recently ordered an expensive PSU for my home system that would cause any AFCI breaker circuit it was on to trip as soon as I hit the power button. I contacted the company and they told me my AFCI breakers were bad. EVERY ONE IN THE HOUSE! That is crazy! They were just trying to weasel their way out of responsibility. Sure enough, I found numerous forum posts about the same issue with the same series of PSU's on the net. They could care less until I returned the PSU to New Egg and left them a bad review and explained the problems. Only then did they respond to that review saying the PSU was bad and it was an isolated issue.. yeah, right..
I would be surprised to hear Dell come out and say that this PSU was designed to run on only a pure sine UPS. That would be an incredibly stupid design feature. It would be in their best interest to let people assume things like this to keep from having to deal with the problem for as long as possible. If they do actually come out and say this, then they should have posted that on the product page, and to avoid confusion, they should remove all modified sine UPS's from their commerce site. Again, that would be stupid. To lose an entire revenue stream over a power supply issue is bad business.
I think they have bought into some bad PSU's and the end user is suffering. Call them and demand a reasonable resolution. This issue was brought to my attention because a co-worker just ordered a 960 and was having this issue. The CSS he is dealing with implied that he needed a pure sine UPS and pointed to this thread. However, I see no official posts from a Dell line engineer on this forum and can find no official response from Dell that this is the case. I will ask him to have the guy send him official documentation from Dell that stipulates this requirement. I would ask that of anyone having this problem.
I can tell you that if we start having this issue with all new systems, then we will be getting with our Dell rep ASAP. We are on a State contract here and our State can barely pass a budget as-is. If every computer purchased for our state has to start getting a $400 UPS rather than a $100 version, there will be trouble... We could have our contract modified such that there is a stipulation to require non-pure sine capability on all end-user desktops. If Dell cannot meet that requirement, then they would be excluded from the bidding process. That would be a big loss for them.
However, I believe that this is simply a manufacturing/quality issue and that when made properly aware of it, they will take the proper measures to remedy the situation. They have always done that in the past. I have a lot of faith in Dell when it comes to situations like this. I own their equipment and recommend it to others. An unresolved situation like this could certainly strain that trust.
OK,
Today we received an official notice from Dell:
"Dear xxxxxxx,This letter concerns Dell purchased, order number(s) xxxxxxxxxxx. The order(s) include both an EnergyStar-rated Dell systern and an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) with a square or quasi-square wavepower output.Dell Energy Star-rated desktops and workstations are qualified for use with industry-standard sine wavepower input waveforrns (cornrnon across the power grid). The use of square wave-form and quasisquare wave-form UPS rnay very well function to your satisfaction, however Dell recornrnends that allcustorners who choose this configuration verify the functionality to ensure that your needs are rnet. Forbusiness critical applications, Dell recornrnends sine wave UPS systerns to be used with Energy Starrateddesktops and workstations.Dell's cornrnitrnent to custorner satisfaction includes assisting our customers in selecting the bestaccessories for Dell Systems. Your satisfaction is our ultimate goal. If you have any questions, or needfurther assistance with your order, please contact 800-274-7799."
So it would appear that Dell is oficially making an effort to notify users of this issue.
Also, when I checked today, the only backup power supplies in the recommended accessories were pure-sine models. The cheapest being an 800VA @ $220. from CyberPower. Now, the purchase site says nothing about the need to get a pure-sine UPS, but perhaps that is coming. In any case, they are making the effort I have come to expect from Dell. Again, all of the 80+ PSU Optiplex's we have are working fine with modified sine PSU's. A friend who just had this issue got the non-energy star PSU. So your YMMV. Again, I must say that requiring pure-sine UPS's for PFC and AVR corrected power supplies is not a good thing. I see us going without them in the future because the money is just not there for it...
Yep; 'bout the same case with XPS 9000 PCs. They claim you need pure sine-wave UPS units.
It is my understanding the use of good-quality power-supplies (Antec, Corsair, etc.) eliminates this problem, but I've not confirmed this.
semert OK, Today we received an official notice from Dell: "Dear xxxxxxx,This letter concerns Dell purchased, order number(s) xxxxxxxxxxx. The order(s) include both an EnergyStar-rated Dell systern and an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) with a square or quasi-square wavepower output.Dell Energy Star-rated desktops and workstations are qualified for use with industry-standard sine wavepower input waveforrns (cornrnon across the power grid). The use of square wave-form and quasisquare wave-form UPS rnay very well function to your satisfaction, however Dell recornrnends that allcustorners who choose this configuration verify the functionality to ensure that your needs are rnet. Forbusiness critical applications, Dell recornrnends sine wave UPS systerns to be used with Energy Starrateddesktops and workstations.Dell's cornrnitrnent to custorner satisfaction includes assisting our customers in selecting the bestaccessories for Dell Systems. Your satisfaction is our ultimate goal. If you have any questions, or needfurther assistance with your order, please contact 800-274-7799." So it would appear that Dell is oficially making an effort to notify users of this issue. Also, when I checked today, the only backup power supplies in the recommended accessories were pure-sine models. The cheapest being an 800VA @ $220. from CyberPower. Now, the purchase site says nothing about the need to get a pure-sine UPS, but perhaps that is coming. In any case, they are making the effort I have come to expect from Dell. Again, all of the 80+ PSU Optiplex's we have are working fine with modified sine PSU's. A friend who just had this issue got the non-energy star PSU. So your YMMV. Again, I must say that requiring pure-sine UPS's for PFC and AVR corrected power supplies is not a good thing. I see us going without them in the future because the money is just not there for it...
YES. We did today. 2 different Dell Optiplex 760's. When you unplug from the wall OR the unit goes to battery like it did today, the other stuff keeps humming along but the optiplex goes down every time.
Haven't gone further with this but I was amused to find the same issue here from last year. Thought the UPS was not at fault but who is here?