I have been using APC products at least for 6-7 years and I have 10 of their
products in the office and I am happy with them UNTIL recently. I have one
of my regular desktops I left it on all the time protected by APC Back-Ups
Office 500 VA, I went out for 2 hours and came back. The computer was off
and the whole room got burning smell. I found that my APC was not working,
So I examined my computer, monitor everything were fine when plugged
directly to the elec outlet.

Now, I opened up the APC, Look at the photos!!

http://portal.aidmas.com/Temp/Customer/98712/1.jpg
http://portal.aidmas.com/Temp/Customer/98712/2.jpg
http://portal.aidmas.com/Temp/Customer/98712/3.jpg
http://portal.aidmas.com/Temp/Customer/98712/4.jpg

The unit was not overloaded, and I checked my log file from other APCs
software, there wasn't any surge during the day.

Now, the questions a

1. What caused this? anyone had similar experience?

2. If I am using APC for my servers (I do have several servers running
1000VA series), I am SO WORRIED this will happen and shut down by itself
like this. How can I prevent this and WHAT'S THE POINT of having a backup
when APC can't even function by itself?

3. See the photos? The burning is pretty bad, it can actually cause fire. I
should think about APC product if I were to buy again.


Alex