APC/UPS question...

[kenmo]

Just purchased an APC Personal Edition UPS however the wiring fault light is lit which according to APC documentation states "your building wiring presents a shock hazard that should be corrected by a licensed electirician"....

Should I be concerned about this ? My house was built in 1972 and I've never had a problem with electrical wiring in the past... However lately there have been a few lighning storms so I decided to purchase a proper UPS with batteryshit down control and surge suppresion....

TIA

[sterno]

The site wiring fault light on APC UPS's and surge suppressors generally means the ground line on your outlet isn't working correctly. It may also mean that the hot and neutral lines on the outlet are reversed. Could be bad wiring, could be that it was done by an amateur, or it could be that it was originally non-grounded and they took shortcuts when they added grounded outlets.

It's probably safe, but you should see if other outlets on the same circuit also give you the light. And check a couple random outlets on other circuits.

[rallynavvie]

I use my big Cyberpower 1500VA at home at the wiring fault indicator has never come on. I took it to a LAN party at a friend's house, who has been known to trip breakers, so that we wouldn't lose our server and had the wiring fault show up there. He looked into it and found that the ground was bad (it actually didn't have one at all) and had it fixed. May not be a bad idea to have it looked into for at least the one outlet the UPS is plugged into.

[redwudz]

It's not safe if the hot and neutral are reversed and the ground is missing, unless you are OK with the possibility of 120AC on your chassis. Just don't touch a cable tv shield or a grounded water faucet at the same time as the case. Although that combination is rare, I would still see exactly why the outlet is wired wrong. Most likely someone put a three wire outlet in place of a 2 wire and that's the only problem. Missing the ground can cause RF interference, AC hum, and makes the computer more susceptable to power surges or lightning damage. Worst case, but it can happen.