I've overloaded these as well, I really didn't expect to use these UPS for anything else but the following...
1. Stay running for the occasional brownout.. Little flicker off and on.
2. approx. 5min of runtime during a blackout, then power off all servers if power isn't restored.
3. Filter AC power for Pure Sinewave (Hardware longevity)
4. Surge protection
It is a pain to work with them.. they are heavy and awkward because the are small with no handles... Pulling them out of a data rack is no easy task. So I did put this off for a few months. But today I was mentally prepared!
I sometime do laugh when clients think they are meant to keep their server running for hours and hours, like a generator. I told them these are just entry level UPS for the above and if you want something that will run for hours, expect to be paying 50-100x more and build me a new server room to house it!
I have one more at another clients place, 5 years old and same issue... I also replaced another 2 in December 2022...
I have more than 50 of these units scattered all around. So it is a never ending job replacing batteries!
as long as they can hold up for say 5 minutes thats plenty of time to get the house on generator power. any longer is a bonus.
what you say about peeps thinking a UPS will give them hours of run time true. not sure if they just dont read the specs or maybe they do and just dont understand it.
once i ran the just the network video recorder on the racked APC while it was unplugged. i think it showed maybe a 60 watt load (power over internet cams).. figured i would last many hours. nope.. maybe 1 hour or so. when i plugged the UPS back in it cycled half a dozen times clicking away like mad. everything hooked to it was fine. but i was wondering if it was going to explode or something. after a while it calmed down, but it was not very impressive when you arent expecting it.