About a week ago, I noticed that the display on the UPS protecting the computers in the office indicated it was charging. Strange, I thought, seeing as I hadn’t noticed a power cut. The UPS emits a rather loud second-long beep every four seconds during any power loss, and I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it – even if it happened while I was asleep.

Needless to say, I hadn’t heard the beeps because there hadn’t been any. And there hadn’t been any beeps because there had been no power cut. The UPS was faulty, and about to die.

The first symptom was the UPS constantly trying to charge it’s batteries, and clearly failing. The second symptom was its inability to maintain power to the protected circuit when it was disconnected from the mains. The third symptom was the rather nasty smell that woke me up the other morning – a sulphury smell not unlike that of someone having their hair highlighted at the hair stylist.

The three symptoms are expressed in the past tense, because they no longer exist. They have been deprecated by a fourth; the UPS’s refusal to do anything at all, even to switch on.

So, it’s getting replaced. Annoyingly I’ve only had it for a year. Even more annoyingly, we’ve not had a power cut in that time…