Battery reconditioning

Over time, or if a battery module has been discharged repeatedly, the battery module capacity reading becomes less accurate without periodic reconditioning.

During battery reconditioning, the system recalibrates the battery capacity reading by fully discharging the battery and then fully recharging it.

Prerequisites

Important: The entire reconditioning process can take up to 24 hours. During this time, battery redundancy is lost for approximately 4 hours. Therefore, the following conditions are prerequisites for battery reconditioning:
  • Two power supply units must be installed.
  • Two battery modules must be installed.
  • The second battery module must not be currently undergoing reconditioning.
  • Neither battery module can be in an error state.
  • A software upgrade must not be in progress.

Automatic battery reconditioning

Important: Automatic battery reconditioning requires FlashSystem 900 firmware release 1.4.7 or later.
To facilitate management of a large number of storage enclosures, you can enable automatic battery reconditioning. The system will monitor the status of the batteries and automatically begin the reconditioning process when necessary.
  • If the system determines that battery reconditioning is required, and all prerequisites for reconditioning are met, the reconditioning process will begin 72 hours later.
  • If the system loses redundancy or other prerequisites are no longer valid during this 72-hour interval, reconditioning will be postponed for 72 hours. This cycle will be repeated until reconditioning occurs, or the automatic battery reconditioning function is set to 'off.'
You can enable the automatic battery reconditioning process from the storage enclosure CLI. From the command-line interface (CLI), use the chenclosure command. For example, to turn automatic battery reconditioning on: 
chenclosure -batteryautoreconditioning on
Note: If you are scheduling a maintenance window for an upgrade, consider turning off automatic reconditioning temporarily until after the upgrade is completed to avoid any possible interruption.

You can check the current status of the automatic reconditioning option using the lsenclosure command.

The output for this command is: 
lsenclosure 1
...
battery_auto_reconditioning on
Firmware 1.5.x and later releases support the following events:
  • Event 988220 - Battery discharge for reconditioning scheduled - alerts you that automatic battery reconditioning will start in 72 hours. To prevent battery reconditioning from interfering with a planned maintenance action, you can disable automatic battery reconditioning by using the following command:
    chenclosure -batteryautoreconditioning off
  • Event 988041 - Battery Conditioning Started - alerts you that battery reconditioning is now in progress. You can stop the battery reconditioning process by using the following command:
    chenclosureslot -battery -slot x -recondition OFF

    The battery will immediately stop reconditioning and begin charging.

Manual battery reconditioning

When the system determines that battery reconditioning is necessary to restore the precision of the capacity reading, the storage enclosure management event log displays the message Battery maintenance discharge cycle required. You can also check the status of the batteries by entering the lsenclosurebattery command-line interface (CLI) command. If reconditioning is needed, the recondition_needed value in the command output is yes.

You can initiate the battery reconditioning process from the storage enclosure management GUI, or from the storage enclosure CLI.

  1. From the management GUI, click the Battery maintenance discharge cycle required event message and follow the fix procedure.
  2. From the command-line interface (CLI), use the chenclosureslot command. For example, to turn battery conditioning on for slot 1 in enclosure1: 
    chenclosureslot -battery -slot 1 -recondition on 1
    The output for this command is: 
    1 1 online reconditioning yes 65 no
1 2 online idle no 92 no
2 1 online idle yes 95 no
2 2 online idle yes 93 no
3 1 online idle no 98 no
3 2 online idle no 97 no
4 1 online idle no 97 no
4 2 online idle no 100 no

    You can then confirm that the process has begun successfully.

  3. In the management event log, the message Battery maintenance discharge cycle started is displayed.
  4. From the CLI, enter the lsenclosurebattery command. In the resulting output, the charging_status field is reconditioning and the recondition_needed value is no.
  5. If the reconditioning process completes successfully, the event log displays the message Battery maintenance discharge cycle complete.

    If the reconditioning process fails, the event log displays the message Battery maintenance discharge cycle required, and the detailed event ID text reads Battery failed to calibrate during maintenance discharge cycle

  6. If the reconditioning process fails, perform the following steps:
    1. Rerun battery reconditioning, using the battery reconditioning failed fix procedure.
    2. If battery reconditioning fails a second time, contact IBM® support.

      A battery should not be replaced due to repeated battery reconditioning failures, without further investigation. IBM support will diagnose and replace the battery if needed. If a battery is failing due to another hardware issue that is not battery reconditioning-related, then the battery should be replaced.