[CentOS] apcupsd

Here's an odd one: I installed apcupsd, and it works with most of our
UPSs. I'd swear it worked on this one. Then I replaced the Gin-u-wine APC
batteries, which were dead, with new ones, non-APC. They're just dumb
batteries, no chips or whatever on them.

If I hook it up using a serial cable, I can get info. If I hook it up the
way I had it, with APC's weird USB cable - and this is the way it was
working before - it fails. I run apctest, and it gives me:

Attached to driver: usb
sharenet.type = DISABLE
cable.type = USB_CABLE

You are using a USB cable type, so I'm entering USB test mode
mode.type = USB_UPS
Setting up the port ...
Hello, this is the apcupsd Cable Test program.
This part of apctest is for testing USB UPSes.

Getting UPS capabilities...SUCCESS

Then I tell it to do the self test, and get:

This test instructs the UPS to perform a self-test
operation and reports the result when the test completes.

Clearing previous self test result...CLEARED
Initiating self test...INITIATED
Waiting for test to complete...ERROR READING STATUS
12.976 apcupsd: linux-usb.c:802 HIDIOCGREPORT for function SelftestStatus
failed. ERR=Input/output error

Now, I've even found an rpm that was *not* two+ years old, as what comes
with CentOS 5.4, current update, and get the same error.

In addition, even though the batteries are fully charged, and the info I
get via the serial cable says they're at 100%, the red "change battery"
light is still on on the front of the UPS. Hitting the "test" button
doesn't help; I was hoping running the self-test that's available via the
USB connection would reset it, but I can't do that.

Any clues for the poor?

             mark