Many conventional multi-level inverters have detected switching faults by using the over voltage and current. However, fault detection of the switching elements is very difficult because the voltage and current due to each switching fault decrease more than the normal operation. Moreover, the dc-link unbalancing voltage causes a serious problem in the safety and reliability of system when the 3-level inverter faults occur Therefore, this paper proposes the simple fault diagnose method and the neutral-point-voltage control method that can protect the 3-level inverter system from the unbalancing voltage of the do-link capacitors when the faults of switching elements occur in the 3-level inverter that is very efficient in ac motor drives of the high voltage and high power applications. Through experiment results, the validity of the proposed method is demonstrated.