Odd power outage! Help!

[Pyitchris]

Last weekend I moved some of my components around so that I could incorporate a record player into my system. I have a panisonic plasma conected to a Sony receiver. The receiver has a blu ray, a pc, an iPod dock and now a record player hooked in to it. Since I added the record player my system would “randomly” shut down. The computer was still functioning and continued to play any content that was playing at the time and the only way to get a picture back would be to shut off the tv and turn it back on. I tried shutting off the receiver but this would not bring back a picture in media center. I was at a loss and thought it may have been my ir receiver until last night. Someone came to my door and rang the doorbell, which is wired, and the picture went black! I then went around my house shutting off and turning on various lights and some of them made the problem happen! This never happened for three years until I changed where items were placed last week. I thought maybe the record player was to blame but when I removed it the problem persisted. All components are plugged in to a surge protectr. Any ideas as to what I can do to get things back to normal? Any suggestions would be appreciated!

[Aaron Ledger]

I recommend that you start out as simply and minimally as possible. It sounds as if you may have a wiring, load or noise issue on the circuit. Perhaps some of the following will help you resolve or isolate the issue:

1. Replace the power strip with a different one.

2. Bypass the receiver and plug HTPC directly into display. In fact, remove everything from the power strip except for the HTPC and display. Unplug any coaxial cablesand anything else except for HDMI cable, power and any required peripherals. If problem goes away, begin pluging things back in one at a time and try to correlate the problem with what you’ve added in.

3. Plug the display into a completely different outlet that is on a different circuit.

4. Try to determine if the problem is coincident with any big appliances in operation such as AC, refrigerator, washing machine, etc.

[erkotz]

A couple more tips:

Purchase an electrical outlet tester (similar to http://www.amazon.com/50957-Tester-Installation-Operation-110-125V/dp/B002LZTKIU/) and verify that your outlets are wired properly.

Also make sure that at the point your cable TV wire enters your house, it is properly grounded.  Also, disconnect your coaxial cable from your home theater and see if you can still reproduce the issue.

Lastly, remember that electricity can kill you, and do not hesitate to call an expert if you feel like you are in over your hear.

[Muddytoy]

It sounds like the TV is very sensitive to power fluctuations. I use a UPS in all my setups as they seem to stabilize power and it also lets me have time to shut down in a PF. I hate waiting for the raid 5 to rebuild (on one of my systems) due to an improper shut down.

All of the previous suggestions should be taken to heart. Overloading a single circuit (depending on the house and when built) could kill you or someone you love.

Good luck.

[Author]

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