Electrical Engineering - Bad electrical outlet

Author

Bad electrical outlet

J Lunis

2007-05-09, 1:25 pm

Living in the US
I hope this is the proper ng for this question. I can find no other ng
that looks relevant.
Have installed a PC network in my house. From my routerer, I have an
ethernet cable running to an adapter that plugs into an electric outlet.
In theory, I should be able to plug another adapter into another
outlet in my house and any device plugged in an ethernet port on the 2nd
(remote) adapter should be seen by my router and become a part of my
network. In fact, this works very well.
Except for one outlet. When I plug my 2nd adapter into this particular
outlet, my router/network can not 'see' it. If I plug the adapter into
other outlets in the same room, my network can 'find' it. I have tried
8-10 outlets throughout my house and the network can 'find' the adpater,
but this one outlet - no signal to the router/network.
Possibly incorrectly, but I suspect the problem is with the outlet and
not with the adapter. Any ideas on what the problem is with the one
'bad' outlet?

Palindrome

2007-05-09, 1:25 pm

J Lunis wrote:
> Living in the US
> I hope this is the proper ng for this question. I can find no other ng
> that looks relevant.
> Have installed a PC network in my house. From my routerer, I have an
> ethernet cable running to an adapter that plugs into an electric outlet.
> In theory, I should be able to plug another adapter into another outlet
> in my house and any device plugged in an ethernet port on the 2nd
> (remote) adapter should be seen by my router and become a part of my
> network. In fact, this works very well.
> Except for one outlet. When I plug my 2nd adapter into this particular
> outlet, my router/network can not 'see' it. If I plug the adapter into
> other outlets in the same room, my network can 'find' it. I have tried
> 8-10 outlets throughout my house and the network can 'find' the adpater,
> but this one outlet - no signal to the router/network.
> Possibly incorrectly, but I suspect the problem is with the outlet and
> not with the adapter. Any ideas on what the problem is with the one
> 'bad' outlet?

I'm living in the UK and the main experience I have had with "Us wiring"
was in Haiti... But there, it was pretty common for some of the mains
sockets to be wired with the live and return swapped.. Any chance you
could have that?

--
Sue

J Lunis

2007-05-09, 5:25 pm

Palindrome wrote:
> J Lunis wrote:
>
> I'm living in the UK and the main experience I have had with "Us wiring"
> was in Haiti... But there, it was pretty common for some of the mains
> sockets to be wired with the live and return swapped.. Any chance you
> could have that?
>
I can check but I thought swapping these would result in a 'dead'
outlet. BTW, if it matters, this outlet has two plugs and the adapter
works in neither.

gorehound

2007-05-09, 5:25 pm

"J Lunis" <jay.lunis@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:44o0i.40$SI1.29@newsfe06.lga...
> Living in the US
> I hope this is the proper ng for this question. I can find no other ng
> that looks relevant.
> Have installed a PC network in my house. From my routerer, I have an
> ethernet cable running to an adapter that plugs into an electric outlet.
> In theory, I should be able to plug another adapter into another outlet in
> my house and any device plugged in an ethernet port on the 2nd (remote)
> adapter should be seen by my router and become a part of my network. In
> fact, this works very well.
> Except for one outlet. When I plug my 2nd adapter into this particular
> outlet, my router/network can not 'see' it. If I plug the adapter into
> other outlets in the same room, my network can 'find' it. I have tried
> 8-10 outlets throughout my house and the network can 'find' the adpater,
> but this one outlet - no signal to the router/network.
> Possibly incorrectly, but I suspect the problem is with the outlet and not
> with the adapter. Any ideas on what the problem is with the one 'bad'
> outlet?

Have you tried plugging a working lamp in the outlet? Do you have a
multimeter or some other form of AC tester? Is there a light switch that may
operate the outlet? I would try a lamp or radio that you plug in to see if
that works first and if it doesn't maybe look for a switch and also check
that the breaker is on in the panel. If none of those work, you should get a
multimeter and check for voltage at the outlet. If you do have voltage and
it is not what it is supposed to be then I might suggest a loose neutral.
One more suggestion might be that the outlet is fed from a GFI somewhere
else and the GFI might be tripped. These are just some things I would check.
HTH

Shane

no_one

2007-05-10, 3:25 am

You could have that one outlet wired to the other "leg" of the 220 volt
service coming into your house. Most US homes get 220 that is split into
two 110 volt services. Without a capacitor to pass the signal from the one
hot leg to the other you will not see the LAN signal appear even though
power is supplied.

"J Lunis" <jay.lunis@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:44o0i.40$SI1.29@newsfe06.lga...
> Living in the US
> I hope this is the proper ng for this question. I can find no other ng
> that looks relevant.
> Have installed a PC network in my house. From my routerer, I have an
> ethernet cable running to an adapter that plugs into an electric outlet.
> In theory, I should be able to plug another adapter into another outlet in
> my house and any device plugged in an ethernet port on the 2nd (remote)
> adapter should be seen by my router and become a part of my network. In
> fact, this works very well.
> Except for one outlet. When I plug my 2nd adapter into this particular
> outlet, my router/network can not 'see' it. If I plug the adapter into
> other outlets in the same room, my network can 'find' it. I have tried
> 8-10 outlets throughout my house and the network can 'find' the adpater,
> but this one outlet - no signal to the router/network.
> Possibly incorrectly, but I suspect the problem is with the outlet and not
> with the adapter. Any ideas on what the problem is with the one 'bad'
> outlet?

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