Why when turning a light on/off or turning a electric plug on/off, makes a pc restart

Big.Wayne

Big.Wayne

Big.Wayne

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Hello Borg-Mind :)

I am wondering if any of you guys are electricians and can advise me . . . I have a friend in Leicester who is physically disabled and he is having a problem with his home electricity so when a light switch is turned on/off from the wall his computer restarts . . . the same things happens sometimes when a plug socket is used in the room or another room in the house? (kitchen, living room) :confused:

Does anyone have an idea of what could be the cause of this? . . . and what would be a good way to get this resolved? . . . It's quite important as he can't use his hands, can't walk, can't speak etc (born with cerebral palsy) and the computer is his link to the outside world! :(

thanks in advance for any help/advice! :cool:
 
Not good. I am no expert but if you have read some of my posts you might know the rented house I am living in has terrible electrics so I have done a bit of troubleshooting recently.

The computer is probably a sensitive item so a voltage fluctuation could cause it to reboot or a small loss of power for a second.

The thing is lights shouldn't be on the same circuit as the plugs so it is pretty weird. Could be something serious at the fuse box. The problem with ours is that it is outside and full of water!

Have a look at the fuses and the box, if there is nothing obvious I recommend removing any other high powered electrical devices such as kettles or heaters and maybe see if it is just overloading.
 
Hi starfighter, thanks for that! :)

Yup I have only basic knowledge on this too although I've had some electricians round mine a month ago doing some work and they explained the "Ring" thing i.e two seperate circuits so yeah it seems weird that a wall light connected to a seperate ring can effect something connected to another? :confused:

So your saying they all meet-up at the fusebox? . . . I will pass this info on and also suggest they unplug as much stuff as possible and do some testing!

@grez: yeah I think that has to be a consideration pending some basic electrical testing!
 
Yup, they all go to the fusebox, usually 1 for lights, 1 for kitchen and 1 for the rest of the house. However if it was tripping it is usually 1 of the 3 but then surely it wouldn't turn back on by itself?

If you can't see anything dodgy don't touch anything, but obviously you don't want to get an electrician out of it is just the PC. Could always get one of those electric metres and put it on the plug and play with the lights, see if it changes? Either way make sure it has a surge protector, when my electric went before it took at £500 worth of hardware!

Or do what I am doing, move out of a house that hasn't had a penny spent on it since 1957.
 
Everything meets up at the fuse box.

The best thing for him would be to purchase some kind of surge protector or UPS to hook the PC up to. It sounds as though he's suffering micro losses of power, so a UPS is like unnecessary. Instead, get a good free-standing surge protector unit and see if that makes a difference.
 
starfighter said:
The computer is probably a sensitive item so a voltage fluctuation could cause it to reboot or a small loss of power for a second.
Click to expand...
Yep, could be a voltage spike. One of my freeview boxes often looses picture momentarily and sends a squeeking pop sound through to the tv when electrical items are turned off and on.

Maybe the Computer's PSU is faulty? Mind you, I'd be hesitant about changing it considering it is your friend's lifeline. As has been suggested a UPS might be the best thing to try.

Is your friend living in rented accommodation? If so get him to request the Electrical Periodic Inspection Report from the Landlord. It is a legal requirement for the wiring to be inspected every 5 years if rented. Assuming there is none they'll have to send a sparky round and then the issue can be raised.

starfighter said:
The thing is lights shouldn't be on the same circuit as the plugs so it is pretty weird. Could be something serious at the fuse box. The problem with ours is that it is outside and full of water!
Click to expand...
Actually they can. Sparky was recently telling me it is fine and was quite commonly done for 1st floor rooms. Where the spur for the lighting circuit comes off the ring main it must fused with a 5A fuse. Of course, it wouldn't be done these days but doesn't have to be changed.

Big.Wayne said:
the "Ring" thing i.e two seperate circuits so yeah it seems weird that a wall light connected to a seperate ring can effect something connected to another? :confused:
Click to expand...
If anything that would be "discrimination". If a fault occurs somewhere in the system you want a barrier like separate circuits to minimise disruption at other areas of the system.

The "ring" simply means the circuit is ring shaped.
Code: 
         --- Consumer unit  ---
         |                    |
         |                    |
       Socket               Socket
         |                    |
         |                    |
         ------- Socket -------
 
I have something similar, although not as bad as you - I turn off a light, and the surround sound turns off for about 1 second, although nothing else drops
 
Thanks everyone who replied, I don't post much in GD but when I do I always get some good input, much appreciated!

All your advice will be followed up . . . just uncovered another possible cause for the problem which is a set of "mains" connected speakers connected to the computer . . . possible "spike" travels from the plug socket to speaker then through the audio cable straight into the PC? (will test soon).

Will post back if we get this fixed, thank you on behalf of my friend, hope you have a nice weekend! :)

gareth170a.jpg

"Top gamer, overclocker and handsome devil to boot!"
 
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