computer / electricity question

[greymalkin]

hello again. I am looking for a bit of advice with a power related problem I am having with a pc.

I built a little PIII 1ghz machine for my mother/father-in-law. I loaded it up and ran it for a few weeks at my house to make sure everything was working properly. I brought it over to there house and it would lock up..etc. Anyways..to sum it up the computer WILL NOT WORK at their house. It will power on (lights, fans..etc) but will not boot up. I can take it back to my house and plug it in and poof it comes right up. I tried replacing their power strip as it was a cheapie, but i plugged it into a loaded up cheapie at my house with no problems.

So now the answer seems pretty obvious to me that it's something wrong with their outlets, but what I can't understand is that they have had 2 other computers in that house and none of them have done this. I'm pretty proficient at putting computers together so it's not an issue of something being loose, etc. I even tried puttinga bigger power supply in the pc in the hopes that perhaps i could compensate but no luck. I also changed monitors because the one i had for them was older and I suspected it was drawing more power than it should be. So the only other options would be changing the keyboard/mouse in the event that somehow they are shorting the system out?

Anyways..I want to bring an electrical tester out there but what should a GOOD reading be for a regular home outlet? also if anyone has any other suggestions as to what could be going wrong please let me know and I'll try it.

[normcar]

There is an outlet tester, which you should be able to purchase at any store which has a good electrical department. I got mine at Home Depot. It checks that each of the 3 wires are connected properly at the outlet (hot, neutral, ground). If these are not set properly, you may have problems. I found outlets in a older house to have the hot and neutral wires reversed, and the ground not connected. Therefore, one brand of UPS would not work because the outlet was not grounded.

[SLK001]

110 volts is the minimum reading I would accept. Any lower and you might begin having problems. Also, like normcar stated, if it's not wired correctly, you will have still more problems.

[fritzi93]

Yeah, I'd suspect reversed polarity if anything. (I presume you're in North America?) Testers run the gamut from 1) a simple probe that looks like a small screwdriver, through 2) a plug-in type to 3) full multitester. The hot and common wires could be reversed and (just about) everything in the house would still work. A circuit or two might be miswired, it'd be highly unlikely to be the sevice panel.

I use the first type most often when getting into a remod job. Stick it in the narrower slot, ground the end with your thumb and see if the little light comes on. If it doesn't, but comes on at the wide slot instead, then you know. Turn off the circuit breaker and simply reverse the black and white wires on the outlet you want to use. Be advised, the remainder of the circuit wiring may still be incorrect if it's a series of piggybacked outlets. Unless you know what you're doing, don't mess with the connections at circuit breaker or bus bars. Let an electrician do it.

As to an ungrounded outlet, you could cheat and pigtail (split) the common (or neutral) and use that. Make certain you know which one that is. Or call an electrician to have it done properly. If the supplied voltage is what the PSU doesn't like...you know the rest.

Good luck.

[macrovision]

If you can afford it....try getting a line conditioner