Why would both the surge & ground lights come on and stay on when I plug in and turn on my surge protector? This happens with both a good (expensive) older surge protector and the new one I just bought. I bought a new one after someone suggested my protector wasn't working properly. The new protector was reasonably priced and indicates it can handle 1500 joules.
We bought an outlet tester and it indicates the outlet is okay, i.e. light combination on tester doesn't show problems with an open ground, an open neutral, an open hot, a hot/ground reversed, or the hot/nuetral reversed. The tester's light combination matches the 'correct' option.
If I plug the protector into a different outlet I get two different scenarios, either just the surge light comes on or both the surge and ground lights come on.
I thought the surge protector llight(s) would come/be on when there was a problem. Is my thinking wrong? Also, I thought surge protectors were not supposed to turn on when they got old and weren't working properly (they can no longer protect devices plugged into the protector). Is this not the case?
What can I check, do I do now? Is there a problem with my wiring or is the problem in the surge protectors?
I will be so grateful for any help you can give me. Thank you very much for taking the time to help.

Sounds like you have a impedance problem. In other words your earth ground and netural ground lines are of a different grounds. I had a problem like this with a building that was wired from another building. You need to test and make sure that the netural line and the ground lines are grounded in the same place. This is usaully in the breaker box. I would recommend calling a electrician. P.s. The tester lights worked fine on my problem to, the tester does not pull as much electricity so the impedance doe not change that much to error the tester.