[mrdojo]

I have an interesting problem going on. I was working on my computer when the power went out. I thought it went out in the whole house, but that wasn't it. So then I thought it was the breaker since this particular circuit has a lot of stuff on it, and it has blown before. I went down to the panel and found that the breaker wasn't tripped, but just to be sure I turned it off and on again. That didn't restore power. Here's the weird thing: One set of lights and three outlets that are on the same circuit do indeed work fine, while the rest are dead. I've checked several of the outlets and light switches and even one of the light fixtures to see if a wire had come loose but haven't been able to find anything yet. Any suggestions as to how I should go about figuring this out?

Here are a couple more facts that may or may not be relevant. I had just hit print (sending a print job to a laser printer) when the power went off. I'm getting a reading of around 64 Volts on the dead outlets, but there's not much current behind it. If I plug in something that draws some power like a surge suppressor or an adapter to one of the dead outlets, the voltage will drop to around 4 volts in all the dead outlets. There was one GFCI outlet in the circuit that the test button was not working on, but I replaced that and it didn't fix it. There was a ground wire in that outlet but my outlet tester is telling me it has an open ground. There's only one other GFCI outlet in the house that I'm aware of and it's on a separate circuit. The house was built in 1961 and probably had the old 2 prong outlets throughout when built. The circuit in question has a lot of stuff going to it - 6 sets of lights, 14 outlets - which power some larger items: a freezer, computer, printer, scanner, and television. It's a 15 A breaker. The breaker has two switches to it. When I flip the switch to the circuit in question, the good outlets in the circuit still read a voltage of around 25-30 Volts, but I'm sure there's no substantial current behind it. But when I also flip the other switch that's shared on the breaker, the reading then goes down to around 0 Volts. Is this normal - where the flipped circuit gets some sort of "sympathetic" voltage from it's neighbor.

I'm stumped... I hope you can help.

[tkrussell]

There is a loose connection somewhere in the circuit, usually at a connection in a duplex receptacle. Could be a shared neutral, or a neutral, or a hot wire, ut in any case, a bad connection.

Could be, as many times, at the last working outlet on the circuit.

Back then , a type of connection is the Stab in the Back, a stripped wire is pushed into a hole on the back of a receptacle, popular for causing loose connections, and the type of symptoms your having.

[ballengerb1]

What tk said plus "a freezer, computer, printer, scanner, and television. It's a 15 A breaker" this does not sound good to me. When that freezer compressor kicks in it can draw maybe 10 amps. It is likely that will happen while you are on your computer which draws little but throw in the printer and TV makes me think you should start adding up your amp draws for everything. You can draw 15 amps continuously just because it says 15 on it. I'd start checking each receptacle starting with the last working one and then go downstream. You must start with the working one because just since it works doesn't mean it is sending voltage down stream, it could be your bad back stab.