I have been having a very strange and hard to pin down electrical issue with my various home theater equipment. I've blown up over the past months about 2-3 tivos, and my projector 2 times. What is happening is that at seemlingly random times when I got to connect up say the HDMI cable on my tivo or the component, or sometimes the satellite coax cables, it's acting as if there is 120V live that I'm shorting out and frys whatever I'm trying to hookup. I cannot figure out or understand what is going on here.
At first I though that the satellite coax cable was crossing so ac power line in my wall or something, but I ran fresh new coax from my satellite not going through any walls. Here is some of the scenarios where something sparked or blew up:
Scenario 1: I have a NEW tivo plugged into the wall, the DVI output going to a plasma tv and I'm watching tv. I take my projector off the ceiling from downstairs and bring it up and plug it in and turn it on. I plug in the 3 plugs of a component cable into the projector, and when I go to plug the first rca jack of the component connector I get a big spark and I lose picture on my plasma. Rebooting the tv everything is fine this time.
Scenario 2: In my main entertainment rack I go to put back my tivo into the rack (I've done this tens and tens of times before). I plug in the HDMI cable to my projector 1st, then I go to start screwing in one of the satellite coax and ZAP SPARK SMELL end result is the dish's LNB is fried, the tivo sat inputs are fried, and my projector will come on but not display a signal. The projector was sent in for repair and there was a fried diode that was replaced.
Scenario 3: Bedroom TV is showing live tv off a tivo onto a old zenith tube tv. I just had gotten my plasma tv and so I plug it in, turn it on, and then attempt to connect an RCA video cable from the video in of the plasma, to the video out on the tivo.. as soon as I try to do that ZAP SPARK again. End result is the tivo is fried - won't even turn on, AND the tivo DOWNSTARS from all this can no longer pick up a signal, AND my DOWNSTAIRS ceiling project will also no longer display any signal and 1 of 4 LNB's fried. I was in a completely separate room from the other tivo and projector. The projector was on showing tv and right after the zap - I heard no tv downstairs.
Scenario 4: I go to plug in a serial cable (head phone jack) to my tivo. It's already hooked up to a running pc. Tivo is on hooked to a tv showing it's on. As soon as I try to plug the serial jack into the tivo it sparks and the jack is fused to the plug.
You can see here that I obviously have something wrong going on, I've just can't figure out what it is cuz this kinda stuff doesn't always happen. But I also cannot afford to keep blowing up equipment try to figure this out.
I've checked all the ac outlets with a 3 prong tester - all good. I've used a voltmeter trying to find any sort of high voltage and no luck.
If anyone has any ideas or suggestion I'd really appreciate hearing them. This is driving me crazy and my pocketbook crazy.
At first I though that the satellite coax cable was crossing so ac power line in my wall or something, but I ran fresh new coax from my satellite not going through any walls. Here is some of the scenarios where something sparked or blew up:
Scenario 1: I have a NEW tivo plugged into the wall, the DVI output going to a plasma tv and I'm watching tv. I take my projector off the ceiling from downstairs and bring it up and plug it in and turn it on. I plug in the 3 plugs of a component cable into the projector, and when I go to plug the first rca jack of the component connector I get a big spark and I lose picture on my plasma. Rebooting the tv everything is fine this time.
Scenario 2: In my main entertainment rack I go to put back my tivo into the rack (I've done this tens and tens of times before). I plug in the HDMI cable to my projector 1st, then I go to start screwing in one of the satellite coax and ZAP SPARK SMELL end result is the dish's LNB is fried, the tivo sat inputs are fried, and my projector will come on but not display a signal. The projector was sent in for repair and there was a fried diode that was replaced.
Scenario 3: Bedroom TV is showing live tv off a tivo onto a old zenith tube tv. I just had gotten my plasma tv and so I plug it in, turn it on, and then attempt to connect an RCA video cable from the video in of the plasma, to the video out on the tivo.. as soon as I try to do that ZAP SPARK again. End result is the tivo is fried - won't even turn on, AND the tivo DOWNSTARS from all this can no longer pick up a signal, AND my DOWNSTAIRS ceiling project will also no longer display any signal and 1 of 4 LNB's fried. I was in a completely separate room from the other tivo and projector. The projector was on showing tv and right after the zap - I heard no tv downstairs.
Scenario 4: I go to plug in a serial cable (head phone jack) to my tivo. It's already hooked up to a running pc. Tivo is on hooked to a tv showing it's on. As soon as I try to plug the serial jack into the tivo it sparks and the jack is fused to the plug.
You can see here that I obviously have something wrong going on, I've just can't figure out what it is cuz this kinda stuff doesn't always happen. But I also cannot afford to keep blowing up equipment try to figure this out.
I've checked all the ac outlets with a 3 prong tester - all good. I've used a voltmeter trying to find any sort of high voltage and no luck.
If anyone has any ideas or suggestion I'd really appreciate hearing them. This is driving me crazy and my pocketbook crazy.
