Routers and electricity supply

Firetrap

I've got one of those Netopia routers that Eircom supplies with their broadband. It works fine until there's a heavy drain on the power supply in the house. In other words, if my dad starts using heavy machinery outside such as a welder or the cooker hood, hob, microwave and fan oven are running in the kitchen, the connection drops out straight away.

Would buying another router surmount this problem? Or are they all susceptible to power fluctuations?

Jonathan

Firetrap wrote: »

I've got one of those Netopia routers that Eircom supplies with their broadband. It works fine until there's a heavy drain on the power supply in the house. In other words, if my dad starts using heavy machinery outside such as a welder or the cooker hood, hob, microwave and fan oven are running in the kitchen, the connection drops out straight away.

Would buying another router surmount this problem? Or are they all susceptible to power fluctuations?

You could build your own battery powered power supply?

8 AA batteries in series...

stylers

you must have serious issues with your mains supply if it starts to affect things like modems and routers. Do the lights dim noticeably when the heavy items are used / switched on ?. Maybe you should get an electrician to check this out if so. As for the router, you could try a switch mode power supply instead of the transformer type unit that is supplied with the eircom router, just make sure it has the same output voltage and current rating. I think its something like 14 volts @ 1 Amp

crawler

Save yourself the stress buy a cheap UPS

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=44398

Full spec here

http://www.trust.com/products/default.aspx?item=14948

you would also need to convert from IEC (kettle lead connector used by UPS) to a 3 pin plug for the modem 3 pin plug easy enough to do if you know a sparks or they can be bought.

Firetrap

Thanks for your help. Yes, we have a problem with the power supply in the house - getting it fixed is another matter entirely. I was hoping to find a workaround - there's some food for thought here :pac:

stylers

fair enough. Simplest work around is get a switch mode plugtop PSU - 12V @ 1A will do the netopia. you could possibly get one in maplin (:eek:) or order online from somewhere.. e.g. komplett, dabs etc.