NTL - 18 months of problems

fi

I joined NTL just over 18 months ago and since then i have not gone for more than 6 weeks without the black box either going on fire, loosing power or freezing with all lights on.

I have had an electrician in and my house has no electrical problems, i have a power surge adapter on the socket just in case, the NTL guys even moved the entire set up from the living room to the kitchen and no help. todate, NTL have done nothing other then send tecnitians out, one tech replaced the black box and didnt replace the power cord and the cord somehow blew up the new box....

my questions is multi fold

• does anyone else have such problems or is it jsut us?
• does anyone ahve any ideas how to fix it?
• does anyone have a contact for someone high up in NTL to get soemthing done

I find it hard that after all the call outs all the boxes no one in NTL has said wait a minute there is something wrong here lets try to fix it. what else can i do? i ahve got the elictrician out, they have found no problems whats so ever, we install the the power surge thinking it was that, but it is still happening. when the box freezes, even when you pull out the power cord and put it back in all lights just come on and do nothing.... when all the lights go out there is some fault and its getting no power, when it melts and smokes, it seemed to me to be a fault of the box, but this happened twice, is it possible i am so unlucky i get every faulty box??

im at the end of my tether with NTL.

cadaliac

That does point to an electrical issue. Nothing should catch fire if the power was right.
You could be unlucky with a second box but very rare.
Ask NTL to supply an electrical report - or elce you will charge them for your own electrician to get a second opinion??

fi

Thanks, they told me they were going to get an electrician, which scared me as i was then worried soemthing was wrong in the house. so i didnt wait i went and got my own, he cost a fortune but i needed peace of mind. i also had a wireless dongle melt.... from the inside??? again this was before i had the report, but nothing is showing up? should i be worried again there is an eletrical fault the electrician didnt find and if he didnt what the hell did i pay him for.

i jsut want something done so i have service and not have NTL managers in my speed dial. i am going to ring this lady every day untill soemthing is done, i dont know what more i can do. but im seriously worried.

Paulw

fi wrote: »

Thanks, they told me they were going to get an electrician, which scared me as i was then worried soemthing was wrong in the house. so i didnt wait i went and got my own, he cost a fortune but i needed peace of mind. i also had a wireless dongle melt.... from the inside???

The more you post, the more it sounds like an electrical issue. A wireless dongle has nothing at all to do with NTL, so how can this be their fault?

fi wrote: »

again this was before i had the report, but nothing is showing up? should i be worried again there is an eletrical fault the electrician didnt find and if he didnt what the hell did i pay him for.

I'd be worried about the electrician who did your audit, and what he/she reported.

If things are melting/burning, electrically, then you have some serious power issues -spikes/surges, etc, that a spot check may not show immediately.

Maybe you're overloading the power sockets with adapters and such?

fi

yea i agree, this is why i didnt wait for NTL i got my own guy out, he was a full electrician not a cowboy, and he certified it was all ok.

i was so scared of a fire....

on the socket we have a power surge 4 gang, in there is the ntl power, the telephon power and the wireless power.

regarding the dongle, that was our concern, this wasnt connected to any power supply, adn we gave the dongle and obviously the black box back to ntl and htey were to do a report on it after it happened for the second time.. but i heard nothing.... to date.

i cant afford another electrician....

cpu-dude

fi wrote: »

yea i agree, this is why i didnt wait for NTL i got my own guy out, he was a full electrician not a cowboy, and he certified it was all ok.

i was so scared of a fire....

on the socket we have a power surge 4 gang, in there is the ntl power, the telephon power and the wireless power.

regarding the dongle, that was our concern, this wasnt connected to any power supply, adn we gave the dongle and obviously the black box back to ntl and htey were to do a report on it after it happened for the second time.. but i heard nothing.... to date.

i cant afford another electrician....

Have you considered testing this on a different socket in the house without that surge protector?

None of this is NTL's doing, it's definately something internal with your power supply.

fi

cpu-dude wrote: »

Have you considered testing this on a different socket in the house without that surge protector?

None of this is NTL's doing, it's definately something internal with your power supply.

yes it used to be in the living room no special plugs, that is when we had the fires, then they moved it to the kitchen and now we have had no burning, no melting and no fires, but the boxes keep failing. its in the kitchen we have the surge protector

cpu-dude

fi wrote: »

yes it used to be in the living room no special plugs, that is when we had the fires, then they moved it to the kitchen and now we have had no burning, no melting and no fires, but the boxes keep failing. its in the kitchen we have the surge protector

Still, that's definately not NTL's fault. Most likely the box has been damaged from the issues in the living room. Talk to NTL about getting a replacement (pay for it if you have to because your at fault) and leave it only in the kitchen.

And for safety's sake - get that plug looked at again, what if you have something much larger and powerful connected to the socket... that could cause a serious amount of damage.

fi

cpu-dude wrote: »

Still, that's definately not NTL's fault. Most likely the box has been damaged from the issues in the living room. Talk to NTL about getting a replacement (pay for it if you have to because your at fault) and leave it only in the kitchen.

sorry but maybe i didnt make myself clear i get a new box from NTL every 6 weeks. they replace it cause it is faulty, the only reason i am blaming NTL is i have an electricians report stating the house is safe and well and no other equipment in the house is affected and nothing on the same gang is affected, if it was a power thing the wifi box the phone would be affected too, i used to use that socket for my kettle toaster, but we moved it all around to suit NTL.

sorry but i am look for help, ideas not blame me when you clearly ahvent read a thing i have said

cpu-dude wrote: »

And for safety's sake - get that plug looked at again, what if you have something much larger and powerful connected to the socket... that could cause a serious amount of damage.

the socket in question has other things on it as it is and they are all functioning fine, there is a double socket in the wall and the tv is in it and we use it for other items when needed.

its NTL box that keep failing not my esb. if it was i would ahve other issues and problems which i dont.

i need help advice..... anything, but dont throw blame at me when you are not reading what im saying

hightower1

Sounds like outlet in one room is surging and in another its failing. Its the house electrical harnes is gone. One fautly outlet in the house can throw the whole thing out. Same in a car, start mucking with stero cables and other electrics start going haywire.

Get your own electrician out and leave recordable meters on the living room and kitchen outlets for 24 hrs. Problem sounds like its intermittent and more than likely at peak times on the ESB networks. Your house will always have a degree of ups and downs in reciving electrical power but your fuse box handles that in your case something ether in the fusebox is failing because that should trip long before melting anything attached to the outlet.

I'd advise renaming this tread an moving it to another section better suited to electrical supply problems?

fi

hightower1 wrote: »

Sounds like outlet in one room is surging and in another its failing. Its the house electrical harnes is gone. One fautly outlet in the house can throw the whole thing out. Same in a car, start mucking with stero cables and other electrics start going haywire.

Get your own electrician out and leave recordable meters on the living room and kitchen outlets for 24 hrs. Problem sounds like its intermittent and more than likely at peak times on the ESB networks. Your house will always have a degree of ups and downs in reciving electrical power but your fuse box handles that in your case something ether in the fusebox is failing because that should trip long before melting anything attached to the outlet.

I'd advise renaming this tread an moving it to another section better suited to electrical supply problems?

thank you this sounds the most helpfull thing i have heard today, everyone is just saying its not NTL its your ESB, which isnt conclusive to helping me so thank you...

i have used other items in that socket and no problems coould it be the ntl box jsut cant cope with fluctuations and other units can?

postmeister

Fi, i know from experience that - in the past - the NTL repair guys simply take a faulty box from one user, and put it back into circulation. That is my experience. The repair guy laughed, said "these boxes are gone, now" and then put it back in the van "for another customer" after giving me a new one. He said supply exceeded demand, and it would keep someone else quiet for a while. I i would suggest that, assuming it is an NTL fault, either cancel your contract and go with Sky or ir you have to stick with NTL, call them, ask to speak to a supervisor, state the problems, and tell them you are going to contact the Telecoms Regulator with a complaint unless the matter is sorted out immediately.
NTL is the worst company in Ireland for customer service. They will also not log a fault as such unless they get a minimum of 3 calls from subscribers in the road etc in question. The simply log it as a fault in your, personal, system. So, if you have future problems, immedaitely check with your NTL user neighbours and urge all of them to ring them. Even then a week delay in simply waiting for them to look at the thing is not uncommon.

fi

did i already post that one ntl guy came with box but didnt replace the power cable and the old cable blew the new box, also while troubleshooting on the phone with them one time, the girl told me to put the wifi cable into the black box, when i told the ntl guy this he said it was her fault it blew up as they two cables although they fit they are different wattage or something... so who do you believe.....

if NTL look into this and say look its not us its you you muppt i will appologise and sort it, but so far i have done my bit and got an electrician out and he said house is fine, he was there all day and did meter tests, as i jsut rang him and asked.

so that is why i came in here to ask if there is something else i can do.

do sky do broadband? and telephone?

bk

fi, listen loud and clear, this isn't UPC's fault. UPC boxes don't fail over and over again like yours. The problem is clearly with your houses electrical system.

If you get Sky, then it will likely end up killing your Sky box as well, only then you'll be in a worse situation as with Sky you actually own the box and since you killed it with your houses electrical system, they aren't responsible for replacing it and you'll have to buy a new box for around €200.

Also no, Sky don't do broadband and phone, not in Ireland anyway.

The fact that an electrician cleared your house, doesn't mean there isn't a problem, in my experience some electricians aren't very good and sometimes problems can be intermittent.

hightower1

It could be a lot of things really, the fact that you'd leave the set top box in there longer than any other device could just make it seem like its their box and not any other device you'd have used in the outlet.
Could be something to do with the voltage or amps being used by the set top box but in that case its still not their fault considering there should be NOTHING you can plug into a wall outlet (that has'nt been severly tampered with) that would cause it to melt. You should never have enough power running through a residential socket to cause a failure like that. The fuse box should have tripped long before that much power was sent to the socket.

fi

i agree re the fuse box, but we do not have one box, the box i am refering to is a modem. and the actual NTL box [for TV like the sky box, is also plugged in there. and that hasnt blown.

but thanks for all your comments... we will see what the result is as i dont believe NTL want this to continue and there has to be a solution, be it with NTL or an electrician, but i didnt get a cowboy out as its too serious.