Wow...Xbox360 = power hungry...

[corwyn]

I had four air conditioner units running today (2 on the first floor, one for my bedroom, one for my office) into the evening. Watching TV was fine, no power troubles as I ate dinner, etc.

Then I turned on my Xbox360, and my receiver turned off due to insufficient power. I had this problem last year, too, so I just turned off one of the downstairs units as well as the one in my office. Turned the receiver back on...and it turned off again. So I opened up the windows and turned off the other unit on the first floor. Turned on the receiver and it was on for about 10 minutes until the a/c unit in my bedroom switched on its compressor. Besides the three a/c units I turned off, the DVR which was only on while I was watching TV, and the Xbox360, power usage in the house was otherwise the same.

My Xbox360 draws more power than 3 A/C units.

[UltimateOne]

Sweet. Amirite

[Josh]

Sounds like a wiring issue in your home.

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by Josh

Sounds like a wiring issue in your home.

Yeah, or it could be an issue with the wiring/supply from the power company. On the rare occasion that my next door neighbor turns on their central A/C, my lights dim a bit when their compressor switches on. Fortunately (for me) I think it's broken, since they haven't turned it on in over a year. They're just using one window unit up in the bedroom...

[WRX-04]

I'm a little surprised your receiver would scram before you tripped a circuit breaker. It might also be partly because your X360 is on the same ciruit as the receiver but on a different one from the AC units, hence the AC units have less of an impact.

It also sounds like you might need a bigger amp service from the street. Or if you're seeing your lights dim when your neighbor does something then maybe the power lines to your neighborhood are too wimpy.

[corwyn]

I looked up the problem online (because EVERYTHING is correct that you read on the Internet) and apparently the first thing to do is to call the power company to come check the service to the house. Dimming lights are, to a point, somewhat normal, but could also point to a problem either where the service from the pole comes to the house (like a loose neutral wire), or an improperly balanced/connected breaker box.

National Grid should be out here later today to check for problems outside. Hopefully they can solve the issue, because then it's free for me. They can also answer the question as to the amperage of the service that's running to the house (which may be different from the rating of my breaker box).

I would think (but I don't know) that if I'm exceeding the 100A that my breaker box will handle, that the main breaker would trip, shutting the whole house down first.

At any rate, this seems like the correct way to proceed...check from the outside in (and also check the freebie first), and if that doesn't work, call in an electrician. Preferably not the one who wired the house to begin with, if he's the one who screwed it up

[czm3]

There is no way that the Xbox could draw even a quarter of the energy needed to run one of those AC units. Definitely a wiring problem imho, first I'd isolate all the outlets et al that are connected to that one circuit. Maybe, if your electrician liked you, he labeled it all in the breaker box. I would then move the xbox and amp to a different circuit to see if the problem happens again. Then call the electrician, and buy a UPS for the computer and delicate electronics. We had a brownout cause over $15k in damages down on the cape. My computer survived, but the surge protector never worked again. Might want to check your homeowners ins just to see who would be liable if a problem were to arise.

[corwyn]

Well, the National Grid guy came out and checked things, and the power coming into my house isn't so good. He said it's "adequate" but barely, and if anybody else further up the line turns on something that draws a lot of power, then I'll probably not get enough.

My Xbox and amp seem to be fine now, though, so I'm wondering if I was just unlucky and happened to turn on my Xbox when a neighbor turned on their AC unit after getting home from work (probably around 6 or 6:30 yesterday afternoon).

As a side note, I just tried plugging one AC unit into a UPS I have, to compare with what happened when I plugged my Xbox360 into the same unit last year. It appears as though my Xbox360 does draw more power than the AC, because when I had the Xbox plugged in by itself, the UPS immediately went into failsafe and shut off completely (I had to power cycle it to get it to turn on again). But with my work laptop and VPN router plugged in along with the AC unit, the UPS only went into a semi-crippled mode when the compressor kicked on, sending some (but not enough) power to everything that was plugged in. Turning off the AC unit put everything back to normal, and full power was restored immediately.

EDIT: correction, having the Xbox and amp on the same circuit is worse than having them on separate circuits when I have the AC's running. The amp turned off after a while.

[sweet///Motion]

Blame it on the Bears chewing your power cables....

[czm3]

Home Entertainment: PS3 Twice as Power-Hungry as XBox 360 - Gizmodo

Your AC is drawing a lot more power than that xbox (which according to this draws less then a large lamp) I dont know why that is happening with your UPS. Regardless, call the power company and have them fix it.

[WRX-04]

Don't forget it's also the worst time of year for electrical power. Everybody is running their AC and sucking down the amps which puts a larger than normal load on the power grid.

I'd also avoid doing the electrical load tests with your X360 (or anything else) lest you incure the dread Red Ring o Death again.

[corwyn]

I used to work for the dreaded Red Ring of Death.

[corwyn]

And actually, while I worked there, we would occasionally go to the Horseshoe Pub for lunch, which has their tray of various hot sauces. On those days, there was a second dreaded Red Ring of Death later that evening...