Can half a double electric socket break?

[JP_]

Story: Yesterday we had a powercut. After the powercut, my office lost Internet. I have a 2 double sockets in the office, one under my desk is used to attach to a Belkin 7 way surge protector and a DP Link homeplug. The other double socket has wife's computer and spare.
After the powercut the homeplug was not picking up the Internet.

I changed to use a different homeplug (old BT spares) and that did not work either. #confused

I noticed that although the power light came on the TP link (ethernet / data did not) the BT was dead. I tried the first homeplug in another socket (under adjacent desk), it worked.

So, it seems that the right side of the left sock, which the homeplug was connected to, is faulty.

Never happened before - is this likely to be the case? Can one side of a double socket stop working properly? I always assumed electric sockets were pretty robust things. If that is likely the case, I'll get it replaced. Just seems odd to me!

 

[ub9533]

yes it is quite common

 

[omega015]

I struggled to follow this a little so I apologise. Do both side of the double socket have power and work for other appliances like a lamp or computer etc..? (forget about the homeplugs for a moment)

Was the homeplug that you say didn't work, plugged directly into the socket or via the surge protector?

Homeplugs are hit/miss at best, so I'm trying to establish if you have homeplug/signal issues or if its the actual socket.

 

[JP_]

omega015, the homeplug was in the plug socket direct, it had some power but did not maintain it. Another homeplug did not work at all.

Until now I had not tried anything else in that socket. Just tried a fan, and it worked OK. Weird!

Just tried the other homeplug (the spare) and the power light seems to be staying on now.... even weirder.

confused. Maybe I will leave it for now as the have Internet back and the socket appears to work .... although, not with the original home plug....

 

[omega015]

Homeplugs are very temperamental and can lose connection due to interference etc... You might need to pair them again or something or the power outage might of messed a capacitor/component or something causing it to fail now and again.
If you have problems with homeplugs not working, best thing is to unplug them both, place them in the same extension/socket and redo the pairing and then plug them in where you need them. I'm sure I heard surge protectors and/or filtered extensions causes issues with them.

 

[333rocky333]

yes, once removed and break them open its usually the switch contact that has failed/burnt/broken

 

[JP_]

So, maybe they just needed to make up after falling out? OK, that I can understand!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Another homeplug did not work at all.

That's excellent news.

Throw them all in the bin.

 

[winston1]

An ideal opurtunity to get rid of nasty Homeplugs . They are bad technology that cause interference to other uses of the RF spectrum. Probably illegal if someone complained.

Wrote it properly with CAT6 cable.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

An ideal opurtunity to get rid of nasty Homeplugs .

That's basically what I said nearly 24 hours ago.