telephone wiring

[sarahproperty]

my phone line at home was working fine. then the other day one phone just kept ringing constantly until i unplugged it. after turning my computer on and off a few times, everything went ok, altho for a while there was a strange ring tone which didnt always work. i have not recently added new phones or devices.

now i can only get a dialling tone from my master socket. if i pick up a phone connected to any of the slaves this says"please hang up and try again....." and eventually just goes off. basically, once i have plugged just one phone into any of the slaves, the phone line thinks that i am off the hook.

i have tried unplugging all modems, phones, faxes. i have not altered the wiring in the house at all. the problems started when i was away from the house over a weekend.

can anyone offer any advice as to what might be causing my line to think that it is in use?

 

[Job_n_knock]

Do you leave your pc on all the time and are you on Broadband? Try running a virus check to see if you have an Auto dialler dumped into your pc. Actually just disconnect the pc altogether from your phone line and plug all the original phones,faxes etc back in one by one and see if the problem clears up.
Apart from this if you have not added anything to the system or altered it in any way then there is probably a fault on your line, ring BT or whoever your phone company is and they will test it for you.

 

[breezer]

i disagrre, sine op said master socket works.


has anything large been moved? a cable may have been damaged.

why not dissconect all slave sockets from master, then break each slave to slave connection.

then put them back one at a time

 

[Lectrician]

A constant ringing phone is usually down to a miss-match in polarity between slaves - 2 and 5 crossed.

 

[breezer]

i dissagree

2 & 5 are the line it makes little differnce which way round they are

3 is the ringer, now if 3 were in the wrong place.........

but op said nothing has been changed, hence my question has something been moved

 

[plugwash]

2 & 5 are the line it makes little differnce which way round they are

if they are reversed BEFORE the master then it will not normally cause problems (some equipment is sensitive but most isnt)

if they are reversed after the master but before the first phone ringing likely wont work at all.

if they are reveresed between sockets that are in use then depending on the design of the equipment there may be constant ringing due to DC running through the two ringers in series. This may also cause the line to detect the phones as off the hook.

 

[Lectrician]

Yup - it does depend on what else in plugged in, and the type of kit. I have seen it several times.

Pluggy describes it well