Home Forums FineTunedMac Community Lounge An Unhappy Surprise

Last night I came home after a thunderstorm and noticed my Apple Home automation devices were not working. After half an hour or so of troubleshooting, I finally found the source of the problem. A stone-cold dead Tripp-Lite UPS powering the network port and ethernet hubs at the center of my network. So dead that even the non-battery powered but filtered outlets are dead. I have used Tripp-Lite UPS literally for decades and never had an outage. The battery packs were less than three years old and among the newest in the house. After reconnecting the network devices directly to the wall instead of the UPS, the Apple Home automation kicked in and things were immediately back on and working. After checking for blown circuit breakers or fuses and exhausting every possibility I was eventually forced to conclude my UPS is DOA, powered up my iPad and ordered a replacement. An identical unit in the adjoining room that powers the 5G Wi-Fi receiver/hub never missed a beat. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This morning, I attempted to logon my Mac Studio in my office and its UPS was stone-cold but not dead. A touch on the reset button immediately restored it to life and the batteries indicated a full charge. I just checked and all of the electric clocks both wall and battery powered show the correct time.

I am not an expert on home wiring, but more knowledgeable than the average and cannot figure out why or how the one Tripp-Lite UPS was fried, the second knocked off-line, and a third apparently untouched. I am back up and running and by Monday 100% operational, but I don't want it to happen again and I am really curious what happened.

We have power outages on a regular basis. It's weird because our neighbors across the street and on one side next door do not lose power when we do, and vice versa. But, it's never damaged any of our electrical devices. Hope you get to the bottom of it.

Your situation I can explain, and in my case, the UPS did fulfill its primary role of protecting my electronics, but what happened and why did one UPS give up its life in the task, a second identical UPS drop the load instead of switching to battery power, while a third identical device remained apparently unaffected? To quote Yul Bryner, in his role as the King of Siam, 'tis a puzzlement? Meanwhile, I am getting a replacement for the dead UPS and, as a precaution, new batteries for the remaining Tripp-Lites.

Weird, indeed!

It may be deliberate...something about the way your neighborhood is wired, but I'd for sure bounce it off of my utility to see if there's some sort of glitch in the wiring that may need to be addressed.

Did you mean "can't," or did you space out in the middle of posting?

We have, and yes, the boundary for their zones cuts through our neighborhood, and we are at a corner. But, the effect is still weird.

When we first moved into this house the nearest house in our zone was 1/4 mile away and everyone around us was in another zone. Talk about weird, when yours is the only house in the neighborhood with power. It took a transformer blowing up to get us into the same zone as our neighbors.