[mythtv-users] Electrical power in my cable line? Is that bad?

[Jake Vickers]

Yann Lehmann wrote:
> Brad DerManouelian wrote:
>
>   
>> Whomever installed your cable never bothered to ground it properly. Your 
>> choices are to have them come back and do it correctly or ground it 
>> yourself if you know what you're doing. Sadly, it happens more often 
>> than you would think. Someone mentioned not long ago that they fried 
>> their motherboard by plugging the firewire cable from their ungrounded 
>> set-top box into their machine. I nearly blew up my PVR-350 when I first 
>> got it because of the same problem. The tip is still a little black, but 
>> surprisingly records just fine. :)
>>
>>     
>
>
> Is there an easy way to check if the cable is grounded properly ?
>   

Yep.  If it is the new standard you should have a "ground block" that 
looks like a barrel (cable splice) bolted to the wall outside with a 
green wire running from it to the ground wire running out of the power 
meter box (you may also just have a splitter that will have the green 
wire running from it, depending on the cable co's policies).  The cable 
will come from the pole (or up from the ground if in a underground area) 
to this block and then into your house or to a splitter,  If you're not 
on the new standard then your cable may come from the opposite side of 
the house as power and be grounded to a ground rod (same ground block or 
splitter with a wire running to a rod pounded into the ground, usually 4 
feet or so) or to a water pipe.
The sporadic jolts you're feeling would lead me to believe that you had 
a cable modem.  You're probably feeling it sending data to the node.
Hope that helps some.

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