Bizzare hardware issues with electronics, getting severe

Hi to anyone who can put a end to this madness.
Past i would say 2 years maybe a bit less something in my houses electrical wiring or.. well i don't know must have changed. I am getting incredibly insane issues that is driving me to my whits end.

All sensative electronic devices i buy no matter what they be that use electrical outlets (laptops tablets phones and things that charge seem to be immune) die at incredible speed.
I have tried surge protectors i have had TWO electricians test my wiring and sockets and they both said it was all fine. Yet on average an electrical device breaks every few weeks.
I will now give some examples.
24" IPS LG monitor. Broke after first 3 months, replaced. Replacement broke weeks after it arrived. 3rd one is carrying on.
Gone through 5 graphics cards in less than 8 months the company is getting annoyed.
Ram in two PC'S died one stick in each PC out of two in each.
a DVD drive in one pc that is never used broke and won't even eject or do anything at all.
Blu ray player broke after approx 5 months of ownership.
It goes on to things like soundbars TV's other monitors harddrives (i have lost over 6TB of harddrive space from harddrives failing and one SSD).

Most of what has broke has been replaced for free via the retailers or one by house insurance cause the retailer refused (i can't blame them!). If i was to go through everything the past 2 years that has broke add it all up plus costs of return and electricians etc it would be into the many of many thousands.

Surge protecters used for everything and two electricians say my wiring is not only fine but fuse box or whatever you call it above standard (a modern one).

What do i do, i can't go on like this, it's making me want to move house just to get away from this issue!!!

Do you have any wind farms in your local area? There are known to cause over-voltage spikes.

No, nearest wind turbine i know of is at least 4 miles away. There are none anywhere near my house within that radius that i know of. Unless someone has there own little one in there garden. Can't see any like that either on my street or any streets around me either.

It sounds as though, on occasion, the supply voltage to your house is too high. There is one circumstance where this can happen without any obvious reason or showing uo on your neighbours' supplies. It's not common and a bit complicated to explain, but here goes:

You're aware, I'm sure, that the supply from your local substation is 3-phase, ie 3 separate supplies at 120º to each other, with (usually) houses connected in sequence, so that every third house is connected to the same phase.

These 3 supplies all use a common neutral connection which is earthed at the substation. If this connection should develop a higher resistance than it should have, it won't do any harm provided each phase is taking about the same current, all that will happen is that the voltage on all 3 pheses will drop a bit more than normal.

Note that on a perfectly balanced system the current through this earth connection is zero, so the value of the resistance can get (comparatively) high without showing up.

If, however, the phases are taking different currents then the behaviour is somewhat counter-intuitive- the voltage on the phases taking higher currents will fall (as expected) but the voltage on the other one may rise, by an amount depending on the value of the resistance and the degree of load imbalance. If the resistance and/or the load imbalance is high then the rise can be substantial. (This happened to me once at work- the office lights seemed brighter than they should be; when I checked the mains voltage it was about 280v!)

There's nothing you, yourself, can do about it- all I can suggest is that you contact your local leccy provider and explain what's happening, quoting the above if you want to. They can check the earth-neutral integrity at the substation and/or put a recording voltmeter on your supply to see what's going on.

If I come up with any other bright ideas I'll post again- good luck!

Edited by billford (Sun 10-Jul-16 23:04:42)

Woa i think your correct! i have seen light bulbs increase in brightness. I mentioned that to the electricians they almost acted like they didn't believe me.

Who do i go to from here?

That is a possible, however it does not explain why Graphics cards or RAM fails - they are on the regulated DC side.

In reply to a post by blackmesa8:

Who do i go to from here?

Two obvious things to do, not necessarily in this order:

1) Evidence is always useful . If you can, when the lights look bright measure the mains voltage and make a note of it, along with the date and time.

If one of your disbelieving electricians can do it then that's independent evidence which is always handy, otherwise you could invest a few quid in something like this. (Your local DIY shed may also have something like it, although I can't find anything on the B&Q site.) I've got a similar one, they can be quite useful.

2) Somewhere in your phone book (usually under Electricity) there should be an emergency number to call in the event of power cuts etc. Although this isn't (strictly) an emergency it's probably the only contact point for technical (rather than billing) problems- if there's a better number they should know what it is.

The permitted range of mains voltage in the UK is 230v -6% +10%, ie 221v to 253v (link) although if it's only a volt or two outside that range they likely won't be interested. OTOH that shouldn't bother electrical equipment either so yours is probably more than that.

You may have to be persistent/persuasive- leccy boards tend to be doubtful about the technical abilities of the general public (justifiably in most cases) which is why I suggested getting some evidence!

In reply to a post by MHC:

That is a possible, however it does not explain why Graphics cards or RAM fails - they are on the regulated DC side.

Regulating PSUs are only intended to work within a specified range of input voltage, go outside that range and correct operation isn't guaranteed.

Ideally, if the input voltage goes out of range they should shut down, but computer PSUs are more usually designed down to a price rather than up to a specification

May be worth canvassing your neighbours asking if they have had similar problems. The leccy company may take more notice if there is a cluster of addresses with issues.

True, but I would expect there to be a reasonable amount of headroom available before the output goes out of spec. Looking at the various PSUs here they tend to say 100-230v or 100-240v which I would guess are nominal voltages, and I have seen ones showing 275v. With most cheaper SMPS working at an input voltage ration between 3 and 3.2 (higher spec ones can go up to 6:1) you could expect to see within spec operation from 90 to 270v or 95 to 285v both rages being well outside the UK supply spec. So, it really would need to be a significant deviation.

There could possibly be a neutral fault somewhere outside and as a reasonably heavy load is switched on or off there could be a large transient voltage coming through - enough to cause damage but not enough to trip a surge arrestor.