Good idea, I should have suggested that

And if similar problems occur every third house, that would pretty much nail it.

I am going to start asking around about it. That to had to be done on this street when it smelled of petrol or oil for weeks. Turned out someones Oil powered central heating tank that stores the oil had been leaking while they were on holiday.

In reply to a post by MHC:

I would expect there to be a reasonable amount of headroom available before the output goes out of spec.

So would I, but your (and my) idea of what is "reasonable" may not correlate with that of the designer of the PSU (who will be working with the accountants on his neck).

Once that headroom is used up then my comment applies, and we don't know how high the OP's voltage is going.

Or for how long- it's possible that the voltage is normally borderline tolerable, but Sod's Law dictates that on occasion the load on the OP's phase goes lower than normal whilst that on another (or both of them) goes high. And something goes phut

All these things are possible, we just don't have the information to decide which are likely.

my PSU's have been one of the few things not dieing. Can't remember any ever even before this problem started dieing.

Yes, despite often being a bit cheap 'n cheerful, PSUs are pretty robust in themselves.

But if the input voltage goes out of spec so might the output voltage on one or more rails, and things like memory chips are not particularly robust.

In reply to a post by billford:

Yes, despite often being a bit cheap 'n cheerful, PSUs are pretty robust in themselves.

But if the input voltage goes out of spec so might the output voltage on one or more rails, and things like memory chips are not particularly robust.

Ok so after all this time (look at date i started this post) it has just been fixed today.
The circuit board was melting on the inside including a cable. Electrician has been out and changed it and everything should be fine now.

So this is how i found it out. I was in shower and suddenly it cut off then came back on then off. i was like "woa ok what is this" and jumped out shower turned it off and saw hall light turning off and on over and over so rapidly it was as if it was trying to give me a seizure. I ran to the circuit board and immediately before i opened the cuboard it was in could hear crackling sounds coming from inside it.
When i opened the door to circuit board i could see arcing from behind the switches that turn stuff off and it was NOT turning itself off. I immediately then turned every flip switch off including the master.

So circuit board replaced with new one. Old one is "melted" and now house electrics seem ok. I am hoping this is the end finally of my electrical problems.

Edit: I just thought, since the circuit board was not tripping itself out for over 20 seconds at least, if i had not been home would it have burned my house down? It smelled of burning when i was flipping all the trip switches off.

I wish i could remember the name of the company or person who installed that circuit board. Today's electrician said the polarity may had been reversed, whatever that means, or cables had been miss wired or touching. He was not sure of the exact cause but said it was def the circuit board causing it and had most likely been fitted wrong because he said it was a good one that rarely goes wrong if fitted correctly. It was about 6-7 years old.
I got to today's electrician to right me out a report of his thoughts and findings on it but alas i can't remember the company or anything i used 6-7 years ago to report them or something because that was dangerous.

Edited by deleted (Tue 22-Nov-16 14:53:17)

What circuit board is this? Do you actually mean your electricity consumer unit?

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

What circuit board is this? Do you actually mean your electricity consumer unit?

Yeah Consumer unit, Fuse box. Whatever you wanna call it.
The electrician took over 4 hours to install the new one.

Thanks.

It's such a fundamental part of your home, I hope the time spent ensures a proper installation.

Four hours for a new CU is reasonable. In some cases it can take up to a day.

What is the new one made from? Plastic or metal?