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speedymove · 13-11-2009, 10:20

Okay, where do I start? I live in the Southampton area and 2 evenings ago we suddenly noticed a drop in the voltage coming into our house, lights were dim, microwave not working etc.. The same was true for the neighbourhood. Of course this also affected my V+ box downstairs and also the other box virgin box upstairs. I was seeing the usual AP52 code on the V+ box which means no signal coming in.

Anyway, I phoned virgin support and they said there was a problem in the area and it will be sorted the next day. I also phoned the scottish and southern electric about the problem with power and they also said it would be fixed the next day.

The next morning the voltage was surging up and down between 190 volts and 230 volts and we smelt an awful burning smell coming from the bedroom where the upstairs box was. At the time I couldn't trace the source of the burning smell but needless to say I switched all the power off and called the emergency number.

To cut a long story short, the power was eventually fixed in the early hours of the next morning but the V+ box was still not working. I called virgin support again about an hour ago and they said it should all be working and an engineer is on his way to look at my setup. Anyway, in readiness for the visit of the engineer I looked again at the virgin box upstairs and to my utter horror I noticed that the coax cable going into this box had most of its insulation burnt and charred! Obviously now I know where the burning smell came from.

This has left me extremely concerned about the safety of the cable installation as a whole. What if I hadn't been here to switch of the power? We could have been asleep and it could have happened then. I am certainly going to get rid of the box upstairs as a result and I wonder now how I can make more people aware of this potential danger.

I would welcome any advice about this as I am really concerned about the safety of these Virgin cable boxes and where I go from here.

13-11-2009, 10:20	#1
speedymove Inactive Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 17	Burnt Cable! Okay, where do I start? I live in the Southampton area and 2 evenings ago we suddenly noticed a drop in the voltage coming into our house, lights were dim, microwave not working etc.. The same was true for the neighbourhood. Of course this also affected my V+ box downstairs and also the other box virgin box upstairs. I was seeing the usual AP52 code on the V+ box which means no signal coming in. Anyway, I phoned virgin support and they said there was a problem in the area and it will be sorted the next day. I also phoned the scottish and southern electric about the problem with power and they also said it would be fixed the next day. The next morning the voltage was surging up and down between 190 volts and 230 volts and we smelt an awful burning smell coming from the bedroom where the upstairs box was. At the time I couldn't trace the source of the burning smell but needless to say I switched all the power off and called the emergency number. To cut a long story short, the power was eventually fixed in the early hours of the next morning but the V+ box was still not working. I called virgin support again about an hour ago and they said it should all be working and an engineer is on his way to look at my setup. Anyway, in readiness for the visit of the engineer I looked again at the virgin box upstairs and to my utter horror I noticed that the coax cable going into this box had most of its insulation burnt and charred! Obviously now I know where the burning smell came from. This has left me extremely concerned about the safety of the cable installation as a whole. What if I hadn't been here to switch of the power? We could have been asleep and it could have happened then. I am certainly going to get rid of the box upstairs as a result and I wonder now how I can make more people aware of this potential danger. I would welcome any advice about this as I am really concerned about the safety of these Virgin cable boxes and where I go from here.