Receiver Loses Signal When Turning Off Light Switch

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PiERiT

2[H]4U
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Oct 8, 2010
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I use a projector with a receiver and 8/10 times when I turn off my kitchen lights, the video signal flickers and cuts out momentarily. Sometimes it comes back on its own after a few seconds, other times it doesn't and shows a static/noise image instead, and I have to unplug and replug the receiver's output HDMI cable in order to fix it.

Thing is, over the past 5 years, this has happened with two different projectors, two different receivers, two different HDMI cables, and at 4 different apartments and now a home I moved into. Here it's the kitchen lights, at other places it was a hallway light or a ceiling fan or the garbage disposal or the air conditioning...

Does anyone know what would cause this and how to resolve it?
 
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Flourescent lights with nasty RF spray when switched? Bad power wiring causing a brownout when the load changes?

Get a line-conditioner UPS and some ferrite cores on the data cables.
 
Hello PiERit,

What country do you live in and do you know of any other issues? Could be ground faults or something similar causing grief. I agree with Ryom some ferrite cores and line conditions should help.
 
Ryom said:
Flourescent lights with nasty RF spray when switched? Bad power wiring causing a brownout when the load changes?

Get a line-conditioner UPS and some ferrite cores on the data cables.
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deaedius said:
Hello PiERit,

What country do you live in and do you know of any other issues? Could be ground faults or something similar causing grief. I agree with Ryom some ferrite cores and line conditions should help.
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I'm in the US. These are in fact flourescent lights in the kitchen here, but elsewhere they were not.

Ferrite cores look like a good idea, I'll try that first since they're cheap. After that I'll grab a UPS if necessary.

Thank you both.
 
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If you have a multimeter you could test the outlet while switch the lights and see what happens with the voltage... this pounds like a voltage issue and I also recommend a ups. I use one on for my tv/receiver/blue ray, it was probably the best decision I've made in a while
 
Get a ferrite core large enough to allow you to put one or two loops of your data cable through it if you really want to make sure you're attenuating all nasty HF effects.

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Welp a UPS with AVR did absolutely nothing. :( Good to have regardless I guess.

Ferrite cores are on the way still. I don't know what size I need so I ordered a variety and they'll be here Thurs.
 
PiERiT said:
Welp a UPS with AVR did absolutely nothing. :( Good to have regardless I guess.

Ferrite cores are on the way still. I don't know what size I need so I ordered a variety and they'll be here Thurs.
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Are you sure it's not an issue on the projector end?
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
Are you sure it's not an issue on the projector end?
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Pretty sure. I've had two different brand projectors in the past 5 years and they both did it.

It might be the cable? I've tried different cables but they were both the same brand, Twisted Veins. I don't have any others that are long enough but maybe a ferrite core on each end of it will help. I'll find out Thursday.
 
PiERiT said:
Pretty sure. I've had two different brand projectors in the past 5 years and they both did it.

It might be the cable? I've tried different cables but they were both the same brand, Twisted Veins. I don't have any others that are long enough but maybe a ferrite core on each end of it will help. I'll find out Thursday.
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How long is the cable? is it an active cable?
 
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Oh. Nope, don't have that.

I'll try a ferrite core, then I'll look for one of those that supports 4K HDR @ 60Hz (if they exist). Thanks!
 
I have the same exact problem.

I even bought surge protectors with every kind of filtering for all outlets in my living room, didn't help.

Also bought several brands of shielded HDMI cables, didn't help either.

Still have the problem, but I rarely use the projector and it's not the end of the world for a brief black screen (mine always comes back by itself).
 
I was moderately annoyed at the UPS doing nothing that I spent about an hour narrowing down the problem, and at this point I'm pretty sure it's the receiver.

I thought it happened with an older receiver I had but I may be misremembering, because it happens on multiple inputs with multiple devices and multiple cables. The only time it doesn't happen is when I unplug everything and run the projector through the receiver with no input at all. But as soon as I plug in a single device and switch to that input, no matter what it is, it has the problem.

I'll still try the cores since I already bought them but I'm not expecting much. Are they supposed to go on both ends of the cables? Or in the center?
 
If the ferrite cores don't help...

Take all the bulbs out of the fixtures in the kitchen and flip the switch a bunch of times with the projector running. What happens? Put one bulb back in and repeat the test. Add in bulbs one at a time until you get a signal failure. Try that last bulb by itself and see if you still get a video signal failure. Does any kind of flicker or failure happen using an analog cable from the projector? You're going to have to use the process of elimination if you don't have access to some fairly esoteric trouble-shooting hardware. I'd attempt to rule out/rule in the lights as the failure cause since you seem to get highly consistent failure when switching them.
 
Ferrite cores arrived early and didn't help. :(

Ryom said:
If the ferrite cores don't help...

Take all the bulbs out of the fixtures in the kitchen and flip the switch a bunch of times with the projector running. What happens? Put one bulb back in and repeat the test. Add in bulbs one at a time until you get a signal failure. Try that last bulb by itself and see if you still get a video signal failure. Does any kind of flicker or failure happen using an analog cable from the projector? You're going to have to use the process of elimination if you don't have access to some fairly esoteric trouble-shooting hardware. I'd attempt to rule out/rule in the lights as the failure cause since you seem to get highly consistent failure when switching them.
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Hot damn. I didn't think to try that since it's happened at literally every place I've lived, but sure enough, I removed one of the two LED T8 bulbs and it stopped happening. I moved the remaining bulb to the empty slot and it started again, so it must be that slot.

I'm fine using just one slot, that is still plenty bright. Thank you!
 
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You wouldn't believe some of the bullshit hardware failures I've had to track down. One of my biggest pains in the ass was a testing motherboard that had ever so slightly cracked traces, so if the case heated up enough or if you tightened the mounting screws a little too much, it would start causing random lockups when the traces separated due to thermal/stress expansion. The temporary fix was to loosen up the motherboard mounting screws until a replacement came in. Fun times figuring that one out with nothing but a screwdriver... I would've bet someone else's kids on it being a faulty power supply when I started.
 
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