Weird outlets

[noisyturtle]

Any reason a random group of electrical outlets would stop working all at once? Three outlets in my apartment(all on different breakers) just stopped working all at the same time about 10mins ago. They are just dead, no reading with a voltmeter. I'm baffled, I have never encountered this weirdness, does anyone have any idea why this happened and how to fix it?

None of them were particurally overloaded (although one was my PC) and it was simaltaneous like a breaker went out. Yet they are all on different breakers and none of them tripped. I dunno, it's really weird 

[iri]

voltage spike?

[tp4tissue]

are you SURE they're connected to that box ?

they might've installed another electrical box in the house..

[noisyturtle]

are you SURE they're connected to that box ?

they might've installed another electrical box in the house..

It's an apartment, there are no hidden breakers. I called maintenance and he took one loo and was stumped. It's basically every outlet on the entire west side of my apartment just went dead suddenly. Imagine my rage this morning when I set my coffee to brew and got in the shower only to discover no coffee when I came out. All I ask for is coffee in the morning! HULK MAD!

[ddot]

Being an apartment, are you on 3 phase power?  Maybe the 3 outlets are on the same neutral and the neutral wire popped loose or got severed somewhere along the way.  That might give you 3 unworking circuits without any tripped breakers.

[JinDesu]

So they are on separate breakers, and the breakers haven't tripped? And the hot wires are completely dead (measured?). One possibility I could think is that they share a return neutral for some reason and the neutral wire is broken.

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

Gremlins.

You shouldn't have fed your mogwai after midnight...

[noisyturtle]

So someone finally figured it out. There are little trip buttons that link GFI(think that's what he said) track outlets. The reset button for that specific set of 5 outlets was in my hall closet. An outlet I have neither seen nor used before, so it's existence was unknown to me. Anyway, dude pressed a button on the outlet and they all worked again like magic, and I felt dumb.

[JinDesu]

GFI is ground fault interrupt/protection - where if it detects a ground fault (current on the ground wire/outlet box), it trips the circuit at the receptacle (if it's located there, it can also be located on the breaker).

In this case, you appear to have a separate GFI device tied ahead of those 5 receptacles? Even though they are on different circuits? Interesting...

[tp4tissue]

GFI is ground fault interrupt/protection - where if it detects a ground fault (current on the ground wire/outlet box), it trips the circuit at the receptacle (if it's located there, it can also be located on the breaker).

In this case, you appear to have a separate GFI device tied ahead of those 5 receptacles? Even though they are on different circuits? Interesting...

well it's an apartment. so they probably got a bunch of runs together for convenience..

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

Must be nice to have GFIs in your apartment... mine still has knob-and-tube wiring and non-grounded outlets.