I have an issue with my cable box (with DVR). Every morning it displays the word "Boot". I have to reboot it in order to restore cable service. I called the cable company (Comcast) and they came out and replace the DVR box as well as it's companion box. Comcast stated they reboot X1 boxes every night and mine is getting hung during the reboot.
The new boxes didn't help. I called again and they sent out another tech. This tech did some testing and stated there is AV voltage on all four of my cable line.
I have much more detail but when I included it and tried to send this question, I got a response stating this question looks like spam.
Has anyone experienced this issue with AC voltage on cable lines?
Here is more detail . . . . .
The cable comes in to my house (which is grounded with a grounding hub) and goes into an signal amplifier. I have four home run cable lines going to 4 different TV's from the amplifier. If I disconnect any one of these home run lines and using a volt meter measure from either the center conductor or the connector itself, I get anywhere from 42 VAC to 54 VAC (depending on which line I measure). With the cable still disconnected from the amp, I then measured at the cable box. I disconnected the cable from the wall (cable still connected to the cable box) I get the same AC voltage. (Measuring from the cable to the ground prong on a standard 120v wall outlet). The cable box also as an HDMI cable going from the cable box to the TV. I disconnect the HDMI cable from the TV and measured the outer shield on the HDMI cable to ground and again, AC voltage (????).
I then measured from the back on one of my TV's from the male coax connector to ground and AGAIN AV voltage? No other cables were connected to the TV other than the 120V power line. I attempted to isolate which circuit might be causing this very strange issue. By the way, all four TV's are on different circuits coming out of my breaker panel. If I turned off the circuit that I was measuring, obviously the AV voltage would go away. However I was unable to isolate any single circuit. I ended up calling an electrician.
He came out and was puzzled from the start. He disconnect every ground wire AND neutral wire from the panel one by one but we could not isolate a bad circuit. He checked all grounds and outlets the TV's and cable boxes are plugged in to and all were good. I forgot to mention above that if we connect the cable back to the cable amp (which is grounded), I get no AV voltage back at the cable boxes. To try and narrow this down, I got my generator out and connected one TV with it's cable box to it. The TV and cable box was totally disconnected from anything in my house. It was only connected with an extension cord to my outside generator and I was able to measure AV voltage on the coax coming out of the cable box. The electrician gave up. But now I am out $200 and I still have the issue every morning having to reboot my cable box.
Best Answer
If your cables are running parallel to a power cable they will induce a small voltage on the line. The cable should have a ground wire at the entrance of the house this is usually bonded to a metal water pipe. Verify that the cable ground is going to a well grounded place (metal Pipe or Conduit that is grounded). If you do not see a ground wire from the external cable box at the entrance to the house it was not installed properly, a ground needs to be added and that should eliminate your problem.