Plug another phone and all phones go out

[madhugb]

Hi,
I moved into this house recently and found phone jacks in all rooms. However, having only one phone, I plugged it into the kitchen. Now I got another phone and put it in a bedroom and both the phones were dead. Same thing happens if i connect a second phone in any other room as well. Tried unplugging kitchen phone and only using other jacks, those didnt work at all. what could be the problem? Dont want to call repairguy if i dont have to.

[mango man]

your new phone is bad

[hocbry30]

If there are two crossed wires at the unhooked up end and you hook up the phone on this line then they become a completed path and then kill the rest. Try the second phone on the first jack to verify if it is bad or not. If it works then the jack itself need fixed. Come back here to find out how!! :D

[madhugb]

The new phone is fine, tried it in the first jack, also tried it in the neighbors house and it works. So now, how do I figure out whats wrong with the other jacks? I am not a technically savvy person, so if someone can walk me through without too much tech terms, it would be so great.

[mango man]

you need to take all the jacks off the wall and look carefully at the wiring for shorts or shiners also look carefully at each jack to be sure there are no bent pins that could be shoritng when you plug a phone in .

if everything looks good then disconect all the cableing from all the jacks that dont work and hook them up one at a time .

[hocbry30]

Mango sorry but why take all the jacks off the wall if it is verified that some are working?
Madhugb, Just concentrate your efforst on the one that seems to be the bad one. If you can trace it our to the nid then all the better. From there disconnect it and rewire using the opposite color pair on both ends.
If you can not trace it out then go to the nid and disco all the lines from there and replace them one by one and find which one it is and label it. This will take some back and forth time without the right tools.

[racraft]

If the wiring is in series from one jack to the next, then you have to investigate each and every jack, as the problem could be in a working jack or a non-working jack.

If the phones are wired in parallel, then you only need to investigate the non-working jacks.

Based on the description of the problem, I suspect serial wiring, and I suspect a bad jack, not bad wiring. However, only more information will confirm my suspicions.

[hocbry30]

racraft, Good point.
As I am only used to dealing with people wiring jacks the RIGHT WAY then I only assumed that they would be wired parallel. I dont think that anybody wiring them in serial anylonger should be wiring them at all as this is not the RIGHT WAY any more.

- Bryan , Controls Engineering Technician and previous 'Home Automation Expert'