Last night, just making a cup of tea for bed (so kettle had boiled already) and a flicker of the lights, and the cooker clock going off suggested some sort of problem.
First port of call - CU - revealed that a breaker had tripped. I reset it, power was restored, and it's stayed set since.
Had a little puzzle over what might have tripped it ... maybe a brownout ? But the lights flickering could have been the breaker tripping. Also the other 5 breakers remained set.
Then earlier this afternoon, I noticed my secondary wifi access point was missing. A dig behind the TV (where it's buried) revealed that it was dead. No lights. No nothing. Because it was an old surplus BT/2Wire jobbie, it's now in the recycling, and another has appeared in it's place :)
Do folk on this group think the router/psu could have "gone" and tripped the breaker ?
If it was a smpsu, it's certainly a contender (assuming the ring main it was plugged into was the one protected by the breaker you'd had to reset).
A few months ago, I had the opposite mystery problem. I was quietly minding my own business in my office come den one evening when I heard the classic bang of a smpsu mains filter cap blowing up in one of the many smpsus that I have running 24/7 in this location. The mystery in this case being that not one bit of kit had stopped working.
There had been no other evidence of failure such as a flash of light or the appearance of "magic smoke being let out", not even so much as the faintest whiff of any such 'magic smoke'. I didn't experience any disturbance to the mains supply since we don't have any of those new fangled and troublesome mcbs/elcbs/rcbs in the CU, just good old fashioned re-wireable fuse links.
From the loudness of that sharp bang, the most likely culprit would seem to have been a PC PSU (either my desktop or the NAS box). Since the bang had been the sole disturbance to my equanimity, I'm in no hurry to solve this mysterious event. It can remain one of life's little mysteries afaiac since ICBA delving into the innards of PSUs just to try and identify a blown 250vac rated class X filter capacitor on the off chance that my suspicions are correct.
I'm curious about the nature of the mysterious bang but not so curious as to expend time and effort on what could turn out to be a wild goose chase (the PC PSUs are merely prime *suspects* after all). Indeed, it's possible there may not even be any visible evidence of the event to confirm my suspicions. I'll wait until there's a more compelling reason to examine my suspects (when, inevitably, they'll eventually expire from old age and I'll have to repair/replace yet another PSU).
If your dead wallwart is of the smpsu type, it's worth keeping in mind that all such smpsu designs are "Accidents Waiting to Happen"(tm). Very few component failures in a mains voltage smpsu will fail 'safe'. Those HT switching transistors need only the slightest provocation to blow themselves to smithereens and destroy the safety fuse as fast as inhumanely possible.
IOW, when they fail, they more often than not, generate a massive, albeit brief, current surge capable of tripping a 32A ring main circuit breaker which, in your case, would seem to be the most likely reason for the tripped breaker and the associated symptoms - mystery solved.
Most likely the wall wart. I've had innocent looking ones emit magic smoke and melt down before now. There seems to be no kind of protection in them. Mind you, mains spikes are always knackering these switch mode marvels. Never had this problem with analogue transformers. Brian
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