Over the past two weeks I've encountered four routers (two Netgear DG834G or 
GT, two BT Voyager 210) which have failed with the same symptoms:

- power, DSL, Ethernet lights flashing at random
- PC connected by Ethernet gets no IP address

This seems a hell of a coincidence. At least one of the routers (my own, a 
DG834GT) was connected to the mains and phone line via a surge protector; 
the other routers weren't.

Is it likely to be coincidence or a common cause such as a mains spike? All 
the routers are at addresses within about a ten mile radius. I'm not aware 
of any thunderstorms in the area recently.

The faults did not occur (or at least, weren't reported to me) on the same 
day.

One thing that is weird: the Netgear PSUs, rated nominally at 12V DC, are 
giving different voltages when measured: this morning's was 10.1V and mine 
is 16.3V.

Could it be faulty PSUs?

On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:03:26 +0100
"Martin"  wrote:
> 
> One thing that is weird: the Netgear PSUs, rated nominally at 12V DC,
> are giving different voltages when measured: this morning's was 10.1V
> and mine is 16.3V.
> 
> Could it be faulty PSUs? 
> 
Did you apply a dummy load when measuring the PSU voltage?  If not the
results are fairly meaningless.

"Rob Morley"  wrote in message 
news:20090915161109.717e3cf9@bluemoon...
> On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:03:26 +0100
> "Martin"  wrote:
>>
>> One thing that is weird: the Netgear PSUs, rated nominally at 12V DC,
>> are giving different voltages when measured: this morning's was 10.1V
>> and mine is 16.3V.
>>
>> Could it be faulty PSUs?
>>
> Did you apply a dummy load when measuring the PSU voltage?  If not the
> results are fairly meaningless.

No, but I'd expect that two PSUs for the same model of router would give the 
same no-load voltage, even if this voltage is higher than the on-load 
voltage.