Since you have a voltmeter check the hot to ground voltage on the outlets in
case it is a bad neutral. Most likely a bad connection where the wires are
backstabbed into the outlets. These are always less reliable than using the
screws on the side.

If you comfortable doing it, turn off the power to the appropriate outlets
and pull them out and look for problems. Remember if the connection feeding
and outlet is bad, the outlet may seem to be off but the breaker feeding it
still could be on.

Always wear sneakers, leather gloves and safety glasses (in case a wire
arcs, which can spit hot copper) just to be sure.

If there are wire nutted connections these may need to be tightened. Be
careful and methodical and you should be able to fix the problem


"metspitzer" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 07 May 2008 19:15:27 -0400, Mikko Peltoniemi
wrote:

So I was on the computer, then all of a sudden I hear BOOM, like an
circuit breaker tripping, and everything went quiet. The computer
was off.

I took a peek in the electrical panel, but no circuit breakers had
tripped. Odd, I thought. But I still didn't have electricity to
my computer.

Breakers don't really go boom, it could be a mouse or squirrel eating
into the wire.

You should check closely in the bathroom. Bathrooms have GFCI
receptacles. They have a reset button on them.


Other oddball ideas that came to my mind was that maybe those particular
outlets and lights were connected to my neighbor's circuit.
Could this be, or is it totally out of the question?

Could happen, but not likely. You could ask your neighbor if they
lost power.