It sounds to me like the receptacle in the dining room is fed first and then on to the kitchen. I'm sure others will have theories on why a laptop would trip the GFI's. I've had tools and small motors that are ungrounded trip them, but never heard of a laptop doing so.

well, I think plugging in anything trips the 2 GFCIs in the kitchen, I will test this on Friday. In ONTARIO,CA right now on business.

I will test with 3 prong and 2 prong table lamps.

FYI: on the same wall I have 2 wire 220 outlet

There may be a fault in the laptop, but if it does not have a 3 prong cord it is more likely to be intereaction with a battery charger in the laptop.
Battery chargers are known to cause GFCI trips.

You should not "Daisy Chain" GFI outlets. The outlets have a line and load indication on them. Be sure that the GFI is the first outlet on the circuit and feed through the GFI to the other outlets.
Using more than one GFI on a circuit causes nuisance tripping. Also GFI circuits can not share their neutral with other devices.

Daisy chain:
I assumed this as they both trip when I plug something in the dining room wall outlet.

Q: how do I validate this?

This was done by the guy who flipped the house.

I take some pics and figure out if the 2 gfcis and 1 dining room outlet all are on same breaker switch.

Thanks to everyone who responded.

I am reviving this thread,
I had an electrician (30 yrs experience) over to install can lights in my basement office, I invited him upstair to attempt to solve the dining room out tipping the kitchen gfci.
he was baffled, his solution was to REPLACE the gfci outlets in the kitchen with regular ones 8-:
wow, he replace one, but no dice and I discouraged him to go on further.

So, back to sqaure one,

When would a GFCI trip?
leakage in the neutral? leakage in the ground?
how can I pin point which one is leaking, (remember, if I plug in ANYTHING in that dining room outlet, even a 3 prong tester, it trips the kitchen.

when digging through the threads I read out one who had mice chew a bit of wire...I am sure there were few mice in the house many years back.

First some clarification. Were you able to determine whether any part of this problem appears to be unique to laptop use, or do you get the same or similar results plugging in some other load? If the laptop is a red herring, let's get rid of that part of the problem.

Can you trace the wires feeding the dining room outlet and figure out where they come from?

Since your house was "flipped", there's no telling what kind of creative wiring "solutions" might have been done.

There is a remote chance that the dining room outlet is fed by a neutral from one path and a hot from another.

I've seen this kind of ugly "technique" used a couple of times in the past, with bad results. In one case, the hot was drawn from a switch box box that didn't have a neutral and the neutral was "borrowed" from another line. Even if everything is on the same breaker, that kind of thing will cause GFIs to trip when only one of the two conductors runs through all the GFIs in a daisy chain (i.e., the hot/neutral currents aren't balanced through the GFI outlets).

Are (or were) any of the outlets switched? Moreover, do any of the cables have three insulated conductors (e.g., 12-3 or 14-3 with black, red and white wires)?

I'm asking this because here's another possible scenario:

1. Kitchen was originally wired with one or more of the outlets switched and no GFIs.

2. The wiring was run using 12-3 with, say, the red wire feeding the switched outlet(s) and the black feeding unswitched outlet(s), or vice-versa.

3. Subsequently, someone slapped in GFIs with the sole neutral running though the GFI(s) and daisy-chained to the next outlet.

This could conceivably create a situation where, say, the dining room outlet is fed by a neutral that runs through the GFIs and a "second hot" that does not.

There are other possibilities too. The more additional details, the better.

First some clarification. Were you able to determine whether any part of this problem appears to be unique to laptop use, or do you get the same or similar results plugging in some other load? If the laptop is a red herring, let's get rid of that part of the problem.

(Sorry for hitting "submit" too soon. I see know that you'd already confirmed that the problem has been determined not to be laptop-specific.)

terribletom,

1. any load in the dining room trips the gfci in the kitchen. even a 3 prong outlet tester (with the 3 lights)

2. you reminded me of something the electrician was saying, he said my house was orginally wired with 4-? wiring. we have some 220 sockets in the kitchen and 1 down from the dining room problem outlet, which has 2 phase live and neutral, the 2 phase (out of phase) make 220v. he said the color of the live wire in the socket does not even match the color of the live wire in the kitchen that is plugged into the gfci, the other live wire is just capped off.

thanks,

Yikes! Sounds to me like you have some "creative" wiring lurking behind your walls. This tends to support the hypothesis that it isn't a clean single 120V wiring run between dining room and kitchen outlets.

It's a bit of a digression, but I can't help wanting to add a note or two about terminology. Your house does not have "2-phase" power. (For all intents and purposes, there's no such thing in North American residential wiring.) What you have is single-phase 120/240V service (also correctly called "split-phase").

While that distinction may be largely a matter of terminology, I just thought it'd be worthwhile to operate with the same language.

It's a three-wire system that supports three types of circuits: (1) a hot wire from either of two poles plus a neutral makes up a 120V circuit; (2) two hot wires (one from each of the poles) delivers 240V; and (3) three wires--two hots and a neutral--produces a 120/240V circuit because it can deliver either 240V, 120V or both. For example, a dryer on a 120/240V circuit can use both hots to power the heating element at 240V and, at the same time, one hot plus the neutral to run a 120V motor and/or light.

[In talking about the number of wires here, I'm excluding equipment grounds. If we include the ground, a 120/240V circuit has 4 wires. Perhaps that is what your electrician meant when he said something to the effect of "4-?".]

So it sounds like you have a 120/240V circuit that feeds at least one (perhaps more) 240V outlets and several 120V outlets.

Let's take that a step further. Since the hot wire colors do not match between the kitchen and dining room outlets, it appears likely that the dining room outlet is fed from one pole and the kitchen outlets are fed from the other.

What this amounts to is something called a "multiwire branch circuit" (MWBC) which, if properly wired, is not a problem per se. The problem you've experienced with the GFIs is because a shared neutral (i.e., a grounded conductor used as a "return path" for two opposing poles) cannot be run line-to-load through a GFI because, by definition, the GFI's hot and neutral won't be balanced when there's a downstream outlet drawing power from the other pole.

This being the case, there's a quick and dirty fix that might work: Rewire both of the GFIs such that their feeds (i.e., line side only) are pigtailed to the hot and neutral wires in the box. Wired this way, they would not be "daisy chained" and each would operate independently.

[This would eliminate purported "GFI protection" of the dining room outlet, but who cares? A GFI isn't required there and it obviously doesn't work in this case anyway.]

But having proposed a "quick fix", you still have several potential problems with your circuits as presently wired.

For example, the 240V circuit may be at a higher ampacity (30 amp?) which would, among other things, exceed the rating of the 120V receptacles. At minimum, I'd verify that all the wire sizes are appropriate given the size of the breaker protecting the circuit. If the breaker is larger than 20A, you have a problem. Ditto if it's a 20-amp circuit and any of the wires are #14.

Paradoxically, your kitchen counters actually appear to be "underwired" in terms of capacity. These days, code requires two 20-amp circuits for counter outlets alone. If one of the "220V outlets" is ever used, you'll obviously have way under the prescribed capacity on the counter.

One possibility is to decomission the "220V outlets" and rework the circuit as a proper MWBC, with one of the GFI counter outlets fed by one pole (say, the "red wire"?) and the other fed by the other pole (the "black"?). The fact that you have an additional outlet in the dining room is of little consequence and you'd double the capacity of your kitchen outlets.

Not being able to look at exactly how this circuit is wired, I can't say for certain that this would be an easy and effective option, but it might work out for you. (Also, I don't know for sure whether or not the "220V outlets" are still needed for anything.)

My recommendation is to get some good electrical advice to determine the feasibility of reworking this circuit.

While I hate to question the competance of your electrician on an internet board, without having all the facts, I'm can't say I'm terribly impressed with his/her diagnostic abilities so far.

It would be unusual to find it in a residence, but "Two phase" having 4 hot wires all peaking at a different point in the AC cycle was still in use in some areas through the 1950's. I'm acquainted with a commercial building in my town that still had a 4-pole disconnect with 4 main fuses until very recently. It had been rewired so that pairs of poles were fed from the same hot coming off the street as conventional 120/240. The place also had a freight elevator that didn't work because its motor required all 4 hots at their respective timings. From an electronics point of view, this is a 4-phase motor (1 more than 3-phase) even though power industry terminology doesn't call it that.

So unlikely as it seems, maybe this house had been wired with "two phase" and the electrician wasn't familiar enough with that to know the more common name. If so, the rest of the wiring could be a little strange.

"It would be unusual to find it in a residence, but "Two phase" having 4 hot wires all peaking at a different point in the AC cycle was still in use in some areas through the 1950's."

As regards this post, however, the OP states: "...couple of years back the last owner had a local electrical company update the main breaker box TO a 2 phase". (Emphasis supplied.)

I remember reading somewhere that there was one small village in upstate New York that had two-phase power up until the late 80s. But do you know of anywhere in N.A. where two-phase utility power was still available as of a couple of years back?

Except for a few rare specialty uses (AMD mainframe computers or antique Tesla motors?) now served by either phase converters or on-site generators, my bet is that residential two-phase is a thing of the past for all intents and purposes.

The poster is likely confusing 120/240 V service with 2 phase.

The 120/240 V system has only one phase, but the 240 V is across both hot legs.

They are not phases.

Terribletom, thanks a bunch for debugging my wiring issues and the possible fixes, it makes sense to moi,
when I get get home this weekend i will peek into the wiring behind the outlet and possibly take pics.

I am not sure what type of service I have, I know it is 100 amps, i will call DTE and find out.

funny story behind how I know it is 100 amps, I asked the same electrician why my lights dim when the darn fridge motor starts up, his answer was that I have a 100 amp service, if I upgrade to a 200 amp service, it would solve the problem, arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. so take that with a grain of salt pls :-)

Did you say Canada? Then it's quite possible that the kitchen receptacles are fed with multiwire circuits and if so idiot misinstalled GFCI's on them with the shared neutral on the load side, you could get goofy trips.

Did you try anything else other than the computer in the flakey outlet?

near canada, in the fine state of Michigan,
yes, anything in that trips kitchen gfci, even a 3 prong outlet tester (one of those with 3 lights)

stockrex:

The banter above about the type of your service is just "techtalk" between members and doesn't really affect your problem. You have 100-amp single-phase 120/240V service. If you want to confirm with DTE, that's fine but, for the purposes of this problem, there's no real need.

[Whether or not you need a service upgrade to 200A is not something that is indicated just because a refrigerator motor surge causes lights to dim, so I'm with you on that: Take it with a grain of salt. (Q. Hey, my car is sluggish when I accelerate. A. I can fix that by pulling the engine and replacing your six-banger with a brand new V-8. Uh huh.) It is, of course, possible that you need an upgrade, but that's another issue, eh?]

The good news here is that your original problem should be easy to fix--maybe a hour of labor and negligible parts $$.

If you had some experience with DIY wiring and wanted to tackle it yourself, we could walk through it, but I'm sensing that you'll probably call an electrician. Yes?

If so, you already should have enough information to explain the task to a competant jobber: You have a multiwire branch circuit and want the GFCIs rewired so that they operate independently (not "daisy chained" line-to-load) and you also want an assessment as to whether the countertop receptacles are on opposite poles, so as to maximize capacity on the countertop. If it were me, I'd seek out another electrician because this guy's already had one whack at the problem and hasn't impressed so far.

One other issue you may or may not want to throw into the mix is what to do with those 220v outlets. Do you need 200v outlets where they are located? Or are they artifacts from the days of window unit air conditioners or what?

If they'd be more useful as regular 120V receptacles (and asssuming they're on the same three-wire MWBC), it should be a piece of cake to convert them to ordinary 120V outlets if that would better suit your needs going forward. (Not necessarily required to shoot this problem...just sayin'.)

From what I'm seeing on the weather map, it must be pretty chilly in your neck of the woods so stay warm and safe! Cheers and good luck.

p.s. If you are interested in pursuing this on a DIY basis, then posting those pics would be helpful.

All I want to say is nice job Tom I'm sure that how everyone would like the forums to work!!!

Thanks for all your time

Terribletom,
Yes sir, I would like to do it myself, I will take pics today before I leave for the airport for work (if not this friday).
I have no need for the 220v, it was for an ac unit (or heater), the outlet is a multi-outlet, top is 220 which goes
_ _
o

Thanks again,

Terribletom,
We have the kitchen gutted finally for the cabinet upgrade.
Here is the link to the album with the pics

http://picasaweb.google.com/elsadadi/KitchenGFCITripping

pls let me know if you need additional infomation. I appreciate your assistance.

Shibs
GR, MI

Here is a link that might be useful: kitchen outlet photos

Your link sends us to a login screen.

I just realized that I did not take pics of both the line and load side of the GFCI, the mud guy is in there right now he should be done by EOB, I will take some pics then.

I just rechecked, both albums I have on there is public,

http://picasaweb.google.com/elsadadi

pls let me know if you are able to see them

Here is a link that might be useful: albums in goog

Works in IE7 but not on Firefox 3.0.10

Could be a neutral to ground fault in the laptop as well.

correction, plugging in anything, even a 3 prong tester or a 2 prong cellphone charger... click....

"Could be a neutral to ground fault in the laptop as well."

I'm totally ROFLMAO! Uh, earth to Ron. Uh, I know it's a long one, but reread the thread. We (yes, WE!) ruled out the laptop six months ago. :-)

stockrex: Planning to get back to this when I have a longer block of time. Cheers.

update:
I want all who replied and assisted me with the solution and a big michigan BOOOYAAA to terribletom.
rewiring the gfci resolved the problem and in the process I learn a lot.
I did however call an electrician to do other junction box work in the attic for the kitchen bulkhead removal. I am too fat to be crawling in the attic ;-)

now off to my next project, put in a line in my office from the garage for a battery operated APU!