Aiming at the deficiency of HV cable fault location method at present, this paper studies the HV cable fault location method based on pulse differential and equipment. By means of two-way high voltage output and differential signal coupling, differential fault location of impulse and DC flash pulse is realized by software optimization algorithm, which solves the deficiency of HV cable flashover or intermittent fault location at present. The validity of the location method and the equipment is verified by the test. The method has the advantages of simple waveform identification, higher sensitivity and location accuracy, and has a good application prospect.