Re: usb wierdness...way OT

[Tom Ritchford <tom@swirly.com>]

At 3:48 PM -0700 10/10/01, rich wrote:
>every time, one of the guys comes down the path outside my window, 
>with his leafblower.  This is a gas powered leafblower. and EVERY 
>time he comes by, the two g4's that are nearest the window have 
>their mice lock up.

DISCLAIMER:  I am not an electrician but my guess is:


The spark plug in the leaf blower acts as a little radio transmitter
(an impulse generator in fact)

and your perhaps poorly grounded local power system is receiving these 
signals
and putting spikes into your computers' power systems,

which (surprisingly, since the G4s have good power supplies)
is causing the USB controller to lose track of your mouse somehow
(waves hands here).


two words:  power conditioner.
(and a few more: bad power from the wall -- not good.
I'll bet you have a lot of light bulbs burning out...)


if your computers are just plugged into the wall, or into a power bar,
you are at risk if the power isn't perfect.

The computers themselves should be pretty well shielded -- computers 
generate
a whopping amount of interference.

The fact that you get interference


get a cheap, decent UPS (uninterruptable power supply) -- most of them act
as a power conditioner and will give you a few minutes to shut down
if the power goes out or if someone kicks the plug out of the wall.

the cost is small compared to the cost of the computer and it's like
insurance... one power spike can ruin your whole rack, one brownout
can screw up your hard disk.


Some UPS are not applicable for music because they introduce
a hum (though I hear anecdotally that has been fixed in newer models).

Do make sure you can take it back if that's the case.

        /t


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