Last issue, I discussed the problem of power surges and lightning. Now I would like to say a few words about other types of electrical noise.
Many of our subscribers are moving up to disk interfaces or high speed tape and having trouble saving and loading, getting their modems to work, having intermittent crashes that just can’t be pinned down, etc., etc. Does any of this sound familiar?
As it turns out, we have a lot of hidden enemies just waiting to cause us grief. The number one enemy is your TV (or monitor) and the cable and output from the computer.
If you have intermittent crashes, put your arm near the TV. Do you feel static? Get some Static Guard (check the laundry room first) from the food store and spray the TV. Spray the floor, the table, the walls, your pants and the computer. Take your shoes off when you use your computer.
A nearby flourescent light can be a real nuisance. Make sure that any lights of this type are quiet. If they emit any noise at all, then move them away from your cables, recorders any drives. In fact, just go incandescent.
Don’t clutter your cables together behind the computer and in front of the TV. Separate your power cables from your interface cables and don’t let them cross. Take your modem off of the disk drives, especially if it doesn’t have a case. If your disk drive cable must pass right next to the TV output, then consider taping across the opening with some copper tape to reduce the RF noise and this goes for cassette cables too. When you access your peripherals, you can often see a pattern on the screen. Imagine what the monitor output is doing to your perpheral cable too!
All of your peripherals should have 3 prong plugs. If they don’t, then beware that you may have a floating ground. For example, a light bulb socket that seems to burn out light bulbs more frequently than you feel they should last, might have the switch wired on the ground side. Turning the plug over in the wall will cure this problem. Similarly, a monitor or other device may not be grounded properly if it has a generic two prong plug. You might be surprised to know that your computer will function quite well while it rides a 100 Volt AC carrier; until you touch it and ground it. If you touch your monitor or other device (your arm is quite sensitive to this) and feel a slight sting, then you probably have this problem somewhere. This bad ground problem will prevent peripherals from functioning properly (and may blow your system).