h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I ask because my mum has an increasing problem. our shared conputer, which works fine for me, Often freezes or crashes for her. She performs the same functions as me and usally tasks it less than I do, I tend to run many programs at once she runs one at atime.

I have heard that some people, my father amoung them, cannot wear watches, they simply stop for no apparant reason. Is there any basis in science for this? Could a computer suffer the same problem? Could the appearance have something to do with my resent introduction of a whire less keyboard and mouse?

I'd say it's the wireless keyboard and mouse, rather than your mom. Check the drivers on it before you call the paranormal investigators.

I think computers like dudes better.

My missus has exactly the same problem. Drives her NUTS. She'll be working on the computer and something will not work as expected or some error crops up. She eventually complains to me and I have to stop what I'm doing, get up and walk over there. As soon as I touch the mouse to investigate what's gone wrong it magically gets fixed.

It has happened so many times.

I think it's hilarious. The missus - not so much.

Ste

I don´t know how much work has been done on it, but I imagine some people just have a larger EM-field than others, and so affect electronic things. There is something known as Street Light Interference, where street lights will go out whenever a certain person passes them. And of course there are the stories of Pauli.

Hmm, I don't know about people interfering electromagnetically - would have thought the odd electo-magnetic fields computer components gnerate by themselves quite by accident interfering with each other would dwarf any human effect. Also, your computer is inside a big insulated box.

I suspect its something to do with the way she operates it.

Also, do you log on as separate users? If so, there could be things loading for her that are causing a problem which aren't for you.

Traveller in Time playing with the computer all day long
"Well I have some errors as well, rare but they happen.
Never noticed such thing on computers. Well, my son has the problem the computer does not let him win with games .

We have a remote control that only allows the user to switch the television on or off when used with confidence . "

It cant be just the keboard/mouse as we both use the same ones.

It can't be the way she operates it cus I've seen it happen when I've been sitting with her teaching her how to do things.

We normally log in as different users but it still freezes up if mum tries to use my log on as I have done recently.

As a technician I've often been involved in situations where things were fixed by simply "laying on hands." We'd usually tell the boss it was fixed by a card re-seat, even though we knew damned well the circuit card in question was seated tight when we opened it. I've also had instances where something repeatedly failed for me, then another tech tried the same thing, and it worked for him. I've been on the other side of that as well.

Then again, electronics are rather sensitive devices, with increasingly low voltage differences now registering as ones and zeroes. The card re-seat explanation, for example, could turn out to be exactly right if there were some minute dust particles or metal shavings lying across the contacts that I managed to disturb when removing the card. A backplane wire might have been loose and got jarred back into place. Who knows?

When people start talking about personal EM fields affecting electronics, it all starts heading down the road of New Age mularkey and well off the beaten path of science. I don't know of any study which has recorded significant personal EM fields. And it's worth noting that electronics generate very powerful EM fields themselves, and the circuits are protected from that as a result. For instance, one of the biggest hurdles in creating a computer that operated on a system bus over 100 MHz is that the bus acts as a radio transmitter.

Well the thing I was thinking with 'operating it differently' is timing and knowing when the computer is busy. If a computer starts chugging a bit then you'll probably notice and give it a moment to sort itself. Someone inexperienced might just keep on going through the unresponsive period, or even repeatedly try to do whatever isn't working, thus adding more load to the queue. And so the whole thing is more likely to go to hell.

Well, it certainly isn't EM fields. Any field associated with a person would be extremely low level, but more importantly would be either static or very low frequency. Low frequency signals are unlikely to interfere with electronics, and in any case the case should be earthed.

A static discharge could easily crash a computer. It is possible that your mum builds up more static due to her clothes - but again unless your computer has an earth fault it is unlikely that a charge could propagate inside to affect the electronics.

In my experience, 99% of crashes are down to software bugs or conflicts - especially if it's running products from that well-known US software company. I seem to have the ability to crash *any* Windows PC within about 2 hours, whereas many of my colleagues claim to have no problems.

Admiral Phil,
I was one of those strange individuals who couldn't wear a wristwatch for more than half an hour. It was in the pre-battery days of the Ticka-Ticka-Timex. I kept taking them back to be repaired but there was nothing found to be wrong with them.
I seem to have better luck with my computer (touches wood) fortunately.

We noticed a similar phenomenon in our household. Every time my son (the computer whizz running linux on his computer) touched my win PC, it would suddenly reboot.
I'm certainly prepared to believe that he tried to rush it, but I saw this effect happen even at the merest nudge of the mouse.

Some of these hiccups may be the result of wrong key presses, or two keys accidentally pressed together. I think that's happened to me occasionally when something unexpected occurs.

Then of course there is Sods law of fault demonstration. It can do it all day until the guy who can fix it try to make it happen.

...is there a around..?

walking as well as catfur intermingling with keyboards, fans etc can cause the most fascinating scenarios...

This is a dogs only household.

They say dogs can smell your fear. Perhaps computers can sense your technophobia.

Yesterday I actually fixed my monitor by smacking it. It has been fading from service for some time and has a few strange lines up near the top, but it's still functional, so I'm waiting for it to really, really break. Anyway, last night it started emitting a very high-pitched noise, I whacked it, and it stopped.

It takes years of training and experience, folks. Don't try this at home.

>>>Yesterday I actually fixed my monitor by smacking it.

I can top that one... The day before yesterday I actually broke my computer by plugging in a monitor

Would you believe plugging in a monitor could result in a fried hard drive? Nope, neither did I, but it can if you're as unlucky as I was!

Traveller in Time confused by cause and result
"Be glad your motherboard is not fried as well, I had such a monitor recently. "

I was most impressed several years ago when my dad told me how he'd had problems with his computer booting up due to a problem with the hdd. So he took the sides of, unmounted the drive and dropped it onto the desk from a height of 1.5inches. This was enough to 'unstick' the drive mechanism and so it booted! Who says you can;t teach old dogs new tricks?

BTW. correct term is 'performing percussive maintenance'