[olug] Keyboard/Mouse Failure

[Sean Edwards]

It is very easy to check the power.

Set a multimeter to AC 200V, turn it on, and place
each probe of a multimeter into each slit of the
socket (not the ground connection if there is one). 
If the voltage varies greater than +/- 5 volts, you
may have a power problem.  

Also, use your multimeter to check the Amps coming out
of the socket.  If your computer power supply requires
5 Amps, and only 3 are available at that socket, then
you will have problems.  When houses were built about
80 years ago, 110V at 30Amps was enough for a 3
bedroom bungalow.  With all of the electric devices
making modern life easier and safer, 30Amps is no way
enough for a modern house (on a side note, the IEEE is
developing an RFP to increase the automotive electric
supply stadard from 12V to 36V to handle  automotive
electronic device requirements).

Since I am a hobbiest with this stuff, please verify
the information below with a certified electrician!

1) You may want to increase the circuit breaker in
your electric box.  Let's say I have a 10 amp 110V
circuit.  Let's also say I have a computer monitor at
3 amps and a computer at 3 amps each.  Let's also say
I have my home stereo at 2 amps plugged into that
circuit as well.  So far, we have 8 amps on a circuit
with a 10 amp breaker.  It may be that the extra load
from a new device won't be enough to trip the breaker,
but enough to cause problems.

2) You could have ground problems with your electrical
system.  Since electricity always looks for the
fastest path to ground, make sure the ground in the
socket actually connects to a wire back to the
electrical supply box, and the box is grounded with a
grounding rod, in the ground, outside your house. 
Also make sure there is only one ground point for you
electrical service.  A ground-loop from multiple
ground points is like having no ground point.

Again, since I am a hobbiest with this stuff, please
verify the information above with a certified
electrician!

Lastly, it could be an issue of "dirty power", where
the problem lies in the electrical service before
entering your property.  Unfortunatley, not much can
be done about that.

-=Sean Edwards=-
cybersean3000 at yahoo.com

--- Tim Bornholtz <tim at bornholtz.com> wrote:
> I know you're kidding about borrowing your friends
> electricity but you 
> may be on to something there.  This past weekend I
> was fixing my 
> brother's PC and it was having extremely weird and
> intermittent 
> problems.  I thought the motherboard was flaky so I
> bought another one.  
> When I plugged that one in things just seemed to get
> worse.
> 
> It ended up that the power supply was going bad.  It
> seemed to have 
> barely enough juice to fire up the old motherboard
> sometimes but the new 
> motherboard must have required more power and the PS
> just couldn't drive 
> it.  I put in a new power supply and everything
> works great.
> 
> So if you have a spare power supply sitting around
> (I yanked one out of 
> a good PC for testing) then try throwing that in
> there to check it.
> 
> 
> -Tim
> 
> 
> Joe Catanzaro wrote:
> 
> > I'm at a total loss, so I'm turning to you guys
> for this one. I bought 
> > a new motherboard to upgrade a PC I'm working on
> here at home. When I 
> > power it up, the keyboard and mouse don't work.
> Swapped out input 
> > devices. Still nothing. More troubleshooting.
> Still nothing. Took it 
> > back (twice, two days apart) to the place I
> purchased it and their 
> > service dept. was able to get both input devices
> working just fine 
> > both times. So I'm about to drive around to my
> friends' houses asking 
> > them if I can try the PC using their electricity.
> It's the only thing 
> > different from the service center. Anyone have a
> clue what might be 
> > the problem. I've been working on this for about a
> week and it's been 
> > constant. Not maybe. Not every-once-in-a-while.
> But perfect at the 
> > service center, null at my house.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Joe Catanzaro
> > joecatanzaro at cox.net
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > OLUG at olug.org
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> 
> 
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