Technical question

[plonq]

I've got a question for some of you techies out there for an issue that, frankly, has us stumped.

The sound on atara's computer cuts out, but only in very specific circumstances. Once it cuts out the only way she can restore it is by rebooting her machine - a soft reboot usually suffices.

Anyway, it cuts out when the cat jumps down from her desk. Not any cat, just Merry. Also it doesn't cut out every time Merry jumps down from her desk either, it only does it when she has the ceramic heater behind her running. Actually this is an improvement over last winter when having Merry run past her computer would, at various times, cause it to lose its sound, lock up, or spontaneously reboot.

Nothing else causes this to happen. We can walk, stomp or tip-toe past the computer all we want and it won't cut out. I can jostle and bump the machine and it won't cut out. We can drop things on the floor and it won't cut out.

But when Merry jumps down from the desk, and the heater is running, her sound cuts out until she reboots.

So my question is: what's going on and how do we fix it?

If it's any help, we replaced her video card between then and now.

Comments

[mwalimu.livejournal.com]

Is it possible Merry's fur carries more static electricity than your other cats? See if rubbing a balloon on your shirt around the computer recreates the problem.

[pierrekrahn.livejournal.com]

That was exactly my first thought!

[pierrekrahn.livejournal.com]

You could always duct tape her to the desk so she couldn't jump down.

[mwalimu.livejournal.com]

...or duct tape toast with jelly to her back, jelly side up.

[pierrekrahn.livejournal.com]

No! Are you mad? You'll disrupt the space time continuum!

[tzisorey.livejournal.com]

Is the heater on a power-strip with the computer? Could it be shorting out ever-so-briefly, tripping out an almost-faulty soundcard?

Clearly it's an infection of evil spirits. I suggest a cleansing with rock-salt and fire.

[atara.livejournal.com]

They're plugged into the same house circut, but the heater is plugged directly into the wall, and my computer is plugged into a UPS.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

Sounds like an electrostatic problem, probably related to negative ions (which, as you know, are cat-ions.)

[fuzzytoedcollie.livejournal.com]

Did you try plugging the sound card into a different slot? Maybe something is intermittant in the current slot.

[kfops.livejournal.com]

I had a sound-card that would die periodically and only a reboot would help, but that was entirely unrelated to cats. In that case it shared an IRQ, which worked 95% of the time but every once and a while the resource would be used and cause the sound-card to create FM static and continue doing it until a reboot.

I think I had also partially damaged my sound-card during my numerous upgrades which caused this sensitivity.

Now, I don't know how to tie that back to anything cat-related, so in your case I'm probably stumped... but do you have another sound-card you could swap out in the meantime to see if it remedies the situation?

[nrasser.livejournal.com]

Truly interesting. I suggest having Merry's Thetan level audited.

If you don't have an E-meter, see if you can dig up a normal DMM or one of those "line analyzer" things with the various lights and check the ground connection at the wall outlets and through any power strips and line cords being used. If there are any line cords with the ground pin removed, replace them.

[nrasser.livejournal.com]

Also if she has powered speakers connected to the sound card they should be plugged into the same power source as the computer power supply, in this case the UPS.

[furahi.livejournal.com]

As an alternative to rebooting, and if she's running Windows Vista or later, you can try right clicking on the volume icon in the system tray, open playback devices, double click on the sound card, go to the advanced tab and changing the default format to something else; click on test (which may give you a warning you can safely ignore), then change that back to what it was and hit OK
Sound (may) be restored!