Wirt Atmar wrote
| The second effect is that of strong time-varying magnetic fields that are
| over time degaussing your hard drives. As the information on the discs
| becomes increasingly degraded and harder to read, the PC should act
flakier
| and flakier as time goes on. In effect, it should grow "old". In the end,
| after enough of this, it's information and behavior will be irrecoverable.
| The only cure at that point would be a reformat of the discs and a reload
of
| the operating system.
|
| If it is the second effect that is causing your problem, the only cures
are
| (i) get the PC out of the environment that is causing the problem or (ii)
| build a mu-metal shield around the PC, using the optical isolators that
Jeff
| suggested for the feed through lines.

I have looked around, and there is a transformer on the wall outside the
office in question, about 10-12 feet from the PC, so I am thinking that is
the problem.  Also, one of the cables going to a saw passes even closer on
it's way out to the saw.

I was thinking that placing the PC on the other side of office would place
the PC more like 16 feet from the transformer and perhaps that might be
enough, or there is another office we can move the PC to that will require a
little more work in terms of cabling.  Would it matter that the cable to the
saw passes like 6 feet away from the transformer?  Also, would it be
possible to shield the transformer?  It's attached to the wall about 7 feet
up in the air and is about 3 feet high and about 2 feet across (not that the
dimensions probably matter).

The PC he used to have would just start booting on its own, besides all the
times that it froze up and had to be rebooted.  On the PC he is using now,
it is more subtle.  One day, the video driver program disappeared out of the
systray and everything on the monitor was very dark.  I restored this driver
off the recovery disks, but I still can't recall ever seeing a PC come up
with a very dim display (that can't be improved) and then suddenly adjust
when the video driver icon appears. And all sorts of other little things
have gone wrong with it, none of which are show stoppers, but it is not
improved by doing a reboot, either.

            Tom Hula
            Victor S. Barnes Company
            616-361-7351  x173