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Re: Very strange system/sound problem



Philipp Schulte <philipp.schulte@arcormail.de> wrote:

> > I am running Debian Potato on a machine which is totally SCSI ( I
> > feel that way myself sometimes) and includes a PlexWriter
> > CD-Writer and a SoundBlaster Live 1024.
> > 
> > I hadn't used my machine this morning and I happened to enter the
> > room to hear clicks coming from both speakers.  I tried lsmod and
> > no sound modules were loaded.  I also discovered that every
> > movement of the mouse produced rapid clicks from the speakers. 
> > The mouse, by the way, is on IRQ 5 and the sound card on an IRQ
> > above 10.
> > 
> > Using the keyboard also produced clicks as did ejecting the CD
> > tray (no CD).
> > 
> > I decided to close down and reboot the machine.  The clicks
> > continued right through closedown and didn't stop until the
> > machine actually started to reboot.
> 
> Did the clicks stop after the reboot?

Yes for about 4 hours then started up again gradually becoming more pronounced with
time.

> To me it sounds like a physical phenomenon - not software. You have to
> realize that there are many different forms of electricity inside a
> computer system and under special circumstances they might produce
> strange things. Do you know about "induction"?
> Phil

It may well be physical (yes I know about Induction).  The first time it happened I
tried to reboot immediately but the boot wouldn't go past the SCSI bios part so I
powered down and left the machine off for about 30 minutes and then restarted.

After about 4 hours the sound problem restarted and when trying to reboot the machine
it again wouldn't go past the SCSI bios part.  I turned off again for about 5 minutes
and restarted.  That was about 24 hours ago with no recurrence of the problem yet!!!

My suspects are in order of likelyhood:

Mains electricity supply (although the computer is on an UPS).
Faulty component somewhere.
Software.

I have never come across anything like this before but then I've not had a sound card
before and with the speakers turned off there is no indication of any problem.

I shall wait and see what happens over time.

Barry Samuels



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