Posted by culverpratt on
URL: https://www.es-forum.com/shielding-a-computer-keyboard-mouse-tp1543473p1543541.html

Garth, thank you very much. I guess it might be worth a try,
difficult as it will be to snake a grounding wire to a distant window
and put a hole in the screen or something (ah, another issue: metal
screen in an aluminum window frame!).  

I talked to an 'emf expert' (Stephen Scott in Mill Valley, CA, speaks
re EMFs at conferences, + is a licensed electrical contractor) and it
would take $thousands to fix the wiring ($10-20k to rewire the house,
he said, if he did it). So that is not happening any time soon, if
ever.

Thanks very much for replying.

--Soula

--- In [hidden email], Garth Hitchens <garth@...> wrote:
>
>
> I would think it would work fine to attach a grounding wire to a  
> grounding rod in the way you describe. I would unplug the  
> computer while installing the grounding wire to prevent any
electric  
> shock hazard in case there is a fault in the computer power supply.
>
> Finally, I grew up in a very old house with knob and tube wiring -
 
> many of these old houses have quite high magnetic and electric
fields  
> because the old wiring did not run in matched pairs, and therefore  
> did not cancel magnetic/electric fields. I'm not sure what the  
> cure is unless you want to rewire with modern wiring. Grounding
the  
> computer won't cure the fields throughout the house due to
unmatched  
> wiring.
>
> Garth
>
> On Feb 21, 2007, at 2:23 PM, culverpratt wrote:
>
> > Thanks for replying, Marc and Garth -- I have been unable to read
> > messages until I finally came back to work today (because of the
> > wiring problems which make my own computer/keyboard/mouse put out
a
> > high electric field, I have not been plugging it in). I'll try to
get
> > time "between work" to write some.
> >
> > My computer does have a 3-prong cord -- it is the house wiring
(1910-
> > built
> > house) that is screwed up and so nothing is ever actually
grounded,
> > apparently. Outlet testers show a variety of results from
different
> > receptacles in the house, but this appears to be meaningless since
> > when I tried plugging a long grounded orange
> > extension cord in to other places in the house that were
> > supposedly "ok", I still got the high electric field from the
> > entire computer and any peripherals plugged into it. Same thing
from
> > anything else in the house as well as the metal plumbing
> > fixtures (not so wide a field though). I have 2 outlet testers,
and
> > some outlets show contradictory results on one or the other
tester.
> > So I am staying away from
> > anything plugged in, as well as some walls that put out a high
> > electric field for 4-5 feet, and some ceilings when the lights are
> > switched on (crawling on the floor is okay). I turn on the water
> > with a rubber spatula. What a hilarious sitcom this would make.
> >
> > QUESTION: I don't suppose it would work to attach a grounding
wire to
> > a metal screw on the backplate of the computer and take that out
the
> > window to a grounding rod? Seems unlikely because it would still
be
> > attached to the rest of the ungrounded system, right?
> >
> >
> >
> >