Can a human unknowingly cause electronics to malfunction.

ladi — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 05:41:47 GMT

Why do I short circuit electronics? In the past two years I have crashed two printers (one was a year old the other 2 months), three lap tops (all within a year of the purchase, the last one with in 8 months of it's purchase), one monitor (two years old), one back up hard drive (not even a month old). I think this is too much bad electronic luck for coincidence. Can a person's stress level affect other items in their lives. I work on the computer, so I am with my electronics at least 8 hours a day.

I am adding more information since this has been mentioned as a possible electrical malfunction. Not all the electronics are in the same place. Some are in my home office, some are in my work office and some are in a warehouse. The electronics are not together in one location. If they were I could see that it could be an electrical problem, but it seems unlikely that I would have electrical problems everywhere. Also: My partner has his computer equipment and printers in the same places. He has a different office in our house and he has a separate office in the warehouse. None of his electronics are having the difficulties that mine seem to have. Any more ideas out there?

RE: Can a human unknowingly cause electronics to malfunction.

Mr.Jqna — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 06:05:57 GMT

I have heard of this before. Some people give off more electricity than others, but it is very rare what you are talking about. Let’s consider another scenario. If all or most of these electronics are being used in one location such as your home or at your place of employment, it could be as simple as an electrical problem.

RE: Can a human unknowingly cause electronics to malfunction.

Jay aka EET — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 06:21:21 GMT

My dentist does not wear a watch because they always stop.

RE: Can a human unknowingly cause electronics to malfunction.

Eric Kinney — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:19:41 GMT

My sister says the same thing, and that it's not limited to watches, but other electronics. I don't believe it, but there you go.

To study it more, a related topic is SLI -- because street lights have a thing they do where they shut off sometimes then after cooling down come back on again, many people because they are there when it happens, begin to think they cause it. It started the phrase "street light interference" or SLI. They call themselves "SLIders".

RE: Can a human unknowingly cause electronics to malfunction.

Jared — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:10:58 GMT

Yahh its called destruction

RE: Can a human unknowingly cause electronics to malfunction.

Shaft — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 02:22:39 GMT

"James" is absolutely correct. You should check the voltage in your house. if it is too high (above 123v) or too low (below 116v) you will burn out any sensitive electronics rather quickly. As a former troubleshooter for a power company I have seen this many times. Also "SLI" isnt the cause of the streetlights going out. The light is cycling, usually indicating to those who maintain them that the light is failing and should be replaced/repaired.

RE: Can a human unknowingly cause electronics to malfunction.

odess — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:55:46 GMT

A frequent cause of "burnout" are voltage "spikes" (or surges), which can happen at many different locations, and are not limited only to your home, but which frequently occur on a power grid. Such a surge can burn out the device power supply (Is this what hapened to your devices?).

The common precaution, which solves the problem most of the time, is the SURGE ARRESTOR -- a small, inexpensive device which is connected between the electric outlet and the device power input. I recommend that you install these with any device that you want to protect, especially computers & TV's.

RE: Can a human unknowingly cause electronics to malfunction.

Phil Means — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:59:31 GMT

The problem is static electricity. It is the effect you get when it is dry and you walk across carpet then touch something metal and you get shocked. This is the same thing, only one a smaller scale, but with the density of the electronic circuitry today it takes verly little to short circuit them. Some people, obvously, have a worse problem with it than others. A female worker during her period is more dangerous to electronic circuitry than other times.

Before the problem was understood it was called out of box failure. In other words an electronic unit that tested fine in the factory would fail when hooked up by the customer, or would fail within a few weeks. Motorola did a study by having an employ walk around the factory all day carrying transistors loose in a box. All the transistors were checked before they were put in the box and all checked good but at the end of the day the failure rate was over 50%.

A question I have is the grounding in all the sights you experience the problem. Are all of them hard grounded (wired to a pole in the ground). Do not depend on your power companies ground because it is poor and floating. The third wire on the plug should go to a hard ground. For your situation you need a grounding strap to wear on your wrist when ever you are working or operating electronic circuits. They make elastic ones or nice looking metal expansion bracelets with a wire attached that you plug or clip onto a ground.

In the electronic repair world you are called the one that can cause a failure in a circuit brought by a customer and nobody can get it to fail. So it would be given to you to cause the failure and them be able to fix the problem. All employs of electronic manufacturers are required to wear a ground strap whenever they are at their workbench. Failure to do so results in immediate termination. From this you can see it is a serious problem.

But the problem is you. Check what material of clothes you like to wear, if it is silk material or some of the polyester material that can be a cause for you. Are your shoes rubber or leather soled? Is your shirt and pants made from different types of fabric? It sounds silly, but it is real. Hopefully I have been helpful.

RE: Can a human unknowingly cause electronics to malfunction.

aching bones — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:45:22 GMT

Yes, you yourself can be doing these things to your stuff. I had a cousin who had to have a leather band made to go around his wrist, and then the watch hooked on to the top of the band. It has something to do with the electrons in our body. My daughter attractes lightning she has to go to a room with no windows, its wierd. You might try putting on a pair of latax gloves, those will fit tight so you will be able to type, also if you are near any type of college see if you can speak to the science or chemistry professor you might get some really helpful info there. Hope this helps a little.So far Phil has been your best answer just he should tell you where to buy the strap.

RE: Can a human unknowingly cause electronics to malfunction.

clacon123 — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:10:39 GMT

I can hypothesize since there are so many variables that might come into play here. My first thought after reading this is you are just a bad luck person LOL. But really -stress and personal emottion can NOT disrupt electronics. But many things you do or act upon or your lifestyle could. First thing that came to mind was static electricity - the worst nemisis of electronics.

STATIC: What kind of shoes you wear - clothes your wear (poluesters or hi-impedance materials perhaps - etc. All those could easily acect your eqipment and not all equipment has bee protectedin te same manner.

One thing I would do is to make certain that all equipment sat on an antistat mat - a mat made with carbon filled and hence - electrically conductive materials. these must be grounded and usually come with some kind of snap on lead wire to tie to earth ground. One end of the lead clips tot he mat - the other has a ring lug to put onder a wall electrical plate screw. In dry climates (northern in winter IE) static can build to 1000s of volts and be very dangerous to sensitvie equipment.

also - a small anti stat or metal mat can be placed near the equipment to discharge your body. It is a small version of the prior mat - andis simply conductive (small cloth mat or even a piece of metal) - this mt is tied to earth ground. Prior to using any equipment you touch the mat discharging your boady. This is for the same reason they request you touch ground or the pump-case at a gas pump prior to fueling - esp in the winter - to aboid static arcs that can cause explosiond from gas vapors. . Beyond setting the equipment onto a conductive mat and utilizing a condutive finger ground mat -

The next place I would look is for static or noice comingin on the power line. Make sure you have a power line conditioner -not just a surge supressor. Surge suprressors capture and shunt out high level energy spikes that migh blow out components. They dont do anythng about noise and such. to clean out EMI or RFI and other typed of interference that may cause you to fail - some conditioners incorporate the add circuitry to filter out the noise. Moost UPS units have built in surge and noise suppession. Lastly - watch how clean and protected the modem or DSL or other lines are. THese can also be run through a surge and line conditioner. Many UPS's can protect and clean all these in a single unit.

As for being angry or mad causing failures - dont throw the equipment around in a rage - it should be fine.

RE: Can a human unknowingly cause electronics to malfunction.

funnybean14 — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:08:41 GMT

May I add to this question? I have the same issues and then some. I cannot wear watches. I cannot put batteries into a clock. I cause store alarms to go off. I have killed more electronics than I can name. When I am stressed, angry, or super excited, it is much worse. When I am feeling this way, I cannot get any computer to work AT ALL (home, office, friends houses, etc). I have demagnetized magnets (can't be around them at all). When I walk into a room with stop watches, they start to beep. I cannot sit near sound equipment or it fails/causes static. I have killed two infocus projectors. I have killed a surround sound system. I have killed a video camera. My car computer board has gone out in two cars I have owned. The electronic locks on my current car have failed several times after being "fixed". I once touched a computer screen and the file I touched opened (did not touch anything else and it was NOT a touch screen). When I am particularly anxious, my cell phone shuts itself off. When I am at a presentation, just as a participant, and I am irritated at being there, the electronics usually go haywire. Everyone I know says that I have weird electromagnetic stuff going on, but I want a "real" answer for what happens around me. Any ideas?

RE: Can a human unknowingly cause electronics to malfunction.

skye-lab — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:55:38 GMT

Given the quality of much electronics at present it would not be impossible for all the events to have normal causes - but a paranormal cause is not impossible. I would like to do an interview to get more information - some of which may seem not entirely relevant., but which is. Ideally we woud laos be able to conduct some tests using lab equipment here at Skye-Lab, but at present this is only possible if you live in the UK. There have been other quite well rsearched cases - and of course Uri Geller was said to have abilities in tis area.

RE: Can a human unknowingly cause electronics to malfunction.

Windows — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:52:33 GMT

You should as k your doctor if you are carrying an magnetic force around you, and if so it is danreous to you and those arround

RE: Can a human unknowingly cause electronics to malfunction.

curiousOne — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 22:12:44 GMT

Did you try using your partner's equipment the way it is connected atm? to see if the fact that YOU are using them, is causing the problem.

If not, it is possible you connected the equipment badly - for instance i have issues with my work computer, it turns off whenever i start working on it, when someone else sits on it, its fine. I figured out that the power cable is tied to my mouse, and when i pull the mouse, i move the power cable. The other person uses a wireless mouse -- that's why they dont have a problem.

So the problem may be HOW you use your equipment, or how you connected it.