Measuring fluctuations of earth's magnetic fields inside a pc ?

Also if true... how do they make an atomic clock ?

I would guess it would be shielded from earth magnetic fields ?! ;)

So my theory of cpu speed fluctuations because of magnetic fields might be already confirmed by the shielding for the atomic clock ;)

Or alternatively the atomic clock is not shielded from magnetic fields and therefore "they" are being fooled into believing it runs on time ! ;) :)

Bye, Skybuck :)

I also wonder if it's possible at all to "shield" anything from magnetic fields or earth's (electro(?)) magnetic fields ?!

It seems to go through the earth just fine... so why would it be stopped by anything on earth ?!?

Seems kinda contradictionatory to me ! ;) :)

Bye, Skybuck.

One last explanation is that the atomic clock builders are aware of this and know that the atomic clock does run inprecise now and then ;)

What would happen if the atomic clock is hit by electromagnetic fields from an earth quake ? ;)

Hmm...

Bye, Skybuck.

This link explains an atomic clock a little bit:

It does mention "shielding".

No further explanation of this concept is given...

Me go lookup magnetic shielding ! ;)

Bye, Skybuck.

hmm.. it seems it has something to do with "waves" and/or "particles"...

I guess it's particles after all since they mention "light photons"... so light could be a wave of photons...

So maybe magnetic fields stuff is waves of electrons or whatever...

Shielding seems to be about to somehow "extract" these electrons from the air and guide them over metals or so.

This could mean that maybe simple sticking a wire into a soundblaster's mic input might be able to capture some of these magnetic fields/particles ?!

Maybe this is what causes the "noise" ;)

Me not sure about that.

But suppose it's true... suppose that the "snow" on a television or the "noise" on a soundblaster is earth's magnetic fields/particles interaction with the device then at least this is a way to visualize the earth's magnetic field...

Next time there is an earthquake observe the "snow" on a television to see what happens ! ;)

The snow does look somewhat regular during normal days so maybe this offers some kind of statistical analysis possibility...

As long as the snow looks "normal" then everything is ok...

During an earthquake build up the snow might start to look weird... or develop certain statistical properties... maybe more clustering or so...

This could be detectable and offer an early earthquake warning system ?! ;)

Bye, Skybuck.

Yes, of course there is! It's the fuse in the power supply. If the ambient field goes high enough to bring the switchmode inductor into saturation, the result is a short circuit, and the fuse blows.

It's only a one-bit measurement, of course.

No. Nothing.

John

I think I now understand why cellphones trigger CRT monitors when they are "called".

CRT monitors have a deguassing coil... I think the energy from the mobile phone enters into the coil... triggering a degaussing !

Magnetic fields were also used by the germans to make mines that detect metal ships ?! Hmm :)

Bye, Skybuck ! ;) :)

It's kinda interesting... CRT televisions seem to do this when they switch on... next time I stand back a bit just in case ;) I usually do that anyway...

Maybe the deguassing of a CRT monitor could be used to whipe the contents of a harddisk...

Hold the harddisk against the CRT monitor and switch it on... and see what happens.

I better not do that with my own harddisks ?! ;) This also means a repair man that doesn't know about this might be screwed ;)

Maybe I try this with a floppy disk to see if the floppy disk gets "deguassed" by the CRT monitor/television ! ;)

Bye, Skybuck.

It can even make "modern harddisks" totally unusuable so be warned ! ;)

This does prove cellphones can be dangerous...

Anybody carrieing a cellphone and standing next to a coil or some kind of deguassing thingy could trigger wipeout of data... for example somebody else standing next to him and holding a harddisk.

Cellphones seem to have some kind of protection from magnetic fields and such... it's kinda remarkable that they can hold data at all ? but maybe the lack of a strong degaussing coil explains that... I have yet to see a picture of a such a degaussing coil ?!?

I wonder if cellphones are disallowed in data centers ? Probably yes ?! ;) :)

Airplanes probably too for good reason...

It's also kinda remarkable that IBM choose a magnetic medium for storage... magnetic fields everywhere... kinda surprising that it works at all...

I have been lucky too... my crt television is only 1 meter away from my harddisks... any closer and I might have had a problem ?!

This could be a good reason to replace it with something else... a lcd based television to get rid of the deguassing coils to make sure my harddisks last longer ?!

I am not sure what the range of the deguassing coil/field is ?!?

I did have some file system related corruption lately... but I guessed it was from crashes in the past ?!?

Also sometimes the flash chip inside the digital camera... and the digital camera says: "unable to read flash chip..." then I try again and then it does read it... maybe dirt or is it some magnetic interference going on ? There are some wifi things here and there from neighbours and such...

Hmm...

Well so far so good ! ;)

Bye, Skybuck.

Your CRT. You orient it horizontal instead of vertical, and as you rotate it, you will see the colors change, because of the Earth's magnetic flux.

You are an absolute retard. Stay OUT of the electronics industry. We do not need another dope like you.

Yeah, I meant to say that.

John

memory

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Absolutely NOT! The earth's magnetic field is four or five orders of magnitude to small to affect transistors or anything else in a computer. If there are random errors as you postulate, they likely would be caused by cosmic rays or high energy particles from deep space. However, all circuits that are vulnerable use error correction routines to keep the actual error rate vanishingly small. You could never detect errors in this manner.

Don't forget the Skybuck Effect, which causes expensive computer components to self-destruct frequently with no apparent cause.

John

He said "inside a pc [sic]". So that only works if he's got an iMac. Anything else and he's SOL.

Tim

Quantum Components

Generally describe as so when no logical explanation came be found!

The earth's magnetic field is FAR too weak to affect anything in a standard computer. Memory bit-flips are caused by cosmic rays or other ionizing radiation, not magnetic fields.

....

Magnetic shielding is done with magnetic materials, typically iron alloys. They prevent external magnetic fields from getting inside, or internal ones from getting out.

The earth's iron core is what generates the fields. The main body of the earth isn't made of magnetic materials, so the field goes through them just fine.

If we all started running in one (rotational) direction at once, it would cause the earth to spin faster, and so might increase the field. That idea is no sillier than some of the others in this thread.

Regards, Nick Maclaren.