[Novalug] OT - any advice on weird "environmental" problem?

Jay Hart jhart@kevla.org
Wed Apr 20 23:19:42 EDT 2011


Randy,

Sounds like a power related problem to me.  Run an extension cord up to the
3rd floor and power her PC from it, let me know what happens.

Jay

> Hello, I apologize for going off-topic, but this is the best resource I
> could think of for an odd problem, and I really could use some help.
>
>
>
> I'm the "IT guy" for an office housed in a townhouse type of building -
> ground floor, two upper floors plus basement. Servers, switches, and other
> networking gear is all on the 2nd floor.
>
>
>
> About two months ago, our sole colleague on the third floor (a graphics
> person) began complaining of slowness with Quark Xpress, Photoshop and so
> on. I kindof wrote it off as inefficient file management on her part - the
> files she creates are *huge* -- much larger than graphics files normally
> are. However, she then started complaining about slow access to any files
> not local on her computer - network shares, emails, stuff on ftp sites, you
> name it. "Slow access" meaning, several minutes to open a 300KB Word doc.
> Often, her large graphics files would simply crash the application.
>
>
>
> After routine troubleshooting/antivirus/etc on her machine and software
> turned up nothing, I found that she experienced the same issues on a wired
> or wireless connection. She is using a MacBook Pro and booting natively into
> Windows 7. I rebooted her machine as a Macintosh, and experienced the same
> problem. I then brought my personal machine up to her office, which is an
> almost exact duplicate of hers. I too experienced the same problems,
> regardless of mac/win, wired/wireless.
>
>
>
> Here is where it gets strange. I brought my machine back down to my desk on
> the 2nd floor to research, and noticed that the terrible slowness problem
> had vanished. Everything was working fine, as usual. So I brought her
> machine down to the 2nd floor, and it too began working fine! I verified
> this with mac/win, wired/wireless. In fact, I ran an extra long cable from
> her machine straight into the switch, and was able to access files from the
> 2nd floor fine. Without doing anything at all, I carried the machine (still
> attached to long cable) up to her 3rd floor office, and the problem came
> back. I then walked back down to the 2nd floor, and problem went away.
> Again, no reboot, no logoff, no unplugging, no retarting of software - the
> only variable I know of that changed was the physical location of the
> computer, and the fact that I double-clicked the file icon again to try
> opening it again.
>
>
>
> The only other thing I noticed was a new wireless AP somewhere (residential
> units back up against our office) with a signal in her office that is
> stronger than our own wireless AP. I would not think that would have any
> effect though, especially since I was able to duplicate the condition on a
> wired connection, with the wireless card turned off.
>
>
>
> If anybody has any tips, or can get me pointed in a new direction, or can
> recommend an environmental specialists or witch doctor or something, I would
> be very appreciative. She flatly refuses to go back to her office, and now
> in fact says that she no longer needs her glasses to see her screen, lol.
> (My joke about fallout from the Japanese power plant probably did not help.)
>
>
>
> Again, I apologize for going so far off topic, but I am at my wit's end, and
> the people who now have to share an office with her aren't happy. Thank you
> for reading!
>
>
>
> Randy Johnson
>
>
>
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