P4's and X10 Wireless

[Tazman]

Here's a strange one for y'all. My electrician ran this by me.

He just built a new box on an Asus board with a Cellerie 1.7GHz. Ever since hooking this computer up to his LAN, his remote control (rf) won't shut off his lights with the computer running. It works fine if his Athalon box is running, just the P4 rig is srcewy.

He then told me about a house he wired last year. The guy who had it built spent well over a million on it (must be nice ). Anyhew, the guy wanted the whole house wireless (lights, cameras, etc.). Everything worked great until he bought a Dell laptop which happens to be a P4. Now the remotes won't work when the lappie is on.

My house is in the process of being automated (when I get time). So far I have about 5 rooms that have wireless wall switches, cameras, and lamp appliance modules all interfaced with my main box (AMD). The olny P4 I happen to have on my LAN is my Sager P4 laptop and I haven't had a problem with the remotes with it running.

So my question(s). Bear in mind that the last Intel rig I built was a dually PIII 866 (I'm not trying to turn this into an Intel vs. AMD issue )).

Do y'all think that maybe the frequency the P4's (and celleries) run on might be interfering with the 2.4GHz spectrum the X10's run on? Do y'all think I'm barking up the wrong tree?

The only thing I can see between the two houses that are the same is the P4's. What confuses me is mine doesn't seem to be affected by this issue.

Anyone ever run into something like this? Comments?

TIA!

Mike

[Siliconjunkie]

Were they running X10 as well or something else?

I see where you are making your connections, and it does make sense, but there is something that just doesnt "feel right" about it. I would lean towards power supplies causing something like this rather than processors. Unless the VRM or something is giving some kind of feedback via the power supply. A little tinkering with an oscilloscope would probably tell you more. Wonder if a UPS would isolate it enough to fix it.

[Tazman]

Siliconjunkie -

I agree that something doesn't "feel right" about it. I thought about the power supplies / fans / hard drives but kinda ruled them out when he told me about the laptop doing the same thing (not sure of what the Dell laptop P/S is but it can't compare to the 450Watt P/S in the P4).

Good idea with the oscilloscope - I'll give that a shot tomorrow and see what I can find.

Mike