• Welcome to the new Internet Infidels Discussion Board, formerly Talk Freethought.

Weird Computer Thing

ZiprHead

ZiprHead

Loony Running The Asylum
Staff member
Joined
Oct 22, 2002
Messages
38,956
Location
Frozen in Michigan
Gender
Old Fart
Basic Beliefs
Don't be a dick.
Just got home and my laptop is sitting on the table next to me, not asleep but the screen is blanked out as instructed to do so after 15 minutes. Windows Media Player is open but paused with sound synced to a BT speaker.

I picked up the cable tv remote and hit the system on button. Not only did the cable box and tv turned on but the computer screen lit up and WMP started playing. The computer is an HP Probook 6550b with no camera installed. The cable remote is infrared only, no RF.

Why did my computer start up and start playing music when I hit the cable remote???
 
ZiprHead said:
Just got home and my laptop is sitting on the table next to me, not asleep but the screen is blanked out as instructed to do so after 15 minutes. Windows Media Player is open but paused with sound synced to a BT speaker.

I picked up the cable tv remote and hit the system on button. Not only did the cable box and tv turned on but the computer screen lit up and WMP started playing. The computer is an HP Probook 6550b with no camera installed. The cable remote is infrared only, no RF.

Why did my computer start up and start playing music when I hit the cable remote???
Click to expand...

Can you do it again?
 
I've seen laptops with IR receivers. I don't see such listed on the specs of your machine, though.
 
Agreed. That's why it's so weird. Been a real good computer though. i5 processor and 8 gigs of ram. Bought it used a few years ago for $90.

I'm going down for the night so I'm going to recreate the conditions from this afternoon and see what happens.
 
ZiprHead said:
Agreed. That's why it's so weird. Been a real good computer though. i5 processor and 8 gigs of ram. Bought it used a few years ago for $90.

I'm going down for the night so I'm going to recreate the conditions from this afternoon and see what happens.
Click to expand...
I would also suggest going through the motions without actually pushing the button. My computer has very weird reactions to motions in the house. Sometimes it'll wake up when I walk by, sometimes it won't wake up even if I bump the mouse. It didn't used to be weird, until I loaded the FoldingAtHome software.
 
Tried it this morning. Could not get it to repeat the actions. I guess I'll just chalk it up to computers act weird sometimes.
 
Are they both hooked to the WIFI? That'd be the only thing I could think of.
 
Its probably not the remote itself that caused your computer to turn on. When you pressed the remote, you also caused the TV and your cable box to turn on as well. In the process of turning on, the TV probably created a noise spike on the power line, which was propagated to and sensed by your computer. I have a similar issue, in that when I turn on/off my table lamp, or the main light switch for the room, my computer chimes as if I plugged/unplugged a USB device from the computer. It doesn't do it 100% of the time though. I've always wondered if it has to do with the fact that my surge protected power strip requires a grounded outlet, but my room only has ungrounded outlets. So, maybe its not shunting/filtering the powerline noise spikes like it should.
 
thebeave said:
Its probably not the remote itself that caused your computer to turn on. When you pressed the remote, you also caused the TV and your cable box to turn on as well. In the process of turning on, the TV probably created a noise spike on the power line, which was propagated to and sensed by your computer. I have a similar issue, in that when I turn on/off my table lamp, or the main light switch for the room, my computer chimes as if I plugged/unplugged a USB device from the computer. It doesn't do it 100% of the time though. I've always wondered if it has to do with the fact that my surge protected power strip requires a grounded outlet, but my room only has ungrounded outlets. So, maybe its not shunting/filtering the powerline noise spikes like it should.
Click to expand...

You have UNgrounded outlets in your home?

Shit, America really is part of the Third World.
 
Lots of houses out here don't have three prong grounded outlets. Grounded outlets wasn't required by the code until sometime in the early '60's I think. My house was built in 1957. Though I've done some remodeling and upgraded to grounded outlets when I could, but lots are still not. You still find unpolarized ungrounded outlets as well.
 
thebeave said:
Lots of houses out here don't have three prong grounded outlets. Grounded outlets wasn't required by the code until sometime in the early '60's I think. My house was built in 1957. Though I've done some remodeling and upgraded to grounded outlets when I could, but lots are still not. You still find unpolarized ungrounded outlets as well.
Click to expand...

Americans are crazy.

Introduced in 1947: http://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/British1.html

By 1957, ungrounded sockets were at least a decade out of date.
 
thebeave said:
Lots of houses out here don't have three prong grounded outlets. Grounded outlets wasn't required by the code until sometime in the early '60's I think. My house was built in 1957. Though I've done some remodeling and upgraded to grounded outlets when I could, but lots are still not. You still find unpolarized ungrounded outlets as well.
Click to expand...
I have the same issue. The only grounded outlets I have in the main part of the home are near water, ie the Kitchen and Bathroom sinks. My basement has grounded, but that was installed much later after 1962 when my home was built. Oddly enough, no one has died in the 50+ year life of the house.
 
Is the BT speaker also connected to the TV/Cable box? WMP could be acting as a media server and unpaused when it sensed what it thought was the speaker turning on/off.
 
Nope, but I've noticed the BT speaker reacts to the cable/TV remote. It changes the input setting on the BT speaker so I think the computer sensed the change. I can see that happening to wake up the computer but to play the paused WMP is weird.
 
Does the speaker have its own IR remote or receiver? Bluetooth devices can pause/play remotely, so if the TV-on signal was misinterpreted by the speaker, you might have started playing the file...
 
Yes, it does. But I haven't been able to reproduce it. I do know the remote control for the tv does do something to the speaker.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom