[nfbcs] With silent disk, how do you know?

[Doug Lee]

My technique is similar, though now without Radio Shack I haven't located alternative sources for these two items:

I bought a telephone pickup coil, also called an induction coil (looks like a suction cup on a microphone cable with a mini plug at the other end) and a $25.00 small battery-powered amplifier. I can use the coil-and-amp
combination to detect lots of things with more precision than an AM radio I think: CPU activity, drive (sometimes even SSD) activity, fan speed, router status and, to some extent, throughput, etc.

But each device is unique; you learn what yours sound like in various states.

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 02:02:39PM +0000, NFBCS mailing list wrote:
Get an A M radio, put it on an empty frequency and place it near various parts of the computer. The sound of the whines, buzzes and burps can tell you a lot, especially when you have learned what "normal" sounds like. You probably won't experience dead silence even when the computer is off, because various power supplies will still be running and creating noise. This alternative technique also works in determining the state of cell phones, tablets, PC monitors, digital talking book players, etc.

Lloyd Rasmussen, Senior Staff Engineer
National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress
Washington, DC 20542   202-707-0535
http://www.loc.gov/nls/
The preceding opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Library of Congress, NLS.


-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Tracy Carcione via nfbcs
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2018 9:26 AM
To: nfbcs at nfbnet.org
Cc: Tracy Carcione
Subject: [nfbcs] With silent disk, how do you know?

With the new silent disks, how do you know your computer is doing something, when Jaws goes silent?  For instance, I have trouble making sure my new laptop is on.  I can feel a tiny draft from the fan, but it's very subtle.
Or, just now, my old work desktop decided to do an automatic update, and Jaws stopped talking.  The only way I knew the PC was still working was that I could hear the disk spinning, and, when it rebooted after the update, spinning for another few minutes before Jaws finally came up.
So, with the new silent discs, how do you know something is happening and you should just wait a bit?
Tracy



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-- 
Doug Lee                 dgl at dlee.org                http://www.dlee.org
Level Access             doug.lee at LevelAccess.com    http://www.LevelAccess.com
"If you refuse to be made straight when you are green,
you will not be made straight when you are dry." {African}