Bill Rubin <rubin@watson.ibm.com> (05/29/91)
I was at my in-law's this past week, and ran into a strange problem. Maybe someone out there can help diagnose it for me. First, my setup. I have a Toshiba laptop, with the Toshiba brand internal modem. The machine works on batteries, so the only time I generally use it when it's plugged in is when I've run down my battery and haven't have a chance to recharge it. I was trying to use the laptop in a room where the phone and answering machine were connected using a line splitter at the wall jack, and the splitter didn't fit the jack very well, so it was sticking out and easy to pull out of the wall accidentally. There wasn't even any need for the splitter, since the answering machine had a phone out jack, and I was using that for my laptop connection. Anyway, I was using the laptop with no problem under battery power, but as soon as I plugged the computer into the AC, I started getting wierd stuff out of the modem - and it sounded like it was picking up a radio station! I tried a couple of different outlets, turning on and off the answering machine, but the only thing that could make the modem work was to unplug the machine from the AC, either at the laptop, or the outlet. Oh yes, when this was occurring, I was unable to dial using the regular phone as well, it got the same interference. So, my question is, what was going on? Is it possible that the very poor fit of the phone splitter was allowing phone signals to be jammed by whatever was coming out of the laptop? But if so, why should it only occur when I was using the AC? Any suggestions are appreciated. Bill rubin@watson.ibm.com