Gotta Return It

[jschunkew]

As much as I like my T42 (DXU) I
can't use it. Every time I turn it on
I get the shakes and pain in the chest.
I thought maybe a laptop would be
be better for my case of Electormagnetic
Sensitivity (ES), but it isn't. I'll
have to stick with my desktop 15 ft
away covered in lead in the othe
room. Think IBM will allow me to
return it? I bought it on August 14?

BTW, the fan is for all practical purposes
silent and I only hear the 7200 hard
drive high pitched sound if my ear is
5 inches away. It only clicked once or
twice. You'd have to be in a tomb to
hear this machine. It does put out a
good amount of EMF though. My body
tells me that.

[ZPrime]

Well, the EM output from a laptop should be fairly minor. the screen is no worse than any other LCD (i'm assuming you're using an LCD for your desktop).

Do you have wireless radios disabled? they'd obviously be spewing EM left and right, both 802.11 and bluetooth.

You could try taking the thinkpad apart and lining the internals with aluminum. then again, the keyboard already has an aluminum plate below it, and the HDD has a metal shield around it too. have you had someone take measurements of the unit to see where the EM is coming from?

[jschunkew]

I have no wireless devices. Could the T42 be sending
out radio waves that can be disabled?

My worst enemy are those stinking switching power supplies.
Laptops are loaded with them because they run off a single
voltage source that must be stepped up or down.

One time I shrouded my 17" Samsung LCD monitor in
aluminum, but that actually made things worse.

The return policy is 30 days from receiving the Thinkpad,
so I have some more time to experiment. I may just
need some more distance from the machine. Will try a
wireless keyboard and mouse. Been using the battery only,
maybe I'll try running it from the a/c adapter.

[ZPrime]

I have no wireless devices. Could the T42 be sending
out radio waves that can be disabled?

Well, if your T42 has builtin wireless or builtin Bluetooth, check the indicators on the front. Make sure that neither one is lit.

My worst enemy are those stinking switching power supplies.
Laptops are loaded with them because they run off a single
voltage source that must be stepped up or down.

This is no different from a normal PC... and if anything, it should be better in a laptop as a good portion of the power supply is in the AC/DC converter "brick." The laptop internally is only doing DC-DC conversion, which should barely put out anything, EM-wise.

One time I shrouded my 17" Samsung LCD monitor in
aluminum, but that actually made things worse.

Well, that makes some amount of sense. Most of the EM from a monitor comes out the back, and by shrouding it you were likely causing EM to reflect off the foil and toward the front of the monitor. The glass on an LCD is probably one of the the better materials for shielding against EM, but the plastic bezel probably does not offer much protection... so i could see how reflected EM from the foil might come through the plastic and cause you problems. That said, LCDs are already shielded and *very* low emissions (relatively speaking) so I can't see how it can bother you much anyway. A CRT maybe, but not an LCD...

Will try a wireless keyboard and mouse. Been using the battery only, maybe I'll try running it from the a/c adapter.

I don't see how this could do anything other than hurt - you'd have an active EM source on your lap (the keyboard) vs. something a foot or two from your head (a monitor. Unless of course you are only affected by certain frequencies, and you could find something in a range that doesn't bother you. Have you ever talked with a doctor about your ES? What about someone with a physics education/background? I'd be interested to see if you are only affected by certain frequencies, or certain settings, etc. Can you watch TV? Do you have cordless phones? What about cellular?

[jschunkew]

I saw an ear specialist who was useless. She blasted
my ears with a hearing test and I was in pain for
months. My doctor says to stay away from things
that bother me - again useless.

I can only watch TV for short periods. No cell phone.
My cordless phone doesn't appear to be a problem.

My condition went south after I got an 19" NEC CRT.
It's now shelved.

I can only watch TV for short periods.

I didn't think of taking EMF measuments on the Thinkpad.
Let me try that. I beleive Radio Shack sells gauss meters.

[benz]

Just curious, how did you develop such a sensitivity to EM fields? Were you struck by lightning, or born that way, I dont mean to be nosy but I'm really interested.

[jschunkew]

An interesting aspect to ES is that it's related
to sensitivity to odors. A few years back I used to
visit industrial plants (oil and chemical) as a control
engineer.

Funny, now that I think of it, I use to get shaky after
being at the plants - same shake I get from being by
the Thinkpad!

I used to play electric guitar in a rock band. That
didn't help my ears.

No one really knows the cause of ES, but combination
of the above most likely had something to do with it.

[ZPrime]

I can only watch TV for short periods. No cell phone.
My cordless phone doesn't appear to be a problem.

What frequency is your cordless phone? Most are 900mhz, 2.4ghz, or 5.8 ghz.

Incedentally, 2.4ghz and 5.8ghz are used for 802.11 (a and b/g) wireless... so if your phone happens to be a 2.4 or a 5.8, there should be no reason that wireless networking would affect you.

[jschunkew]

Here are some measurements, using a
transformer to pick up stray EMF noise and
a Fluke multimeter to measure the induced
voltage. Measurements relative to a baseline
of 0.028 volts.

Baseline, all off = 1.0
Thinkpad Running on battery 50% = 1.7
Thinkpad Charging = 21.4
17" Samsung LCD Monitor = 1.1
Desktop Pent II 166mHz = 5.6

So from these results the Thinkpad is putting out
more EMF than the Samsung, but less than the desktop.
The AC converter blows it off the charts. No doubt
I felt that and been running on batteries only. No I don't
beleive I'm affected by the wireless. The EMF signal
does vary with hard disk activity though. Maybe I
should scale down to a 14" from the 15" Thinkpad.