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Wed, 19 Feb 2014 04:37:34 GMT

After donning or doffing my jacket at work, I try to remember to touch the metal edge of the cube dividers to discharge any static electricity from my skin, but sometimes I forget.

Twice or thrice, it has happened that upon touching my metal keyboard, static electricity has sparked strongly enough to make the monitor go blank for a moment. I worry about my laptop getting damaged. The static electricity must be traveling along the keyboard cord to the laptop dock. I wonder if the keyboard cord has a ground wire that is purposely connected to the keyboard case.

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wireless mouse controlling 2 computers - solution

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 05:05:16 GMT

When I work from home, my work computer and personal computer are on 2 separate tables about 5 feet apart from each other. Originally, I was using 2 separate Microsoft wireless keyboard/mouse/receiver combos - one for each computer - without a problem. When both computers were on, the mice and keyboards did not interfere with each other.

The mouse-wheel on one of the mice deteriorated*, and using that mouse became quite frustrating. So I replaced it with a wired mouse.

Because of how I have things situated, the cord on the wired mouse bothers me on the one table, while it doesn't bother me on the other table.

So I switched the mice. I moved the good-working wireless mouse to my personal computer, and sync'ed it to wireless receiver on that computer.

Then I had a problem. Both receivers were now configured to receive signals from the same mouse. The wireless mouse now controlled both computers at the same time. I tried various things, but found no way of stopping the mouse from controlling both computers, except for the following method.

It requires temporarily using another Microsoft wireless mouse to reset the wireless receiver on the computer on which one doesn't want to use a wireless mouse. I put batteries back into the not-so-good working wireless mouse, and synchronized it to the receiver. This sets the wireless receiver to listen for a different ID or frequency or something. After doing this, the good wireless mouse no longer controls the 2nd computer. I can now remove the batteries from the not-so-good working wireless mouse and ~~get rid of it~~ keep it in case the problem happens again in the future.

*The mouse-wheel has a rubbery coating, which developed uneven swellings, causing it to stick while rolling. I took the mouse-wheel apart to try to fix the problem, without much success.

Update 2011/12/03:
I used the mouse-wheel from a spare wireless mouse (which had a right-click button problem) to fix my other wireless mouse that was having the scrolling problem. So now that mouse is working well again!

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Darkoshi

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wireless mouse controlling 2 computers - solution