Monitor flashes with fridge

[amadeok]

Hello,
I've got a desktop pc with a monitor both fed from the same wall socket that is feeding a mini fridge. This mini fridge makes a sound every a certain amount of time, it would apear to be turning itself on and off to regulate the temperature. When this happens the monitor screen turns black and then quickly goes back to normal. I'm not sure if it's a problem with the monitor or with the video card which i just got recently (a used gtx 1060), because with my previous graphic card this didn't happen. In my house there seems to be an issue with the electrical system, because sometimes we get a slight electric shock by touching metal parts of electronic devices such as computers or other things.
Do i need to worry that the GPU is damaged or will be damaged by this? Is there any way to fix this?
thanks

 

[gophert]

Several issues may cause this.
Does the screen issue happen when the fridge turns off, on or both?

does the fan on the graphics card work? Has it always worked or was it used for some time while clogged full of lint?
(Asking because the capacitors could be fried to make the unit sensitive to power fluctuations.

is it an AC/DC mini fridge or AC only?

 

[schmitt trigger]

Do you have a multimeter, which you could use to measure the AC mains voltage?

Very likely the mains is dropping below the monitor's minimum input voltage.

 

[JimB]

I had a similar problem with my home brewed SMD viewer, described in this thread:

A viewer for surface mount components

This post is more of a show and tell, rather than a request for help. Getting older and having eyes which don't work as well as they used to when viewing small components close up, something had to be done. Having built a couple of small boards using surface mount components, using a small hand...

www.electro-tech-online.com

The problem was that the screen would blank when the thermostat in my soldering iron "clicked". The iron is one of the good old Weller TCP types.

One could argue that here are two problems here:
1 The iron is creating emissions which are conducted along the mains, and maybe radiated from the mains wiring.
2 The SMD viewer is susceptible to mains conducted transients, and/or radiated emissions from the mains.

What I did to fix the problem was to take the insides from a component mains filter, similar to this:

https://uk.farnell.com/schaffner/fn9222-3-06/filter-inlet-iec-3a-250vac/dp/2336598

I would have liked to simply install the complete filter into the body of the PSU for the iron, but there was not room enough to do that.
So I cut off the mounting flange and input connector from the body of the filter, and just installed the filtering components into the soldering iron PSU.

This has transformed things from having a blank screen every few minutes, to "ooh, it has not done that for a long time!".

I suggest that you try adding a similar filter to your fridge and see what happens.

JimB

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

I would tend to agree. You could add a constant voltage transformer to the monitor. https://ustpower.com/comparing-auto...guide-constant-voltage-transformer-operation/

 

[schmitt trigger]

It could be a number of things, however.....Without the TS performing some simple measurements, like checking the voltage with a DMM, we are only speculating.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

It could be a number of things, however.....Without the TS performing some simple measurements, like checking the voltage with a DMM, we are only speculating.

You're unlikely to see a brief mains drop on a digital meter. It would also be helpful to know his location, it could easily be a matter of a very poor infrastructure.

 

[gophert]

DMMs for as little as $50 have min/max data logging.

Or, if he asked around, I'm sure he can find/borrow a Fluke 87V and give it a try.

 

[schmitt trigger]

It all depends on the DMM.
With a Fluke 287, utilizing the Min/Max function, I could detect voltage sags lasting a couple of cycles.

Even with a plain vanilla DMM, it is worth a try.

Otherwise, we are only speculating.

 

[crutschow]

Can you use an extension cord to connect one or the other to a different main's circuit?

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

Except make sure you connect the "systems" to a different outlet so the ground potentials won't be different. Computer/monitor/USB printer is a system. Ethernet provides isolation.

 

[unclejed613]

connect a lamp with a 25-50W incandescent bulb (not CFL or LED) in the same outlet as the fridge. if the lamp flickers when the fridge clicks on or off you know it's changing the line voltage. now connect the lamp in the same outlet as the computer and look for similar behavior. if the lamp flickers when the fridge clicks, it's probably on the same branch in the house as the fridge, and moving the computer to a different branch (fed by a different breaker) should fix it.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

connect a lamp with a 25-50W incandescent bulb (not CFL or LED) in the same outlet as the fridge. if the lamp flickers when the fridge clicks on or off you know it's changing the line voltage. now connect the lamp in the same outlet as the computer and look for similar behavior. if the lamp flickers when the fridge clicks, it's probably on the same branch in the house as the fridge, and moving the computer to a different branch (fed by a different breaker) should fix it.

This rather depends on where he is, something he hasn't mentioned, and he's never been back either since his OP.