About two weeks ago, we had an electrician come to our house to fix some unsafe outlets and rework the wiring a bit. I think he some how changed the wiring so that upstairs is getting more power now (my computer is downstairs). But on that same day, my mom was on my computer, checking e-mails and whatnot, and when I got on to play my game, my screen had started flickering very badly.

I assumed it was because of the new wiring job, so I unplugged a bunch of stuff in the office room that I didn't need, like desk lamps and a pencil sharpener, but that didn't seem to help at all. So I got on my knees and was messing around with all of the cords under my desk, when I noticed that my UPS box had a red light lit up on the back saying, "Site Wiring Fault." So then I was pretty sure that the electrician must have accidently hit some wire or something when he was here. So I called him up and he came out two days later, he said that the light on the back of the UPS didn't mean anything important, it just means that our "site is not grounded" and it shouldn't effect my computer at all. I showed him how the screen was flickering, and we spent about two hours trying everything we could. He installed a new outlet in the next room and we ran an extension cord to it, we changed UPS boxes, we even tried changing monitors. I could still see the screen flickering, but it wasn't nearly as bad. He had some little tool he used to check the outlets, with three little lights on it, and he said something about the lines not being polarized or something. I really can't remember what all he said, most of it went in one ear and out the other, but he was still pretty sure that it was not because of the wiring. He recommended that if it kept up that I should go to Radio Shack and buy a "noise filter," at least I think that's what he called it. I haven't done that yet though.

So, I downloaded and updated AVG, and ran that for a few hours, and it didn't find any problems or viruses. I then ran SpyBot (because I had noticed a pop-up on Google, which I knew would never have any pop-up's) and it found a ton of problems, so I fixed all of those. But the screen was still flickering, and to my surprise, the next day I got the same type of pop-up on Google again. Needless to say, this has all been very frustrating. Most people are telling me that it's my computer's problem, not the wiring, but I don't know who to beleive. I've tried everything I could think of, I've changed my monitor's resolution, refresh rate, and color, and none of it helps, it usually just makes it worse.

The weird part is, the flickering isn't constant, sometimes it's almost unnoticable, and sometimes it does it so much that the text almost becomes blurred. If I sit here for an hour, playing my game with the flickering monitor, I'll start to get a pretty bad head ache from it. (By the way, it's not only when I play my game, but that's when its most noticable. Usually I can't see any difference on the desktop, but if I stare hard enough I can tell that it is flickering a bit.)

I'm not sure what else there is I can tell ya, except for my system specs. I'm running Windows XP Home Edition, with a Pentium 4 processor with 1.5 ghz and 384MB of SDRam and I'm using an ATi Radeon Pro 9800 (128 MB DDR) video card.

Any suggestions or ideas are appreciated.

Blynch, the popups do not have anything to do with the wiring in your house. That is your computers problem.
Now as far as the wiring and not knowing anything about your house or what the electrician actually did, what did he do?
He should have made sure the polarity was correct, that is just basic knowledge.
I have never worked with UPS's before, but was the red light on before he did any work? The manual would tell you if it needs to be grounded.
Have you checked all and I mean all outlets that are on the same breaker/fuse that your computer is plugged into? I have seen outlets in the basement that were on the same branch as an outlet on the second floor. There might be something plugged into an outlet on the same branch as your computer that is interfering with your monitor.
I would take your monitor to a friends house and try it to make sure that is not your problem. Then find a competent electrician to correct your wiring problems.
I live in the US, and I do not have any knowledge about wiring in any other country, so I hope this will be of some help.

Yeah, I know that. I mentioned that because I wasn't sure if the screen flickering was related to the pop-ups (like some type of virus that could possibly cause both of those problems).



As I said, I'm really not sure. I guess I can call him up and see if he can tell me exactly what he did.



I don't know. I never had any need to look there until he came and worked on the house, I wish I did know, but I'm afraid I have absolutely no idea.



Once again, I'm not 100% sure, but I think he did that when he came the second time.



Well, I have another computer downstairs, so I brought the monitor from up there to down here (those 21" ones are heavy! :eek: ), and I had the same exact problem. So I'm pretty sure the monitor isn't broken or anything.



Considering the fact that he was telling me he dropped out in tenth grade, that's probably a good idea.



I live in the US, too.



Thanks a lot for your reply, but I'm still not exactly sure what I should do except for call him or up or another electrician. I'll do that eventually if I have to, but I was hoping there would be an easier way to fix it. Also, do you think that this is definitely because of the wiring? Could it possibly be some type of virus or just something wrong with my computer settings?

Well if the monitor from downstairs does the same thing, and the monitor from upstairs works downstairs, then I think it is some problem with the wiring. The electrician is probably correct about noise on that one circuit. Like I said before, check or have someone check to make sure there is not something else running on that same circuit. Another problem might be that your neutral wire(should be a white wire) on that circuit may be tied in to another circuit. Somebody may have used the same neutral wire on two different circuits. If this is the case, then there is the possibility of getting the noize from something plugged into the other circuit.
The circuits should have there own neutral that goes back to the breaker/fuse panel. What do you have, breakers or fuses? Is this an older house? I guess it is an older house because you do not have a ground wire?
I know it can get expensive, but your best bet is to run new wire from the panel to your outlets that have a computer plugged in.

You also might want to check this out. Don't know if it will help, but it would be you cheapest option right now, there are other models on the second site further down the page. Hope this helps you out.
http://www.radioshack.com/product.as...t%5Fid=15-1111
http://www.radioshack.com/search.asp...ge1=submit&SRC

That was a nice indepth post, detailed to every aspect good alot of information.
Ok maybe I can help you out here, My older brother is a electrical engineer, I just happend to be on the phone with him now! He is saying that the red light on the UPS box probably means some type of power surge....................more than likely, caused by the idiot that came to your house! You need to go to the manufactures site or read the manual on what the red light means. Now my brother & I think it is your power supply tweaking out your video card or the particular Pci/AGP slot. I still need some more info on what type of work the guy was doing, plus the electrical layout of your whole house & some blue prints. But with that said, you can pretty much point the finger at that guy.......you can't prove it but hell, I would have a word with him.

Speaking of RadioShack ,here is the Toll-Free # for real uber tech support
!-800-THE-SHACK. I use it all the time, of course I'm into war-driving with my laptop. Every now or then, you will catch some of those guys," HAM junkies "who just came from the metro HAM fest & bought a nice piece of hard-line, try hooking up a BNC connector to that!

I've always found to fix a flicker in the screen as you have I go to colour temperature correction this has always fixed any flickering on any of my displays. Try changeing to 9500

Hello ,look atthe date on the post you are giving answers to.lol