"jh" wrote in message
news:no-CA3C13.17261704112005@localhost...
In article ,
Joe Kesselman wrote:

For what it's worth: This isn't a new discovery. There was a time when
some of us actually used the EMI from computers as a debugging tool.
With practice, we could recognize the sound of different parts of our
program and get a rough idea of what it was doing.

At the time we were mostly using AM radios as our pickups... so an AM
loopstick antenna might work well for your experiment.

Actually, that's just what I'm hoping to do: build a sort of EMI-only
"microphone" to use as a computer stethoscope. I figure that a computer
technician, with this tool and some practice, could hear and immediately
recognize the EMI signature of a dying power supply or other bad
component, the same way an expert pilot can instantly diagnose engine
troubles just from their noises.

You might want to listen to a variety of "good" computers before
you assume that they all sound the same. I would assume that
different brands/models will sound much more different than the
same computer/motherboard does between running/dying.
Unless you can establish some reference recordings of the
sounds of good computers.