Question Can a power short / surge cause issues with ethernet port?

Dukeofthedurty

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Nov 29, 2014
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Backstory: Ever see lights flicker when you have a light on and then turn the ceiling fan on or plug in a vacuum cleaner. I noticed this for the last 2 years in my condo and now after some random PC issues, I believe that I am getting power shorts or surges (help me find what to call that) that have causes damage to my PCs.

Story: A few months ago my "Gaming Desktop" PC that is connected via ethernet port/ cat 5 to my router started having very hit and miss connection. After tons of troubleshooting, I end up buy a USB wifi stick and plug it in, and bam problem is solved. Computer runs like nothing happened.

Fast forward to today. My other "Netflix" pc in a different room that only runs on wifi, starts acting the same way. very spotty, hit or miss connection. I take my USB wifi stick out of my Gaming Desktop PC and plug it into my Netflix PC. and now it works perfectly.

Question: Could these shorts, surges, etc. be causing this? Do I need a USP on both computers? Or should I just get better surge protectors? Any advice would help.
 
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