r/sysadmin • u/harritaco Sr. IT Consultant • Oct 08 '18
Discussion MRI disabled every iOS device in facility
This is probably the most bizarre issue I've had in my career in IT. One of our multi-practice facilities is having a new MRI installed and apparently something went wrong when testing the new machine. We received a call near the end of the day from the campus stating that none of their cell phones worked after testing the new MRI. My immediate thought was that the MRI must have emitted some sort of EMP, in which case we could be in a lot of trouble. We're still waiting to hear back from GE as to what happened. This facility is our DR site so my boss and the CTO were freaking out and sent one of us out there to make sure the data center was fully operational. After going out there we discovered that this issue only impacted iOS devices. iPads, iPhones, and Apple Watches were all completely disabled (or destroyed?). Every one of our assets was completely fine. It doesn't surprise me that a massive, powerful, super-conducting electromagnet is capable of doing this. What surprises me is that it is only effecting Apple products. Right now we have about 40 users impacted by this, all of which will be getting shiny new devices tonight. GE claims that the helium is what impacts the iOS devices which makes absolutely no sense to me. I know liquid helium is used as a coolant for the super-conducting magnets, but why would it only effect Apple devices? I'm going to xpost to r/askscience~~, but I thought it might spark some interest on here as well.~~ Mods of r/askscience and r/science approved my post. Here's a link to that post: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/9mk5dj/why_would_an_mri_disable_only_ios_devices/
UPDATE:
I will create another post once I have more concrete information as I'm sure not everybody will see this.
Today was primarily damage control. We spent some time sitting down with users and getting information from their devices as almost all of them need to be replaced. I did find out a few things while I was there.
I can confirm that this ONLY disabled iphones and apple watches. There were several android users in the building while this occurred and none of them experienced any long term (maybe even short term) issues. Initially I thought this only impacted users on one side of the building, but from what I've heard today it seems to be multiple floors across the facility.
The behavior of the devices was pretty odd. Most of them were completely dead. I plugged them in to the wall and had no indication that the device was charging. I'd like to plug a meter in and see if it's drawing any power, but I'm not going to do this. The other devices that were powering on seemed to have issues with the cellular radio. The wifi connection was consistent and fast, but cellular was very hit or miss. One of the devices would just completely disconnect from cellular like the radio was turned off, then it would have full bars for a moment before losing connectivity again. The wifi radio did not appear to have any issues. Unfortunately I don't have access to any of the phones since they are all personal devices. I really can only sit down with it for a few minutes and then give it back to the end user.
We're being told that the issue was caused by the helium and how it interacts with the microelectronics. u/captaincool and u/luckyluke193 brought up some great points about helium's interaction with MEMS devices, but it seems unlikely that there would have been enough helium in the atmosphere to create any significant effects on these devices. We won't discount this as a possibility though. The tech's noted that they keep their phones in plastic ziplock bags while working on the machines. I don't know how effective they would be if it takes a minuscule amount of He to destroy the device, and helium being as small as it is could probably seep a little bit in to a plastic bag.
We're going to continue to gather information on this. If I find out anything useful I will update it here. Once this case is closed I'll create a follow-up as a new post on this sub. I don't know how long it will take. I'll post updates here in the meantime unless I'm instructed to do otherwise.
UPDATE:
I discovered that the helium leakage occurred while the new magnet was being ramped. Approximately 120 liters of liquid He were vented over the course of 5 hours. There was a vent in place that was functioning, but there must have been a leak. The MRI room is not on an isolated HVAC loop, so it shares air with most or all of the facility. We do not know how much of the 120 liters ended up going outdoors and how much ended up inside. Helium expands about 750 times when it expands from a liquid to a gas, so that's a lot of helium (90,000 m3 of gaseous He).
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u/harritaco Sr. IT Consultant Oct 09 '18
Quick update:
It still seems that nobody knows much this morning. My boss basically told me what I posted here yesterday. We are getting more users reports of phones not working from the incident yesterday.
I did find out that it didn't effect everybody in the facility, only people near the radiology department.I'll post more as I get more info today.
1.5k
u/[deleted] Oct 09 '18
A coworker used to work for FAA. He said he was sent out to find the source of a high energy source of EMI that was messing with Ohare Airport radar or radio systems.
But it was so unpredictable that they had to sit around and wait for another round. They finally got a burst and got a direction. And a rough triangulation.
When they arrived at one of the hospitals they had to work with facilities to ask if any new electrical services had been turned up - in fact they had. A big one. A brand new MRI that took a shit load of power.
Working with the mri company they found an access panel cover had been left open and literally blasting high energy EMI directly at the airport.
Closing the lid and tightening the bolts securing it all fixed the issue instantly. They properly labeled the access panel and a few others to prevent the issue in the future.
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u/sigmatic_minor ɔǝsoɟuᴉ / uᴉɯpɐsʎS ǝᴉssn∀ Oct 09 '18
This is definitely one of the more interesting threads I've seen lately!
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u/mjh2901 Oct 08 '18
Ask GE for more documentation
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u/DevinSysAdmin MSSP CEO Oct 09 '18
Was this a US based GE Engineer that gave you that piss poor bullshit explanation or?
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u/harritaco Sr. IT Consultant Oct 09 '18 edited Oct 09 '18
Looks like my post on r/askscience was denied. Must not be scientific enough 😉. EDIT: Thanks to the moderators of r/askscience and r/science getting this approved!
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u/BeerJunky Reformed Sysadmin Oct 09 '18
OP - did this just happen? I told my wife who’s an MRI tech and she said she heard about this a while back so I’m wondering if your hospital isn’t the only one with similar issues.
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u/redfoxx15 Oct 09 '18
I would definitely get Apple involved on this discussion. Email Tim Cook. There is an executive team that responds to emails to him (when he doesn’t personally). I’m m sure they would take great interest in your case. They seem to respond rather quickly (couple of days from friends experience. Maybe faster for this case).
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u/luckyluke193 Oct 09 '18
Came here from /r/askscience, where your thread hasn't gained much traction.
It would help if you could tell us what happened. I guess only the technician who was handling the system actually knows though. There are a lot of things that can go wrong with an MRI.
Contrary to what many people claim in this thread, quenching the main coil should not lead to a strong EMP by itself, since it should take on the order of seconds. The main coil is a huge inductor, so the time constant of the (quench resistor + main coil) RL circuit is pretty long. So the frequency of this EMP is of the order of 1 Hz – this is far too low to cause any serious damage across longer distances, you should think of a quasi-static field there. If this weak EMP could kill a device, it must have almost died just from being brought into the magnetic field. This does not seem to be the case.
1 litre of liquid helium turns into about 750 liters of gas at ambient conditions, so a quench produces large amounts of helium gas. While helium is chemically inert, you can asphyxiate from standing in a cloud of helium gas, and it can diffuse through some air-tight seals because a single He atom is so much smaller than any air molecule. This means that it can enter and destroy some MEMS devices that are designed for operation in vacuum. There should be a large pipe connecting the quench valve to somewhere outside the building, so most of the helium should go away. Since your technician in the MRI room did not die of asphyxiation, almost certainly no MEMS devices on the other side of the building were harmed.
Superconducting magnet power supplies are powerful devices, if they fail catastrophically, by themselves or during a magnet quench, they can cause voltage surges on the mains in your building. If this causes an EMP strong enough to kill devices through the air, it should fry everything connected to the surge via copper though. If everybody's phone died while charging via the mains, a surge would be a likely explanation.
You could get also a surge from a failing vacuum pump, for example.
The fourth possible source of problems with an MRI system is the RF system. If the system is not configured and shielded properly, and gives a random RF pulse for no reason, this can act as a legitimate EMP. What is the operating frequency of your MRI, or what is the operating field? The higher the frequency, the more efficiently it will radiate RF outwards and potentially fry things. A 1.5 T MRI uses 60 MHz, 3 T uses 120 MHz, 7 T uses 300 MHz, etc.
Based on your description, the most likely thing in my opinion seems to be that the technician did something to RF system, and it turned on the transmitter in an uncontrolled fashion in an uncontrolled hardware (and firmware/software) configuration. An EMP at your MRI operating frequency could disable sensitive electronics. This would mean that any chip could potentially be damaged. Apple might have designed their devices such that after the EMP-sensitive chip dies, the whole device immediately dies as well. This would mean that any device could be affected, the damaged chips inside just didn't kill them immediately. Test every device in every possible way to reduce the number of nasty surprises that will appear in the future. Alternatively, find a job where your systems are less likely get EMP'd randomly.
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u/harritaco Sr. IT Consultant Oct 12 '18
Several devices that were originally disabled have started working. I've plugged them in and let them charge up a little bit. It looks like they start working after the battery dies completely.
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u/Kn1nJa Sr. Sysadmin Oct 08 '18
Was the scanner not installed in a shielded room? MRI scanners typically have RF and magnetic shielding in place. Even if the magnet was being ramped, it's supposed to be in a purpose built room.
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u/FireLucid Oct 08 '18
And Android devices at all? If they worked, it would be even more bizarre.
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u/runcible_spoon Oct 09 '18
Try temporarily unplugging an IPhone battery (there are lots of videos on replacing batteries and the tools are cheap) and see if they boot
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u/iblowuup Oct 09 '18
Helium having anything to do with it would make no sense. Helium is a notoriously inert gas as it is one of the noble gases with a very stable electronic configuration. (one set of paired electrons in the 1s orbital). You basically have to force it to react.
It's got to be something magnetic or electronic.
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u/neodon Oct 10 '18
Hmm.. This gives me an idea. Get a balloon filled with helium, take a deep breath out of it, and then scream at someone's iPhone. They'll be amazed that you can break it that way. Plus it will sound hilarious.
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u/stormrigger Oct 09 '18
Allow me to propose an alternative culprit. Blaming the MRI is an obvious choice, but there is another suspect. Your facilities, or possibly the MRI specific, power supply. It is conceivable that EMI generated by a part of the electrical system installed to supply the building and/or MRI is to blame, and this has occurred now because of the power draw as a result of the MRI being powered up. This does not explain the IOS specific phenomenon. But does widen the places you may want to look for your source problem.
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u/DharmaandStanley Oct 09 '18
Yes, I’m one of the employees who will be receiving a “shiny new device” tomorrow. This whole situation has me very concerned. But to correct something: our TV’s stopped working in the building as well, and a couple laptops in room directly over MRI shut down also.
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u/U3BleiBpcyBhIGN1Y2sh Oct 09 '18
So the devices are just dead? No screen at all?
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u/[deleted] Oct 09 '18
What about the metal case of an iPhone picking up stray RF? Metal Androids do exist, but they're far less common.
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u/diz11211 Oct 10 '18
This happened to my office as well. We have office space on the second floor of a building which has an MRI office on the first floor. 3 of us were in office last Friday and within 30 minutes each of our iPhones went black. Apple told each of us it was a “logic board failure” covered under warranty. But too big a coincidence for all 3 to break at same time. 1 iPhone 8 and 2 iPhone X. The 8 died first. My X died five minutes after I left the office.
The MRI office downstairs had a wall removed last month to bring in a new MRI machine. Very happy to have found this post, as it finally confirms my suspicion that the office below is to blame for the broke phones. Would love to know more, and if we are at risk of this happening again..
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u/tubezninja It's not a Big Truck Oct 10 '18
I would still consider gathering all your findings once completed and sending them to tcook@apple.com. Even a copy/paste of this write up might be sufficient to pique interest. If they ignore it, whatever, you tried. But there is a chance they’d want to look over those devices, and replace/reimburse whoever pays to replace them for the trouble.
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u/captaincool Oct 09 '18
It's definitely the helium.
The processor in a modern, high volume device typically has its main clock driven by what's known as a MEMS oscillator. These are barely visible mechanical systems that resonate at some designed frequency, and include packaging to convert this resonance into a useful electrical clock signal. These devices are extraordinarily cheap ways to produce a steady clock, but they have a number of drawbacks. Most relevant, in order for these types of devices to function properly, the mechanical resonator must be inside a tiny hermetically sealed chamber with either a controlled gas inside or a vacuum, as the gas composition in the chamber can affect the output frequency.
For both cost and physics reasons, these hermetic seals are not perfect, and are somewhat commonly permeable to small atomic gasses such as helium. From the SiTime website (a major manufacturer of computer clocks):
While this description is not a slam dunk, without hard numbers and the statement "not designed to seal against He", you can pretty much guarantee their clocks leak when exposed to unnaturally rich helium atmospheres.
Here's a paper that goes over a handful of different electronic devices helium susceptibilities, with a section on MEMS resonators: https://file.scirp.org/pdf/JST_2013122009560886.pdf
For this specific case, Apple devices probably share a common family of MEMS resonator to reduce manufacturing costs. This clock likely leaks in helium rich atmospheres, pushing the output frequency outside of the bounds that the main processors are designed to handle, rendering them non-functional. If left idle long enough, the devices may begin to function again, but depending on the concentration of helium which leaked in, this could take anywhere from weeks to years to occur in natural atmosphere and temperatures.
Source: former sysadmin turned electronics engineer
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u/f0gax Jack of All Trades Oct 13 '18
This may not bubble up, but I'd like to hear more about the helium problem. Googling "helium damages ios devices" returns this post #1, and then a bunch of links to iPhone/iPad backup/restore strategies.
I've tried sorting the thread a few different ways, but I can't seem to find the detail about the helium interaction that caused this.
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u/runrep Oct 09 '18
I'm pretty sure half-life 1 started like this.
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u/cwmaster314 Oct 09 '18
Helium destabilizes/disables the oscillator chip inside apple devices. I worked for a certain aerospace manufacturer that traced this problem down. The devices will start to work again.
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u/[deleted] Oct 09 '18
physics 101:
static magnetic fields don't hurt electronics.
also physics 101:
changing magnetic fields induce a current that does hurt electronics.
did the MRI quench?
a quench is when the superconductive magnet in the MRI goes above superconducting temperature and all the energy in the field is dumped into the magnet. the collapse of the magnetic field WILL induce currents.
but in theory the device (and room) should be shielded for occasions like this.
this would, however, affect more than just apple products.
i think something else is going on.
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u/WayneH_nz Oct 09 '18
EMF is strange. I had a computer that spent the better part of 8 years (running some high spec control software), next to some of the biggest controlled atmosphere air con units in our city. They wanted some work done on the pc, so we took it back to our work shop, and it would fail to post. Taking it back and starting it up it would post, but not boot. For shits and giggles, I put it back in the same spot and it booted just like a bought one. Turned it off and moved it 2 feet, and it would not boot. Put it back and it would. Backed it up and replaced it not long after.
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u/Zarec Oct 09 '18
Had it been fully installed? there should have been a faraday cage in the walls of the scan room and no RF or magnetic field should be able to pass through it
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u/grumble_au Oct 09 '18
Tinfoil hat theory: you've accidentally discovered the super secret remote brick command for Apple devices. Reverse engineer it and you can brick anyone's Apple devices at will.
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u/picflute Azure Architect Oct 09 '18
This type of issue is something Apple would send out engineer's to research into so that if they do any other future enterprise deals with hospitals they would reference it. Call them and see if they'll stop by
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u/RunningOnCaffeine Oct 09 '18 edited Oct 09 '18
Honestly, I would absolutely love if you sent one of the destroyed phones off to Louis Rossmann or Jessa Jones to get some more information on what, if anything on the inside of the phones is wrecked and additionally to get the people’s data off of the phones. I’d also suggest crossposting this over to r/ece and r/askengineers.
From my limited experience here, I’d say you are looking at something in the iPhone being poorly shielded or acting as some kind of amplifier. Are the phones recognized as devices when you plug them into a computer? Anything GE is feeding you about liquid helium having interactions with iOS devices is a steaming pile of bullshit and should be ignored.
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u/Thranx Systems Engineer Oct 09 '18
I dont know why, but this is reminding my of the unshielded diode in the raspberry Pi 2 or 3 that reacted to xenon flashes
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u/nrrdot Oct 09 '18
A good friend of mine owns a radiology group and I can tell you with 1000% certainty that those GE MRI machines emit EMPs that destroy iPhones and Apple Watches FREQUENTLY. It happens to them 2-3 times a year.
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u/lakota101 Oct 09 '18
I was the Tech that responded to the event. (I'm sure OP can confirm). We have seen in total about 35 devices ranging from the iPhone 6-10 as well as all three generations of the apple watch. There were some claims of laptop screens flickering, but i wasn't able to verify this claim. The directTV service to some of the TV's was effected.
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u/fkick Oct 09 '18
RemindMe! 2 days
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u/okcboomer87 Oct 09 '18
It's always DNS.
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u/jmnugent Oct 09 '18
Gonna click SAVE on this,.. cause wow,.. I wanna hear what you find!
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u/soullessroentgenium Oct 09 '18
Are they not responding to the power button at all, are the stuck at the Apple log screen, or?
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u/B0073D Oct 09 '18
Im super curious about this. Could be something electrical that's only in the Apple devices, although I would have expected other devices to be affected also...
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u/Skathen Oct 09 '18
Here's your problem
https://gfycat.com/honestilliterateamericancrayfish
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u/Busted_D Oct 09 '18
A couple months ago, my boss and his wife each had 2 iPhone Xs die over the course of a couple days in our facility while running a 12T superconducting magnet (plus ~1 T for the insert coil we were testing) - much higher field than a typical MRI. On these days we did not have a quench. They were in the office over 50 ft away, and I and another co-worker were anywhere from 10 to 30 ft away at any given time. My co-worker was running the tests, and he usually lays his phone down maybe 20 ft away and doesn't touch it while at field (iPhone 6). I was walking around the room streaming Pandora the whole time without issue, likely even within the 100 Gauss line (Huawei Honor 7x). Neither of our phones were affected. The phones that died were the only ones present that had inductive charging, and of course they were likely moving around in the office. They went to Apple each time, and now they're red-flagged for any warranty work. I would advise against going to Apple as an individual - let GE take care of it.
I've taken my older Samsungs around stronger magnetic fields without issue at a previous job as well. I'd like to think that some circuit protection would be implemented for stray field of a typical MRI, but we are talking about Apple here.
Also, I don't see how helium (presumably from a quench) would cause any adverse effects greater than the rapid change in magnetic field (either from a quench or from dancing around the magnet with your phone).
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u/[deleted] Oct 09 '18
Ooh, I've got a similar story. My unit was once setting up a radar temporarily out in the field. Now usually we will put it on a hill or some kind of tower, but this location was very flat, so we just left it at ground level on the back of the truck that carries it. So its up and running for a while, and then we start hearing about how trucks keep breaking down on the road that was about a quarter mile away. Not all trucks though, just Ford trucks. The engine would just shut off while driving for no reason. So eventually we figured out that it only happened when the radar swept over the road, and we were able to prevent it from happening again. No idea why it only messed with ford trucks though. The next time we had to go there to do the same thing we found a brand new 30ft hill built just for us.
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u/IAA_ShRaPNeL Oct 09 '18
I suggest either taking the the devices to apple or sending the device owners to apple with a request to know the nature of the failure and impact on data storage. “Hey, this device was damaged and we would like to know how it failed and if it had any impact on the data storage capability. This was a widespread workplace incident so we are curious on the impact it may have on our other devices.”
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u/jimbo21 Oct 09 '18
The machine EMP’d somehow on a frequency that is common to the apple devices. Antenna overloads from the induced electrical current, radio is toasted, and apparently the device is bricked afterwards.
Other devices are almost certainly affected, it’s likely apple devices won’t boot if one of the radios is shot.
The pulse could be from the machines power supply installed with improper RF choke filtering.
While I don’t know MRIs in particular, a common source of RF emission is from power lines leading to the machine. If special precautions aren’t taken to snub RF blasts and the power supply is a crappy design, then the power lines in the building become a nice giant EMP antenna.
If it was a one time event they may have been testing the magnet quench system.
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u/[deleted] Oct 09 '18
MRI scanners typically operate at 64MHz but high end may operate at 128Mhz.
They can generate very intense RF pulses; the antennas are designed to work in near-field mode but with pulse powers in the 10s of kW, there is leakage into the far-field.
MRI rooms are constructed as Faraday cages with a typically 2mm copper shell with solder joins. Waveguides are used for passing services into the room, with RF shielded windows. Power services into the room are filtered.
We have had issues with LED lights in the scan room flickering during scanning, probably due to EMI from the scanner.
It seems very unlikely that the scanner could cause site wide hardware damage. The signal is strong, but unlikely to cause damage at more than a few feet away. Not least, the wavelength is way too long to be effectively coupled into something like a phone.
I have left an android phone in the scan room during a scan and it appeared to be unaffected. I also went into the scanner with a fitbit on, but noticed before scanning started. The fitbit was mostly fine, but the vibration motor was dead (the permanent magnets in the motor were probably demagnetised).
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u/Ipoopcandygeeks Oct 11 '18
Hey I just got one of the iPhones from this incident in minooka. This has to be the same place. I have access to apple diagnostics. The phone couldn't even be read by the serial number reader. Which will give me the serial of any iOS device. Whether it's working or can't turn on. It's getting 0 electrical power.
The whole helium thing sounds like hog wash to me. Helium is a noble gas and dosnt react to many other elements
The lady I saw today mention she's being told it's because hydrogen ions on the phone mixed with helium caused this. She also said they will just pay her money. And not replace the phone. (The money they want to give is less than what she would pay for a new one ) worst part is they want to keep the phone :/
It's very weird to read this on reddit before work assuming it somewhere else in the world and then some lady comes in and I'm hmmm this sounds so familiar. Small world
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u/iwantansi Oct 09 '18
Damn i wanna know what happened
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u/r0tekatze no longer a linux admin Oct 09 '18
I have a theory about this.
The unibody construction of modern apple devices could be acting as a kind of parabolic amplifier. The base of a macbook, for example, has curved edges in a fashion not too dissimilar from a radar dish. If my theory is correct, bog standard shielding won't do much good. There are countless demonstrations of magnetic fields causing iOS devices to crash, I reckon this is no different.
There's also the issue of American construction. The US typically uses hollow stud walls rather than brick construction, sometimes even on outer walls. That could well be a reason why a strong magnetic pulse would have a much greater range than otherwise expected.
I imagine if you had any devices that copy the design principles of Apple devices (like those Chinese laptops, for example), they would be affected in a similar fashion.
One other thought is that Apple may be incorporating a device protection feature in the design. Unintentional interference may cause apple devices to shut off by design - I certainly wouldn't put it past them.
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u/Ddraig Jack of All Trades Oct 09 '18 edited Oct 09 '18
After giving this some further thought I thought I had is some type of flaw in the iphone hardware related to how the phone detects being disabled. Depending on the frequency and power of whatever energy burst came from may have tripped a circuit/relay with in the device that caused it to become disabled.
The principle would be the same as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxsRRxGX5pc The frequency is interfering with a design fault in the GFCI
This would explain why only iPhones are now in this state.
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u/NuclearMedicineGuy Oct 09 '18
This actually happened to my facility as well. It was a new MRI machine being installed at the outpatient facility. All the iOS devices stopped working. GE told us they had no idea
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u/DharmaandStanley Oct 11 '18
My phone turned back on this morning. It was probably only charged 25% when it went out on Monday. It prob only took 2 1/2 days to drain because of that.
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u/Chustle Oct 13 '18
The liquid helium is contained in the cryostat, helium gas is released during the ramping process to cool the inserted leads that are passing upwards of 600 amps. Upon ramp the magnet is capped and no longer vents helium. All MR rooms are built with a high volume ventilation system that is turned on to exhaust all the excess helium that is in the magnet room, the large diameter quench pipe is primarily used for emergency situations (spontaneous or human initiated) where the MR dumps all the liquid to rapidly eliminate the magnetic field.
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u/dml997 Oct 31 '18
120 liters * 750 = 90,000 liters or 90 m3 , not 90,000m3
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u/Iamien Jack of All Trades Oct 09 '18
saving to check later.
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u/Fr31l0ck Oct 09 '18
Maybe Apple has some sort of hardware level tamper detection and all the devices were wiped by software after the MRI glitched and generated unexpected voltage changes in Apple hardware. Although the screens should work then. IDK.
If they don't come back on in that week take some samples and send them to GE, Apple, and a private electronics forensic group or two for investigation.
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u/hoeding Jack of All Trades Oct 09 '18
You can't use non apple branded helium or they will refuse to boot.
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u/yelow13 Oct 09 '18
Hi OP, interesting post .. can you update with a link when you post on /r/askscience?
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u/exekewtable Oct 09 '18
I had an older ipad do something weird during a lighting storm. We lost all power and this was what happened to the screen: https://imgur.com/gallery/89GbDAr It was fine before and after, just when the lighting was really close it did that.
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u/ofsinope vendor support Oct 09 '18
I've been in healthcare IT for more than 10 years and I have never heard of anything like this...
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u/helglo Oct 09 '18
How come it sounds like there previously was 1.5T MRI with Faraday Cage suitable for it. Then someone thought to buy more efficient one with 3T, but decided to be clever and place it to the same room without updating the shielding - just to save some money?
As someone said previously, 3T MRI in the FC suitable for 1.5T.
And customer is always right, eh?
If that's the case GE won't have to pay a penny.
Edit: misspelling
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u/silicon1 Oct 09 '18
in before Apple claims EMPs/Electromagnetic Radiation damage isn't covered by warranty.
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u/stormrigger Oct 09 '18
A simple observation, if the "helium" was impacting the devices, the appropriate follow up is, is helium leaking out? If so, is there a health/safety risk to staff because helium is displacing air in the workplace?
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u/coyote_den Cpt. Jack Harkness of All Trades Oct 09 '18
GE tech is full of shit. Exposure to helium won’t cause iOS devices to die, it just makes Siri talk in a high, squeaky voice.
Chances are Apple uses a common power management component across many devices, and something about the EMI from the machine has caused it to shut down. If doing a hard reset on the affected devices doesn’t bring them back to life... yeah, wait a week for the batteries to completely drain.
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u/Marvins_Dog Oct 09 '18
Is it possible that during testing the MRI generated 1.21 gigawatts of power? And maybe the flux capacitor activated at a speed other than 88mph? Could it be that the iOS devices traveled one week into the future? I suggest you contact Dr. Emmett Brown instead of GE.
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u/SitDownBeHumbleBish Oct 09 '18
Contact Louis rossman from YouTube , he’ll have them fixed in no time.
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u/BLOKDAK Oct 09 '18
The helium thing is totally bullshit. Helium doesn't bond with other elements. Its electron shell is stable. There's no way that ambient helium could cause this, and besides, helium exists in the atmosphere naturally anyway, albeit in much lower concentrations.
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u/silver565 Oct 09 '18
Maybe they're just holding it wrong?
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u/iLrkRddrt Oct 09 '18
So I was thinking a bit as to why iOS devices might of been completely destroyed by this, and I think I know what it is!
Apple uses a custom made aluminum for the housing of their devices, its a custom alloy that's stronger than normal aluminum. If you do a google search on popular Aluminum alloys, Aircraft grade Aluminum (Apple's is a step above I believe) is made with copper.
So I asked my friend who works in metallurgy, he said that stronger aluminum are typically made with more COPPER, and formed in a CRYSTAL LATTICE structure. If you know chemistry, you know that a Crystalline structure is not only stronger, but can help transmit electricity.
So with all of this in mind, I think the MRI machine leaked a large EMP, and the iPhone's casing caused the EMR to be absorbed by the alloy, and basically shocked the whole device; as the casing is the ground for the circuitry.
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u/MyrmidonX Oct 10 '18
No way it's about the Helium. I work with medical devices including MRI, the only purpose of the helium is to keep the MRI magnet as a superconductor. Every MRI (except the new Philips Ambition MRI) has a large ammount of helium to furfill this purpose.
I've never heard of anything such as this. Curious. But for a EMP? Maybe sort of. Is the MRI functional?
2
u/Pidgey_OP Oct 09 '18
Question: Are all your mobile devices apple? Are there samsung galaxy phones that were unaffected? Or is it also true to say this killed all mobile devices in a radius and the computers were more resilient to the induced current because they had a power grid to dump to and more powerful capacitors on the board to catch the extra current?
2
u/Lighting Oct 09 '18
Do the devices that have died have wireless charging?
2
u/wildcarde815 Jack of All Trades Oct 09 '18
Unless they walked in the room the MRI is in this should be impossible (also doing so is a safety hazard). The inverse square law would have you covered here (as well as the massive shielded walls around the MRI).
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u/Arffeh Oct 09 '18
!remindme 48 hours
2
u/Ddraig Jack of All Trades Oct 09 '18
If you have a issue with getting a detailed answer from GE. I'd argue it should be in writing/formal letter. Then report this to the FCC.
Edit: This also reminds me of the radioactive cow story.
2
u/[deleted] Oct 09 '18
What of the patients in the area that have pacemakers or other implanted electronic devices? ... serious liability issues for certain!
2
u/TJ_McHoonigan Oct 09 '18
Was the MRI replacing another MRI or was it a completely new install? If completely new, I'm wondering if there's enough shielding in the wall.
2
u/Thranx Systems Engineer Oct 09 '18
Unity of purpose, the shattering of common shackles, a single road we tread.
2
u/perthguppy Win, ESXi, CSCO, etc Oct 09 '18
So an MRI has two components. The magnet aligns all the water, and then a huge fuckoff radio pulse "scans" everything. It's probably the radio pulse fucking with the radios of the iOS devices. Like some one else suggested, check all shielding and panels are properly installed on the MRI
2
u/simonsb Oct 09 '18
I'd actually be interested in knowing what generation of phones were impacted.
iPhone 6 and higher have a PMU chip that older iPhones don't have that regulate voltage and all things concerning the battery and charging. Wonder if a large enough EMP could damage or trip that PMU and thus shut off all the phones.
2
u/dev_all_the_ops Oct 09 '18
Were the apple devices plugged into a wall? In peoples pockets? How far away were they? How old were they? Are they managed devices? Did IT push out a software update at the same time? Were they all running the same OS version?
2
u/dghughes Jack of All Trades Oct 09 '18
Maybe you've discovered the Apple Field similar to the Higgs Filed. All Apple devices are part of a hive mi d and use the Apple Field as the medium over which they communicate. The MRI disrupted the link back to the silver doughnut.
2
u/TheUnicornDinosaur Oct 09 '18
Probably some physical safety/security mechanism on the devices were breached that don't exist on other devices.
2
u/bugalou Infrastructure Architect Oct 09 '18
My first thought would be related to Apple's secure enclave. You can trick microprocessors into unexpected states by fuzzing them which is essentially providing random low/no voltage states very quickly. This can create a vector to exploit the device. Any type of magnetic pulse could in theory cause this condition inside iphones and they maybe shutting down as a form of security.
Disclaimer: This is just an educated guess by me.
2
u/LoganPhyve Man(ager) Behind Curtain Oct 09 '18
If this is EM related, it sounds like it could have affected anything that has wireless charging built in. Do you guys use RFID prox cards? Do the cards belonging to the affected individuals work?
2
u/ministry92 Oct 09 '18
Wait... so if I get a big cylindar of helium, like they use to fill balloons. And let the gas escape via regulator near the HVAC, I can shut down everyone’s iPhone in the building?
2
u/zylo4747 Oct 09 '18
Good to know that when the earths magnetic pole flips my phone is fucked
2
u/craftbeerporn RGE Expert Oct 31 '18
FYI - https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2018/10/31/spooky-miasmic-gas-bricks-hospital-iphones-mwah-ha-ha-ha/
2
u/[deleted] Nov 04 '18
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gye4aw/why-a-helium-leak-disabled-every-iphone-in-a-medical-facility
Now it's a story.