Getting shocked

[Quadraman]

I had my Q700 in the IIvx case open recently and my hand brushed the metal case and I got shocked. i thought it was a static discharge, but when I touched it again, another shock. I can't see any places where electricity might be arcing from the power cable or power supply into the case. What do I need to do to ground this charge so that I don't end up killing myself?

[Anonymous Freak]

That could be a sign that your power outlet isn't grounded properly. I have two outlets in my house that are grounded "differently" than the rest of the house. If I connect a piece of electronics to that outlet, then touch it, I get zapped. If I plug the same piece of electronics into another outlet, no zap. (The most obnoxious part is that the outlet closest to our TV is one of the two, which means any time I want to plug or unplug anything, I get a little zap.)

[Flash!]

Unfortunately, the only way you're going to be able to test for anything is with a multimeter.

[mac2geezer]

You can also buy a little device that looks like an oversize 3-prong plug that you simply plug into an outlet and lights on the device tell you if the outlet is wired properly. Only cost a few dollars and can be obtained at any electrical supply house or Home Depot or probably most hardware stores. If an outlet is wired improperly it's a trivial exercise to rewire one, taking the usual electrical precautions, of course.

[johnklos]

In a pinch, you can use a nightlight or some other kind of light which doesn't draw a lot of power. Touch one prong to the grounded case of something plugged into a good outlet, then touch the other to ground on the bad outlet. Do the same for neutral. Neutral is always the larger blade on all outlets - they make it so you can plug a hot blade into a neutral blade socket, but you can't plug a neutral blade into a hot blade socket. Makes sense if you think about it.

[Anonymous Freak]

Not to keep too far off-topic...

My house is massively badly wired. The previous owner was an expert tile person. He re-tiled the house incredibly well (although it was in the 70s and 80s, so the color choices are a bit dated now.) Sadly, he also fancied himself an electrician and plumber. And was woefully unqualified at each. When we remodeled the basement, we basically had to rip out all of the wiring and re-do it, it was so bad. Before, I never felt very "safe" plugging any of my vintage hardware in to any of the circuits. Now I at least have three "good" circuits for them, even if the main floor is still all kinds of wonky. (Don't even get me started on the switches.....)

[Unknown_K]

It is shocking how bad even some new houses are wired these days plus the bad carpentry and general construction. It is said that few newer houses will last for 100 years like older built ones have.

[MidnightCommando]

It is shocking how bad even some new houses are wired.

hehehehehehehe (sorry, couldn't help myself)

It's also quite awful that the morons who do these shoddy jobs still get to find work

[H3NRY]

It is said that few newer houses will last for 100 years like older built ones have.

Older houses seem better because the shoddy houses built 100 years ago have already fallen down. You do have to wonder how long the glues that hold all the modern OSB, plywood, and MDF materials together will last. There was some very slipshod work done during the housing boom when anyone who could strip a wire was considered an electrician. OTOH, the wiring in most 100 year old houses is pretty suspect, having been augmented several times by people of widely differing skills.

[Unknown_K]

Couldn't be worse then 1970's homes with oxidizing aluminum wire that causes hot spots and fires.

[johnklos]

It's capitalism unchecked. Why make something which lasts for a long time if it doesn't benefit the builder? Houses which need to be rebuilt or replaced, on the other hand, do benefit builders.

Some houses in Europe are hundreds of years old. A fifty year old house in the US which hasn't required or doesn't require tremendous work is not very common.

The same can be said for the automotive industry - they want you to get a new car every few years, not every two decades. Windows vendors want you to get a new computer every two to three years. It's just our consumption-centric market.

[Unknown_K]

I don't know about the car bit. When is the last time you seen a car rust out, blow up at under 100K miles, burn oil, need new exhaust, etc? Cars last a long time these days. They get you to buy new cars (and multiple cars) for different needs like the SUV for DAD, sports car for the son, minivan for mom etc. These days we have a glut of working vehicles (more then one per family) so when times are tight car sales drop like a rock. If they were that unreliable people would have to buy new ones just to get to work and the failing repair shops would be very busy.

Computers are different, people are sold on the new technologies to upgrade (same with electronics in general). With proper cooling (and dust cleanout) a new computer will last a lot longer then you want it to.

Another thing about houses is once you get something 200 years old full on antique furniture you don't need to remodel every few years. A large part of the business in the US is to remodel homes to keep up with new styles and colors. Quite a bit of the work done to houses in remodels is sub standard because of cost issues and corner cutting. When there are big building booms you have issues getting correctly treated lumber, they use green stuff that warps when it fully dries causing all kinds of issues in the house.

[johnklos]

I don't know about the car bit. When is the last time you seen a car rust out, blow up at under 100K miles, burn oil, need new exhaust, etc? Cars last a long time these days. They get you to buy new cars (and multiple cars) for different needs like the SUV for DAD, sports car for the son, minivan for mom etc. These days we have a glut of working vehicles (more then one per family) so when times are tight car sales drop like a rock. If they were that unreliable people would have to buy new ones just to get to work and the failing repair shops would be very busy.

What I meant is that the industry wants us to buy a new car ever few years, not necessarily that they're less reliable. Think about it - how many car commercials are on TV versus the number of times in the average person's life that they go and buy a car? They also encourage leasing as much as possible to encourage people to get a new leased car every several years. This is even more troubling when you look at the "green" movement which is mostly just marketing fluff. The amount of environmental impact involved in making a Prius, for instance, is much more than the Prius will offset in its lifetime. It'd have to last decades to make up the difference, yet people are encouraged to ditch their older cars for cars like Priuses.

Computers are different, people are sold on the new technologies to upgrade (same with electronics in general). With proper cooling (and dust cleanout) a new computer will last a lot longer then you want it to.

True. My VAXstation 4000/60 is one of my most reliable machines - it just runs and runs and runs in spite of being old enough to vote. But imagine if instead of computers going to landfills because people got fed up with viruses and trojans it was actually not painful to reinstall Windows - how different would things be now? After all, there are MANY people out there who could make excellent use out of a ten year old machine. Recycling doesn't happen nearly as often as it could because Microsoft has no incentive to make reinstallation easy (but they do have an incentive to make it difficult), so people often just buy a new computer when the old one gets too infected to work properly.

Another thing about houses is once you get something 200 years old full on antique furniture you don't need to remodel every few years. A large part of the business in the US is to remodel homes to keep up with new styles and colors. Quite a bit of the work done to houses in remodels is sub standard because of cost issues and corner cutting. When there are big building booms you have issues getting correctly treated lumber, they use green stuff that warps when it fully dries causing all kinds of issues in the house.

True, I didn't think about that. Gotta keep up with the neighbors!

[trag]

But imagine if instead of computers going to landfills because people got fed up with viruses and trojans it was actually not painful to reinstall Windows - how different would things be now? After all, there are MANY people out there who could make excellent use out of a ten year old machine.

I blame Flash and Javascript and lazy, young, web designers. The biggest problem in continuing to use old computers is that they don't support newer operating systems, so they don't support the latest browser, so they can't handle the poorly written web pages that one must visit to carry on a reasonably modern life these days.

There's no reason most of those web pages couldn't have been written in plain html or something more old-computer friendly, but that's the reality.

[luddite]

I don't mean to unnecessarily steer this discussion back on topic, but it's worth noting that most decent surge protectors have a ground indicator built-in... might be a worthwhile investment.

[Bunsen]

Consider this before posting: Does every new topic have to turn into a rant about your favourite bugbear? Whether it is capitalism, socialism, planned obsolescence, Microsoft, Apple, or the guy at the bus stop with the odd body odour?

You can also buy a little device that looks like an oversize 3-prong plug that you simply plug into an outlet and lights on the device tell you if the outlet is wired properly.

Power Point and Leakage Tester - NB 240AV Australian plug version. Every workshop should have one. There are also smaller ones which like mac2geezer says are just a plug with some lights on the back.

I also run my workshop through an RCD - residual current device - in case any of the gear I am working on has faults. They measure the power throughput on the active line and compare it with the neutral. If there is any difference - meaning some power is going out to the workshop and not returning, for example, through you to ground - it shuts down the power in milliseconds. This can save your life. Newer houses and commercial premises may have one fitted at the switchboard.

[coius]

I also run my workshop through an RCD - residual current device - in case any of the gear I am working on has faults. They measure the power throughput on the active line and compare it with the neutral. If there is any difference - meaning some power is going out to the workshop and not returning, for example, through you to ground - it shuts down the power in milliseconds. This can save your life. Newer houses and commercial premises may have one fitted at the switchboard.

We call them GFCI (Ground-Fault Circuit Interrupt) which must be installed in kitchens and bathrooms or anywhere near water. This is to protect someone if they have water than touches the outlet. Instead of turning whatever the water is part of/in flow with, it keeps it from shocking/starting fires by tripping a circuit within the actual outlet.

Kinda nifty, because if a toaster or blender grounds itself, it trips the outlets.

Usually you will have one or two of them per wall depending on the length, and will work with up to 3-4 outlets that if the GFCI trips, it cuts off power to all outlets on it's immediate circuit that it has control over. So even if the outlet you have doesn't have the GFCI, as long as it is tied to a GGCI-Controlled outlet, it will still cut off power.

It's a cool technology out there, and in my opinion, should be everywhere in the house at least on all circuits. That way it will spare lives because of a wire in the wall should cross/arc, it will cut off all power on that outlet, possibly saving a house/building from going up in flames.

It has happened several times with the old knob-and-tube wiring, where the cloth insulator breaks down and the wires cross, maybe because of vibrations from trucks going down the street causes the wires to touch.

Also, another neat tool to have is a whole-house surge protector. We got one and over the course of 2 summer storms, it trips (cuts off power to the whole house immediately if it detects a surge) and probably saved us a lot of money. and since it's a whole house, there is like ZERO need for one in the house

[johnklos]

This also reminds me of advice I give to everyone to whom we sell computers. Whenever you don't know the electrical of a location well, make sure you plug all of the accessories of a particular computer to the same outlets as the computer itself. In the early days of Firewire, many ports used to get fried because people would plug drives into a different outlet than the computer, and in a case like yours, it'd fry things.

Firewire port protection is a bit better these days.