My Outlet has no grounding, will it affect my hardware?

[sakram07]

As the title suggest, my outlet has no grounding, and my PC plugged straight to the wall without any UPS/stabilizer/etc
And it gave me a slight tingle when i touch it, even when i plug my brushed aluminum phone to the PC, the phone also conducts electricity.
The question is, is that harmful in anyway to my hardware? Are there any risk of short circuit due to static build up? Im no electrician, so this concerns me


My GPU had an artifact, but everytime i reinstall it/retighten the screw, the artifact is gone. Im trying to pinpoint the cause of this. It's either my PCIE slot or my connector (my hdmi cable and monitor is fine, i've checked) but someone also told me, it could be the grounding. Is that true?

 

[Ali Tauseef]

Why are you touching your PC? It won't harm IT, it will only harm you. You can get electrocuted.

If you need to check on something inside, turn it off and remove the power cables.

 

[sakram07]

I only touch the case, you know from time to time you need to move/realign the placement a bit
Or the ocassional plugging something on to the usb, thats when i know it's conductive
Even when the pc is turned off (while still plugged)

 

[mortemas]

Sounds like hot and neutral are swapped. Very bad. Computer cords usually have a ground pin on it - how did you plug it into the outlet? Is it a two-pin outlet? Did you use an adapter?

 

[sakram07]

Two pin, as the standard in my country
The way i plug it is pretty straight forward
Wall > extension cord > pc
No adapter whatsoever

Is there any DIY way to deal with this? I heard if you run a new cable from your case, and to a nail on the other end and nail it to the wall it could serve as grounding?

 

[mortemas]

I don’t think a nail in the wall is going to do it. You need an expert to take a look at this. You shouldn’t be getting a tingling feeling from touching your computer! A proper ground connection in the home goes from the wall outlet and usually leads to a metal rod which is literally buried in the ground. If you don’t have a grounded outlet, a new outlet with a ground connection needs to be installed. But, the tingling feeling is a separate problem and also needs to be fixed. Get an electrician if at all possible.

EDIT: You might have leakage current. See “Leakage current voltage in case” in this article. Sounds exactly like your problem. http://www.epanorama.net/documents/pc/ungrounded_pc.html

Do you have 220v electricity in your country?

 

[sakram07]

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5cttHy9RWCk/UOgmZdsrUXI/AAAAAAAADOs/8rLPjFYqPdE/s1600/pcground.jpg
So this would'nt work? Because grounding my outlet means i have to rework all of my house wiring
And btw, does this have anything to do with my gpu artifact?


P.s: Sorry for the broken english

 

[mortemas]

No, not likely to ground if put in the wall like that, with maybe a remote exception. If there is a metal stud in the wall and the nail is touching, maybe yes. But, maybe is not good enough. There is a possibility that the outlet box, if metal, is grounded even though you don’t have a grounded outlet there. In this case, you would attach the grounding wire to the outlet’s cover plate screw, but you should use test equipment to verify this.

I think it could very well cause artifacts by interfering with the video signal going to the monitor.

Your english is fine, my friend!

 

[sakram07]

Yes im aware that this is not the best solution, but anything will do at this point, my house was'nt built with grounding in mind, well, there's a lightning rod, since my house is quite tall. But that's it

 

[sakram07]

i did ground my PC the ghetto way, and it does reduce 90% of the shock i felt when touching the case
and by the way, if anyone curious on how my GPU artifacts looks like : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF4dxkzpCk0 (with more detail included in the description)

 

[Paperdoc]

Finding a good way to connect the computer chassis to Ground is a good thing. But there is more.

I don't know the details of electrical outlets in your country, but I'll try to write generally. In many AC wiring systems ONE side of the power supply to the home is grounded to establish a zero-voltage reference point for the system. This is done both at the exterior transformer on the power company's poles, and at the breaker panel in the house. Then cables from the breaker panel to each wall outlet are run, and they are supposed to be installed in a way that ensures the the polarity of the slots in ALL of the outlets is the same. Where I live, it's the LEFT slot of the wall outlet that is always the Grounded Neutral side, and the right slot is "Hot" or "Line". That may or may not have been done when your house wiring was installed.

Still, there is a problem possible. On older designs the two slots of the outlet were the same size, and the two prongs on each plug also are the same size. So it is easy to insert a 2-prong plug on the end of a cord into the wall outlet either way. The problem comes because the user device that you are plugging in may prefer only one way and there is no way for you to know what that is. For a LOT of such situations this does not matter. BUT it DOES matter when you are plugging in many devices and then connecting them together with signal cables. For example, you may plug in separate computer, monitor, printer, and modem, then connect them together. If they all happen to be plugged into wall outlets the same way, there will be no problem. But if ONE of those is plugged in "upside down", it is possible for it to feed a voltage from its chassis to all the other chassis via the Ground shield connections in the data cables.

So, IF the plugs on your devices in your computer system CAN be plugged in both ways ("right-side-up" and "upside-down"), you could have this problem causing the stray voltages on exterior surfaces. What to do?
1. Disconnect that Ground cable you installed. This is only so any stray voltage WILL be detected during this sequence. You can re-connect that Ground later.
2. Unplug all your devices. Disconnect all the cables that connect them together.
3. Plug in only your computer. Start it up and feel its case. If you feel an electrical shock from it, shut it down and unplug, then turn the plug over and plug it in the other way. Start it up again and check for shocks. When it gives you no trouble, leave its plug that way. IF you still get a shock no matter which way it is plugged in, try to pick the way that gives you less shock. Then re-connect the Ground lead you had created, and check whether that eliminates the effect.
4. Now connect your Monitor to the computer and plug it in. Start up both computer and monitor and check for shocks on both devices. If you get a shock, unplug the monitor and turn its plug over, then plug back in. This should eliminate the shock effect.
5. Do the same process with your printer.
6. Do same process with each other peripheral device in your system, one at a time.

This process will ensure that all your connected devices are plugged in with the same polarity, even though the plugs and wall sockets do not appear to have any polarity labels. If you have not yet re-connected your Ground lead, do so now and verify that everything still gives no shock. If this all works, it might be a good idea on EACH plug to mark the "right side" to plug in "up" so you can re-connect properly later if you ever un-plug something.

 

[sakram07]

Electrical grounding is not commonplace here in my country, it's like more of an optional stuff rather than a requirement when installing electricity to a house. It's not a common sense to do electrical grounding, as it is in some developed country. People just opted to not do it because it's cheaper and did'nt know/care about the potential risk of not grounding the cable

Most of my friend (like 8/10 of them) has no grounding
We mostly grew up knowing that PC gave an electric buzz when touched, so we thought thats normal, all PC do that
And now that im older, and more into the technical PC stuff, i started to wonder if its had any effects on my components
Turns out it is, i made a post on my facebook about this forum, and as expected. Most of my PC builder friends did'nt know about this until now

By the way, i have a lightning protection rod installed. Should i just tell the electricial to ground it through the same channel? Or is it dangerous?

Again, english is not my first languange, so pardon if i miscommunicate something as we're getting to the technical stuff

 

[Paperdoc]

Thanks for Best Solution. Let us know whether that actually helps remove the problem.