Why does my computer always deliver a mild electric shock?
jlick says he gets it too. WTF is going on? Anyone else have this?
I got this in Hsinchu and I get it in Taipei.
I notice it whenver I touch the case.
Is it just the lack of ground in the wall plug?
Is this bad for the computer long term?
i think you build static electricity by how you walk. i forgot the details. i never get it these days. maybe my aluminum powerbook is immune. 
I think carpet does it.
hmm how to fix. touching the plugged in power supply works. i did that years ago when I had to work on my computer. what else. can you ground the case? I’m sure.
there’s probably more ways.
I’m pretty sure its not static electricity. We don’t have a carpet, and the air is not very dry here.
Its more like, when you touch a 9V battery to your tongue. I mean, its continuous.
leaky power supply. that’s what mine was. also no ground here. ground is a big issue for me. i’m just wondering why nobody’s gotten electrocuted here.
I get it all the time on my Powerbook. I think it’s a known issue with apple powerbooks.
But then whenever I turn off the lights in the hallway the speakers pop in my office. So maybe it’s the substandard wiring which is standard in Taiwan.
[quote=“Shenme Niao”]Why does my computer always deliver a mild electric shock?
jlick says he gets it too. WTF is going on? Anyone else have this?
I got this in Hsinchu (Xinzhu) and I get it in Taipei.
I notice it whenver I touch the case.
Is it just the lack of ground in the wall plug?
Is this bad for the computer long term?[/quote]
I don’t have this problem, but I installed a ground wire to my plug and I suggest you do the same. It’s not so difficult to do, but it helps if you have a ground tester to be sure it’s working.
not properly grounded for sure… although it could be compounded by a buggered power supply as rantheman suggested…
I had to restort to smashing an iron bar 6 foot deep into our flower garden an running a wire from it to our main switchbox to provide an earth for our house’s electrical system, since the lazy sods who built the place, wired for earth, but didn’t bother to actually earth it… 
my PC used to shock me too, and my amps buzzed something awful… properly earthed, they don’t…
It’s not necessarily a bad power supply. Almost all electronics will leak a little bit to ground. The big problem is that 99% of houses here have no grounding, so that leak has nowhere to go. When you touch your case, then your body is providing the grounding. Bzzzzt!
When I first came to Taiwan I managed to somehow get just one of the two blades hooked up to power under a desk with the other blade sticking out the side of an adapter.
Coming from Australia we have angled blades making such a hook up impossible.
I completed the circuit when I touched my notebooks metal parts, repeated this experiment a number of times with similar results each time.
I then got the cat and put one of its paws on the metal table frame then got the other paw and …(sorry, I am bored waiting to go to work. There was no pussy present)
The filter (some capacitors and inductances) in the power supply usually connect to ground, but as jlick already said there is usually no grounding in your house / outlet so the current has nowhere to go … until you touch it.
If you can’t do the whole metal pole in the garden thing, you can try the following…
One of the problems is that your computer probably has rubber feet, that insulate it from your floor. You are touching the floor, so as long as the computer case does too, you should theoretically have the same earth.
Easy solution (worth trying at least) is to stick some tin foil (aluminum foil) under one of the feet (computer feet, that is, not yours) and make sure this then connects to a metal part of the computer case (which is connected to the earth part of the internal power).
Sorry, I should add that if your computer is on a desk or something, rather than directly on the floor, then try putting the tin foil under the table leg and then trailing a wire up to the computer case.
Yes, there is a potential difference of 26VAC between my finger and the case of the computer, according to my trusty multimeter. I am completely at a loss to explain this as computers run on DC, but it’s definitely AC. Anyway. If you connect the case to the earth in your house (which is connected to that bag of spuds in the basement I posted about elsewhere) you should be alright.
The shock is very annoying though. It does however make me laugh heartily at the though of my ex-IT dept mates all getting into their anti-static mode to change DRAM over and put in new processors. HAHAHAHAHA!
The filter I mentioned sits in the PSU (power supply unit) which converts AC to DC.
Some of the components connect to the casing which would normally be grounded (would you have an outlet with ground).
This is definitely a leak from the PSU. It was AC. I checked. The whole case is live. Oh well…
Don’t touch that case!! turn off the power and get it to a repairman.
It is very possible it is because the computer is not grounded properly. I used to have the same problem until I ran a wire from the ground prong on my computer to my A/C ground. Since then, I have had no problems.
Later on in the day the jolt increased. Found out it was 96VAC. That’s a fairly meaty dose. Really quite annoying when your installing a new DVD writer and you keep getting lifted. Now I’m beginning to understand why they don’t have 220V here…
Even after turning the juice off I was still getting zapped. So clearly live and me and still getting into contact somehow. Anyway. I conducted a very scientific experiment and reversed the “neutral” and “live” (turned the plug around and put it back inthe socket).
Voila! Back down to a less frightening 26VAC. Remember folks, they may have three prongs, and different sized blades, but it don’t mean nuttin’. (And I’ve found a three-hole socket with that 2-phase 110V giving Live1 and Live2 plus Neutral where the earth should be. This is after I spent 2000 on a step-up transformer)
There is enough material for a PhD in Electrical Engineering in my living room.