Housing Electrical Socket Problems

[Gileotine]

Evening everyone. Not sure if this goes in workbench but this does seem to fall under troubleshooting. I live in the USA, Los Angeles, where we use a power socket that has those two flat pins plus the big round one at the bottom--it sort of looks like a face.

 

The new (old) room I'm moving into is part of an older house. Old being, that the sockets in my room only have the first two pins, and not the big girthy one (I'm told this is the ground pin). This poses a problem to me for a couple of reasons: many of the electronics that I have have the full blunt nose thing, and also.. will that compromise my computer which is basically my entire life right now.. should a surge happen? Or the power goes out? If so, how might I protect my investments? I've thought about getting an UPS (Backup PC battery), but even that might not be able to connect to the two-pronged outlet.

 

Please help, and any advice would be amazing!

[Shimejii]

You can just get a new outlet and get an electrician to quickly do it. You can get a Good Quality Power strip and that should cover most surges, as well as your PSU should be able to handle it. 

 

UPS are pretty shitty honestly. If you actually look at how long they stay up for and the price you pay, its just awful. 100-400$ for 5-10 minutes of uptime can help save your work and such, but its kinda just bleh for that price.

[Gileotine]

1 minute ago, Shimejii said:

You can just get a new outlet and get an electrician to quickly do it. You can get a Good Quality Power strip and that should cover most surges, as well as your PSU should be able to handle it. 

 

UPS are pretty shitty honestly. If you actually look at how long they stay up for and the price you pay, its just awful. 100-400$ for 5-10 minutes of uptime can help save your work and such, but its kinda just bleh for that price.

I was under the impression UPS's were supposed to act as a really beefy surge protector. 

[Shimejii]

Just now, Gileotine said:

I was under the impression UPS's were supposed to act as a really beefy surge protector. 

No. They use the exact same thing as a Regular Surge protector Power strips do, it just has an additional Battery on it and a few other things for the battery

[Jzan]

Also if you are feeling kinda risky(but no really) there are little adapters that you can get that turn 3 prong into 2 prong and can give you a little ground wire if you want to ground it yourself. But I would just do this with a surge protector and you should be good. 

[scottyseng]

There exists adapters for 3 prong to 2 prong as mentioned above, but I would avoid them if you can't give proper ground. You can also swap the plugs out, but still need a ground (I mean you could bridge neutral and ground, but that's up to you). The proper fix is to rewire the house but that's a lot of money. Ground is more of a safety feature, but some electronics depend on it.

 

I would get a surge protector, even if you have a UPS. It's much cheaper having your surge protector take the damage instead of your several hundred dollar UPS unit. haha

[Gileotine]

1 minute ago, scottyseng said:

There exists adapters for 3 prong to 2 prong as mentioned above, but I would avoid them if you can't give proper ground. You can also swap the plugs out, but still need a ground (I mean you could bridge neutral and ground, but that's up to you). The proper fix is to rewire the house but that's a lot of money. Ground is more of a safety feature, but some electronics depend on it.

 

I would get a surge protector, even if you have a UPS. It's much cheaper having your surge protector take the damage instead of your several hundred dollar UPS unit. haha

I was also under the impression that the cheap surge protectors you get at like walmart don't actually do much in protecting electronic equipment. Is there one you might suggest?

[Jzan]

3 minutes ago, Gileotine said:

I was also under the impression that the cheap surge protectors you get at like walmart don't actually do much in protecting electronic equipment. Is there one you might suggest?

There is no one surge protector I would really suggest but all surge protectors should have a rating for how much they can protect and you want to make sure that that rating is above your usage also most of they back a certain amount of damage if they failed to work so keep the warranty.

[scottyseng]

Just now, Gileotine said:

I was also under the impression that the cheap surge protectors you get at like walmart don't actually do much in protecting electronic equipment. Is there one you might suggest?

I usually get some high joule rated Belkin, APC, or GE ones. You don't want the cheap ones.

 

Also surge protection won't be as happy without a true ground either. A fair amount use ground to shunt to for overvoltage.

[Gileotine]

Dammit. I should of really checked that room before I moved in. Ah well, I'll try to make do and see if there's any 3-socket outlets in the house I can channel up to.

I obviously don't want to be putting my computer at daily risk. How common are these kinds of surges that would blow a computer up? And how much more likely might that risk be in an ungrounded socket? Obviously you can't predict that, but if you've got an idea, please let me know.

[Jzan]

Also if you are still wondering about the adapter we are talking about here is an example, https://www.amazon.com/GE-Polarized-Grounding-Adapter-14404/dp/B00B7PK1TC/ref=sr_1_6?crid=23ZG76W2BI8W6&keywords=3+prong+to+2+prong+adapter&qid=1561168735&s=gateway&sprefix=3+prong+to+2+prong+%2Caps%2C174&sr=8-6

And the little green metal thing is your ground where you could connect a ground wire.

[Gileotine]

1 minute ago, Jzan said:

Also if you are still wondering about the adapter we are talking about here is an example, https://www.amazon.com/GE-Polarized-Grounding-Adapter-14404/dp/B00B7PK1TC/ref=sr_1_6?crid=23ZG76W2BI8W6&keywords=3+prong+to+2+prong+adapter&qid=1561168735&s=gateway&sprefix=3+prong+to+2+prong+%2Caps%2C174&sr=8-6

And the little green metal thing is your ground where you could connect a ground wire.

That looks.. REALLY janky. I would literally be connecting my own ground wire to.. to what? A piece of metal somewhere in my room?

 

[scottyseng]

3 minutes ago, Gileotine said:

Dammit. I should of really checked that room before I moved in. Ah well, I'll try to make do and see if there's any 3-socket outlets in the house I can channel up to.

I obviously don't want to be putting my computer at daily risk. How common are these kinds of surges that would blow a computer up? And how much more likely might that risk be in an ungrounded socket? Obviously you can't predict that, but if you've got an idea, please let me know.

It really depends on your area sadly. Like my house used to have a transformer that was on its last legs (before it finally blew in the street), so we had brownout issues (voltage of 100V at times) and random overvoltage surges (130-140V). Some electronics might just refuse to work in ungrounded sockets.

 

Also the adapter...you need a proper ground to hook to, like in modern homes you have a grounding rod that goes into the ground. Water line (if copper) works as well.

[Gileotine]

Thanks for all the advice guys. Ugh, I'm kicking myself here. Is there really no good, viable way to do this aside from hiring an electrician to rewire a socket ($$$) or just going with the options above and crossing my toes that my computer doesn't explode? Or are the options above like, half-decent options.

[Jzan]

7 minutes ago, Gileotine said:

That looks.. REALLY janky. I would literally be connecting my own ground wire to.. to what? A piece of metal somewhere in my room?

 

I know it is not the best solution but it is the simplest and should be fine it is a little weird especially if you don’t understand eletrical, but unless you own this house and plan on having it for a long time and decided to fix all the electrical, some form of this is most likely your best solution.

[scottyseng]

2 minutes ago, Gileotine said:

Thanks for all the advice guys. Ugh, I'm kicking myself here. Is there really no good, viable way to do this aside from hiring an electrician to rewire a socket ($$$) or just going with the options above and crossing my toes that my computer doesn't explode? Or are the options above like, half-decent options.

Yeah, I would only attempt a permanent fix if  you plan to stay there for a long time. This is not a cheap job, to do it properly involves ripping open the walls to run new wire, then the breaker panel has to be updated with proper grounding rod. The ghetto solution would be new sockets, but bridging ground to neutral, but not the most ideal solution.

[Gileotine]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[Jzan]

Just now, Gileotine said:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Yea I am sorry for your situation but do you own the house or are you just like renting it because if it is just renting then just doing something jank for a few months should be fine, but I would get a surge protector and maybe become a gambler( just kidding it is not THAT risky).

[scottyseng]

2 minutes ago, Gileotine said:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Yeah, if you're renting it though, you might be able to complain to the landlord that they need to update the electrical in the house. Hopefully you don't have challenger breakers. haha.

 

But yeah, if temporarily living there, I'd just use the adapter and try to find something to ground to. Else just survive with surge protector / ghetto bridged neutral ground replacement plugs.

[Gileotine]

Just now, scottyseng said:

Yeah, if you're renting it though, you might be able to complain to the landlord that they need to update the electrical in the house. Hopefully you don't have challenger breakers. haha.

 

But yeah, if temporarily living there, I'd just use the adapter and try to find something to ground to. Else just survive with surge protector / ghetto bridged neutral ground replacement plugs.

I won't let you know how stupid I am.. but there might've been a clause in the rental agreement about something like that... and it wasn't on my side.

[scottyseng]

1 minute ago, Gileotine said:

I won't let you know how stupid I am.. but there might've been a clause in the rental agreement about something like that... and it wasn't on my side.

Oh, that's painful. Well, all you can do is tough it out (or hit a grounding rod in the ground and fish a grounding wire inside through the window. lol

[Gileotine]

1 minute ago, scottyseng said:

Oh, that's painful. Well, all you can do is tough it out (or hit a grounding rod in the ground and fish a grounding wire inside through the window. lol

im tryn not to die here mate

 

XD

 

But thanks. I'll tough it out, somehow.