Is the outside portion of a USB port supposed to be connected to ground?

[AttacksOnYaks]

Hopefully a simple question, I just can't seem to put the right words into Google to get an answer. I recently built a secondary PC and got a little "carried away" with cable management. To make a long story short, I ripped the ground wire for the front-panel USB port out of its harness on the front-panel. I just finished soldering the ground wire back to the ground pin. While I was testing with my multi meter, I noticed something strange. The outer portion of the USB receptacle seems to be connected to the ground wire. It's kind of hard to explain, I've attached an image to show what I mean.

 

Is this normal or did I somehow cause a short? I just want to confirm that I'm not going to break any of my devices with the port.

[Enderman]

Yeah, it's normal.

[W-L]

10 minutes ago, AttacksOnYaks said:

Hopefully a simple question, I just can't seem to put the right words into Google to get an answer. I recently built a secondary PC and got a little "carried away" with cable management. To make a long story short, I ripped the ground wire for the front-panel USB port out of its harness on the front-panel. I just finished soldering the ground wire back to the ground pin. While I was testing with my multi meter, I noticed something strange. The outer portion of the USB receptacle seems to be connected to the ground wire. It's kind of hard to explain, I've attached an image to show what I mean.

 

Is this normal or did I somehow cause a short? I just want to confirm that I'm not going to break any of my devices with the port.

Yes that is common practice while not absolutely necessary some manufactures do wire the casing to ground also, you will also find this is sometimes be true on your cables. 

[AttacksOnYaks]

5 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Yeah, it's normal.

 

Just now, W-L said:

Yes that is common practice while not absolutely necessary some manufactures do wire the casing to ground also, you will also find this is sometimes be true on your cables. 

Thanks, I figured as much. When I first tested the pin to the point I was going to solder the wire to, I could have sworn that it wasn't connected. Maybe my probe didn't touch the edge when testing the other pins.

[Enderman]

5 minutes ago, AttacksOnYaks said:

 

Thanks, I figured as much. When I first tested the pin to the point I was going to solder the wire to, I could have sworn that it wasn't connected. Maybe my probe didn't touch the edge when testing the other pins.

Maybe it just wasn't designed that way in that cable, seems like a lot of manufacturers don't ground the casing.

It shouldn't be a problem though.

If there is shielding in your cable, that should be connected to the housing instead of the ground.