Red Alert for my new PC

[Hiro Hamada]

Hello and after all the efforts I've made to build my new pc I am having a serious nightmare! After a day of booting up and running my pc I found out that my wall plug is not grounded. I was getting esd all over my pc case. Is there a problem? Could it damage my motherboard if I used it for longer time? I used it for 3 days without grounding and it worked just fine

 

Please help me guys...this is very serious and I wasn't aware of this esd till now

[aezakmi]

my plug is this crap

and there's no current flowing through my case

 

something else must be causing the problem

[Dionyz]

Don't worry about it. There are 2 prongs and it's been like that for many years. One of the prongs are hot, and the other one is not. Ground is like a safety feature in high current situations.

[karsnoordhuis]

The ground is for when your powersupply really goes bad or when another piece of your setup short-circuits. In that case all power goes to the earth via the top plates on the round plug and the breakers trip. 

Do you get shocks when touching your case? If yes, do you walk with socks over carpet or generate a static charge in a different way? Usually its you who generates them.

[Hiro Hamada]

2 minutes ago, karsnoordhuis said:

The ground is for when your powersupply really goes bad or when another piece of your setup short-circuits. In that case all power goes to the ground and the breakers trip. 

Do you get shocks when touching your case? If yes, do you walk with socks over carpet or generate a static charge in a different way? Usually its you who generates them.

So you are saying it is safe to use a non grounded pc?

[Amazonsucks]

2 hours ago, Hiro Hamada said:

So you are saying it is safe to use a non grounded pc?

Is the outlet a 3 prong where the ground isnt hooked up to anything at all or is it just improperly grounded? 

[Hiro Hamada]

3 hours ago, Amazonsucks said:

Is the outlet a 3 prong where the ground isnt hooked up to anything at all or is it just improperly grounded? 

Not grounded at all

[TetraSky]

Buy a long cable of decent gauge (AWG 12 or 14) at the hardware store, open your wall socket, connect cable to Ground screw(should be green), and then connect the other side of the cable onto a pipe, either a water pipe or a long metal rod(8~10 feet, copper bonded to steel) in the ground. You could also link it to another wall socket that has a ground.

What I did in a previous house that had this issue, was to connect the ground of the wallsocket my PC was connected to, to an electrical baseboard heater's ground screw, since those are pretty much have to have ground connected.

[TetraSky]

15 minutes ago, neyla12 said:

How can i know which  of the prongs are hot, and which are not??

Usually, the Black/Red or Blue wire is Hot, White is Neutral.

 

But if you're talking about the socket itself, the larger slot/prong is Neutral while the smaller one is Hot.

[Maurer]

If you are working on an electrical outlet, follow standard safety procedure.

 

1. Call a professional.

2. If you have some electrical engineering, make sure the breaker to that outlet/room is turned off in your home.

[Amazonsucks]

7 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Usually, the Black/Red or Blue wire is Hot, White is Neutral.

 

But if you're talking about the socket itself, the larger slot/prong is Neutral while the smaller one is Hot.

Might want to advise him call a licensed electrician and properly install a ground rod instead of electrocuting himself or burning the house down. If he has to ask that question he shouldnt mess with it.

[Amazonsucks]

9 hours ago, Hiro Hamada said:

Not grounded at all

Call a licensed electrician who wont rip you off and have them ground your electrical system properly.

 

Reasons why can be found all over, but start here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthing_system

[bowrilla]

Can we please stop telling someone who has no clue of electrical systems to open his wall outlet and wire his PC case to something in it?

 

This is potentially lethal. People who don't know what they're doing should never fiddle around with their electrical installation!

 

It's even more dangerous when people with little knowledge advise them to do anything and it's painfully obvious in this thread that most people answering have no knowledge themselves. Color coding can be different from country to country and so are wall outlet types and their wiring. 

 

@Hiro Hamada

 

Don't fiddle around with your wall outlet. If you want to be save, you can connect your PC case with something bare metal in your house like radiator pipes.