I keep getting shocked

[jasonrockhill]

Ok, I am new here and hope someone can walk me thru this problem.

I built my system as a present to myself this past Christmas. I have been very happy with it. The barebones is a Gigabyte Pro SLI mobo, AMD X2 3800+, 2 sticks of Kingston Value Ram (512) and a Visiontek X850XT PCI-E Video Card. I have been enjoying burning backup copies of DVD movies and having a great time adding an Audigy 4 and some Klipsch speakers (2.1).

Some of the movies that I burned on crap DVD DL discs will not play in my stand alone DVD player, but they will play perfectly on my Pioneer DVD burner. I had the bright idea that I would connect my video card to my Hi-def Sony TV and watch the DVD's on my television.

I pulled out the S-Video to component adaptor and went to radio shack to purchase a long enough component video cable (Green, Red and Blue) to attach to my TV. When I connected the cable to the adaptor I got shocked pretty badly, so I then turned off the power on the computer and the TV and connected the two again. When I turned the TV and computer power back on, it blew a circuit in my apartment. After finding the circuit breaker box and switching the power back on, I realized that my video card was fried.

I sent the video card back to Visiontek and they replaced the card.

I still want to connect my video card to my Hi-Def TV, but am scared to now because I do not want to RMA another video card.

UPDATE: I now realize that the pair of USB ports on the outside of my computer case were destroyed somehow. It shocked me when touching it the other day. Would these busted USB ports be my power issue? Or could it be an issue of the motherboard not being grounded or what??

I need help! I really want to be able to hook my computer up to my TV and watch movies on my TV. Any help would be appreciated!

Thank YOU!

-jason

 

[korrupt]

I think its either your power cable/plug (use another one) or your motherboard is touching the sides. Check both of these and post back

Korrupt

 

[jasonrockhill]

Motherboard touching the sides of the case? I will take a look before work this morning. Thank you for your help!

 

[Rik]

Do you have a dvm?(digital volt meter)

 

[jasonrockhill]

No, where can I get one? How much do they cost?

Another note: I disconnected the busted USB port on the case from the motherboard. Would that have anything to do with reducing the high voltage??

 

[Rik]

I have no idea, you havent said where in the world you are!!!!

 

[jasonrockhill]

Sorry, I live in Nashville, TN.

 

[Rik]

You might want to put that on your profile!!! You can probably pick a cheap one up at your local radio shack or car spares shop for a few dollars. All you need is one that is ok with mains voltage. I don't know if they are available in the US, but here in the UK Academy meters are cheap and good quality!!!!

 

[sllewe]

I have heard of cases like this, but never directly dealt with one.

But those bad USB ports sound like they could be the culprit.

You may want to unplug everything from the PC and plug each in one by one, seeing when the problem starts again.

 

[jasonrockhill]

Thank you for your help..I have searched the archives looking for others who might have had the same problem in the past, but could not find anything.

 

[rmdl51]

Hello jasonrockhill,
First things first, Is your computer correctly grounded? if you don't know how to check this let me know, after that shortcircuit you might wanna test your PSU also, after that then check what korrupt told you, sides of the MOBO not touching the case, MOBO correctly seated on the standoffs, dust with dew can bridge two lines and shortcircuit MOBO or any other components. I dont' get when you say "USB ports on the outside of my computer case" do you have an external hub? or you mean the front USB panel. USB ports handle enough power to short circuit a system, so my suggestion is that you follow this order to check everything, and then reassembly everything back. Good Luck and let me know if there's anything else I can do to help.

 

[jasonrockhill]

How do I check to see if my computer is correctly grounded??

As far as the USB ports, I was referring to the front USB ports on the computer case that I connected to the mobo with cables supplied by the computer case manufacturer.

Thank you for your help!

-Jason

 

[rmdl51]

Well, checking the ground connections are not that hard, first of all you’ll surely need what rik told you, a Voltmeter or at least any of those AC testers with two plugs and a led that will turn on if AC is found. There are also some surge protectors that have a led to warn you about a faulty ground connection.

The wall outlet should have 3 holes, 2 verticals and one roundish in the middle, that one is the ground, if your outlet doesn’t have this then is not grounded, if your power cable doesn’t have this middle pin or is torn then is not grounded.

Either using DVM or AC tester, (if using DVM remember to set in the AC section) insert one plug on the middle hole and the other into one of the vertical ones, probably by now you have noticed that one of the vertical holes is larger than the other, ok, so if using the AC tester you should have AC power between middle and small hole, and nothing between the middle and the large one. If you are using the DVM you should have a reading between 115-130v on the same spot (small-middle). If you don’t get any readings may be not correctly grounded, if you get AC on both lines that’s for sure pretty bad and could shorten the life of your equipment, even cause the shock that happen before. Any of those cases your electrical wiring on your apartment is faulty and need to be fixed. I heard about some devices that invert AC to the correct cycle and ground it to the wall outlet but never use it, so I’m not sure about price, availability or how reliable are these devices.

Let’s Hope you get the correct readings and your electrical wiring is ok, then next will be testing your PSU. You can get one of these PSU testers for around 10 bucks and check that every voltage is correct. If is that so then I’ll suggest to you to disassembly everything and check for any possible contacts from the MOBO to the Case and if it’s dusty get a can of compressed air and clean it up.

Before powering up everything again I strongly recommend to get one reliable Surge protector (if you don’t have one already) and let’s hope that shock didn’t burn any other components. Good luck and let me know how are you doing.

 

[jasonrockhill]

Ok, just opened my computer case and realized that the motherboard is missing a few of the mount screws. Would that cause a voltage problem??

 

[Rik]

That wouldn't cause a voltage problem but it could possibly cause a grounding problem and lead to mis alignment of your mobo!!!!

 

[rmdl51]

An therefore touching some part of the case or shortcircuiting with another component! Get all the mounts and screws and make sure is correctly aligned, I believe that has a lot to do with what happen before.