My Motherboard gives me tingles...

[Garzan]

Backstory: I recently built myself a new desktop system, and moved my old desktop to serve as the family living room computer hooked up to the living room television. I still only have one good video card, an ASUS Strix GTX1060 OC edition which has been moved into the new desktop. The old desktop has been getting by with the on-board video (which it did for the first year or two when I built it). I've been waiting for closer to the end of the year to buy a new video card to go into the new desktop. 

Just recently the video in the living room computer has gone out. When I was trying a new HDMI cable to eliminate that as a possible problem, I noticed I was getting a small electrical shock when handling the HDMI cable when it was plugged into the computer. Some amount of current is bleeding into the shield of the HDMI port and ending up on the exposed metal on the HDMI cable. So, okay, easy to understand why I'm not getting any video from the computer. :-) What to do now? 

I'm leaning toward leaving it alone until the new series of RTX cards come to Thailand in a month or two, and move my current GTX card back to my old computer. If that gets me back a video output, it's a zero extra cost solution to the problem, it's just a matter of waiting. 

The motherboard is a Z97 series with a Series 4 i5 cpu chip--it's all 5+ years old. Given that it's now got an electrical shock issue on at least the video ground, perhaps the better option is just replacing the motherboard and all the stuff that goes with it with something reasonably more current. As a bonus it would no longer be a shock hazard. My hesitation for this route is that I just upgraded to 16GB of memory on this board, but really, memory is pretty cheap so it's more me being cheap rather than reasonable. :-)

If this was yours, what would you do?

[Arnie85]

I’d ask on a PC forum not a monger forum. 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Arnie85

[Fumbduck]

Are you sure this is happening only on your PC? If you touch any exposed metal parts on the back of your TV, amplifier etc., do you get the same? It's quite uncommon here for the electrical wiring in houses to be grounded. I had the same in a house I had a while back. When I touched my surround-sound amplifier, as well as the HTPC I had back then, I would get a minor shock. In the end I opened up the socket that fed it all, drilled a hole in the recess to the outside, installed a copper ground rod on the outside, connected it through my newly drilled hole to the ground-pin on the socket and voila - no more hair-raising experiences. 

[birdhaus]

42 minutes ago, Arnie85 said:

I’d ask on a PC forum not a monger forum. 

true but unhelpful, no need to  point that out
 

with the shock risk i'd say it's not worth throwing more money at it.
what exactly does the living room PC need to do? is it a workstation for other members of the household? or is it holding media content for the TV, as a media centre?

 

 

[fugtugly]

check to see if any of the contacts in the connectors are touching each other on the video card.  it could also be you had a power surge and it fried the card.

[Garzan]

46 minutes ago, birdhaus said:

true but unhelpful, no need to  point that out
 

with the shock risk i'd say it's not worth throwing more money at it.
what exactly does the living room PC need to do? is it a workstation for other members of the household? or is it holding media content for the TV, as a media centre?

It's just for general computer tasks for the family. I use it to run Kodi, but I haven't been using Kodi much since I started paying for Netflix. The daughter used to use it for school, but she's graduated now. Media storage is on a separate standalone NAS. I'll also mention that I can Remote Desktop into it and it functions fine remotely, I just don't have any video coming out of the on the motherboard HDMI output. I think for the most part it will get used for PC games played on a big screen while I'm chilling on the sofa. 

2 minutes ago, fugtugly said:

check to see if any of the contacts in the connectors are touching each other on the video card.  it could also be you had a power surge and it fried the card.

Fried the onboard video portion of the motherboard? There is no video card in that computer right now. 

I'm leaning in the direction of just replacing the guts of that desktop. Keep the case, P/S, drives, cpu cooler and replace the motherboard, CPU, and memory. As it is now, that configuration is down at the bottom of recommended requirements for VR and several current PC games. Five years is a pretty good run for PC hardware, and the shock hazard concerns me. There isn't anything on the computer case, I've only experienced it on the end of an HDMI cable plugged into the computer (not from the tv). For now, the computer is completely removed from the media center and is on a shelf in the storage bedroom. 

However, the Frugal Charles in me still says, 'but it still works ... mostly.' 555

[Garzan]

1 hour ago, Fumbduck said:

Are you sure this is happening only on your PC?

Yes, only on the end of an HDMI cable when it's plugged into the onboard HDMI port on the motherboard. I haven't felt it anywhere else. 

And yes, home wiring in Thailand is interesting. :-) 

[Garzan]

1 hour ago, Arnie85 said:

I’d ask on a PC forum not a monger forum. 

In general, I'd agree with you. However, I'm not on any PC forums, nor do I plan to spend the time necessary to get involved in PC hardware forums. While PA ~is~ primarily a monger forum, there are a lot of smart people on here, with decades of experience in things besides mongering. And worst case, I junk it and replace it with something more current. With more thought, and a few of the contributions already, I'm leaning that way anyway. An i5-4xxx was mid-range when I built it five years ago, but it's far from mid-range now.

[Greg_B]

16 minutes ago, Garzan said:

And yes, home wiring in Thailand is interesting. :-) 

When I was living at the ex-gf home, her brother was a jack of all trades and of course he thought he was an electrician.

He was changing a problem plug for her and I noticed he was using a 3 prong plug in a 2 prong wiring setup. He didn't use a pigtail ground (like he should) and she was getting shocked every time she plugged in her cell phone to charge. I told her of the issue and of course my knowledge was disregarded as useless information.

If you feel brave enough, look at the outlet and see if it has a ground wire or if they never used one, but used a 3 prong plug.

Here is the fix for that issue.

 

 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Greg_B

[Jebb]

2 hours ago, Arnie85 said:

I’d ask on a PC forum not a monger forum. 

And he has asked in the Tech Issues, Computer & software section where else was he going to post it?. If you cannot post something constructive then stay out.

Fair warning!

[forcebwithu]

2 hours ago, Greg_B said:

When I was living at the ex-gf home, her brother was a jack of all trades and of course he thought he was an electrician.

He was changing a problem plug for her and I noticed he was using a 3 prong plug in a 2 prong wiring setup. He didn't use a pigtail ground (like he should) and she was getting shocked every time she plugged in her cell phone to charge. I told her of the issue and of course my knowledge was disregarded as useless information.

If you feel brave enough, look at the outlet and see if it has a ground wire or if they never used one, but used a 3 prong plug.

Here is the fix for that issue.

A metal junction box is probably rare as hens teeth here. All the electric wiring I've seen uses either NM cable or PVC conduit to plastic junction boxes, so no way to ground to earth unless the wiring includes a third, ground wire.

[Edge]

3 hours ago, Greg_B said:

...........................

If you feel brave enough, look at the outlet and see if it has a ground wire or if they never used one, but used a 3 prong plug.

Here is the fix for that issue.

 

 

 

24 minutes ago, forcebwithu said:

A metal junction box is probably rare as hens teeth here. All the electric wiring I've seen uses either NM cable or PVC conduit to plastic junction boxes, so no way to ground to earth unless the wiring includes a third, ground wire.

.................and if there is a metal box, does that fix assume that it's somehow grounded?

 

[forcebwithu]

1 hour ago, Edge said:

.................and if there is a metal box, does that fix assume that it's somehow grounded?

And if it's a three pronged outlet, is the ground prong connected to anything. Many years ago in the village hired a local sparky to put in grounded, three prong outlets in a room I was using as an office. I was out for the day while he did the work, noobie mistake I know. When I came back, plugged my computer in and could still feel a bit of voltage leaking through on the exposed metal bits of my desktop system. Pulled the cover off the outlet, and surprise, surprise, only the existing two wires were connected to the outlet. I had to go out and buy the 3 wire NM cable for him to use as he couldn't understand what I wanted, even with the help of my then TGF handling the translation.

[birdhaus]

In my living room I have a Android TV box, the one I bought was kinda of an indulgence, I bought the Nvidia Shield. It has sideloading and I could have Kodi on it if I wanted to. It plugs straight into the router via ethernet.
Also connected to the router is my study desktop PC.  I have a 2 bay Qnapp NAS as my media centre running Plex for my media library.
All my devices have access to my NAS / Plex  off my home network, be it wired or wi-fi. 

Now I'd agree with anyone taking a critical eye to my setup that it is fairly generic, but hey it works with the straight outta the box plug and play approach.  

Oh and for Android TV boxes get onto GearBest and take a look at the Xiaomi Mi, it's cheap and it does a fantastic job, highly rated.

Edited August 13, 2020 by birdhaus
edit

[Edge]

11 minutes ago, birdhaus said:

In my living room I have a Android TV box, the one I bought was kinda of an indulgence, I bought the Nvidia Shield. It has sideloading and I could have Kodi on it if I wanted to. It plugs straight into the router via ethernet and is a fantastic unit.Connected to the router and my study desktop PC I have a 2 bay Qnapp NAS as my media centre running Plex for my media library. All devices access it off the network, be it wired or wi-fi.  I'd agree with anyone taking a critical eye to my setup that it is fairly generic, but hey it works with the straight outta the box plug and play approach.  

Oh and for Android TV boxes get onto GearBest and take a look at the Xiaomi Mi, it's cheap and it does a fantastic box, highly rated.

Earthing?

In my condo' I have no earthing, though I could get a cable as far as my consumer box for 1,700 ish.
Someone also suggested I could ground via the old steel plumbing in the meter cupboard which runs through the concrete beams etc and presumably to ground (how to test?).

The problem then is how to run the earth to sockets and computer station on the far side of the condo'.

Someone said that if I include my UPS and NAS in the router circuit I don't need to do all that?

BTW...forgot to say I tingle a lot.   

Edited August 13, 2020 by Edge

[CyberPro]

8 hours ago, Garzan said:

 

If this was yours, what would you do?

I would treat it as a failed motherboard and potential fire hazard.

1 hour ago, Edge said:

Earthing?

In my condo' I have no earthing, though I could get a cable as far as my consumer box for 1,700 ish.
Someone also suggested I could ground via the old steel plumbing in the meter cupboard which runs through the concrete beams etc and presumably to ground (how to test?).

The problem then is how to run the earth to sockets and computer station on the far side of the condo'.

Someone said that if I include my UPS and NAS in the router circuit I don't need to do all that?

 

When I was traveling years ago I had a ground wire with clamp to attach to motel room plumbing to obtain a ground/earthing if the room wiring was 2 conductor (ie no grounding wire). Surface mounted conduit could be used to get the ground to your ungrounded devices. You would need access to a known good ground in order to test whether the clamp method is effective. If the "consumer box" is in the condo it sounds like you could get ground from there. 

Not sure what is meant by "router circuit" but the UPSs I've seen have a 3 conductor input and output, ie they expect a grounding conductor in order to supply that to downstream devices. If those devices are designed for 3 conductor, then running them without that entails some degree of risk. 

[superdaws]

Did both the old and the new cable shock you?  I bought cheap cable in the Philippines once and the poor manufacturing of it meant it had a small hole in it and gave me a nasty shock.  Easy to determine that it was the cable because I got the shock on the shielded part not the end.  It wasn't clear to me where exactly you got the shock.  It sounded like it was on the metal end of the cable.  I'd fully rule out the cables first as they should be the cheapest fix.  In my experience even doing that sometimes can produce mixed results.  I have a had a devil of a time with some HP desktops running dual monitors off the on board video.  Update driver, BIOS, Swapped cables and every on board component and the problem persisted.  I think it is a power issue, in one case the only fix was moving to a different outlet which worked.  Very frustrating problem.  I wish I had had a bigger power supply to see if that fixed it but I didn't.

[Garzan]

Thanks. Yes, it is the metal end of an HDMI cable plugged into the computer. And it happened with two different cables in exactly the same manner. I had initially hoped it was just the cable, which was why that was the first thing I tried changing. (Also the easiest.) 

Even though the computer still functions via Remote Desktop, the electrical shock issue is a concern to me. I've removed that computer from my media center and swapped back in an older Intel NUC. At this point, I'm 99% sure I'll remove the suspect motherboard and bin it. I just bought a new LG OLED television and at the very least I don't want to risk something happening on any of its inputs. Those things are far more expensive than any motherboard I'm likely to buy. :-)