Help! My PC case SHOCKS me when I touch it!

Okay so this morning I turned on my PC to find that pesky "NTLDR is missing" error. Puzzled, I restarted it a few times and the same thing happened. I decided to open up my case to make sure the SATA cables were plugged in correctly.

While I was fiddling around in there, I noticed my fingers receiving an electric shock whenever I touched a metal part of the case or other component (dvd drive, hard drive). It is a continuous electrical charge that I feel as long as I am touching the metal parts in my case. At first I thought it had something to do with the wiring in my home because this is a pretty ghetto house but even after flipping the PSU to off and unplugging it from the wall outlet I still feel the shock.

Does this mean that my PSU is bad and I should get a new one?

Seasonic M12-II 430w PSU by the way, rest of the specs are in sig.

check your house wiring first. get one of those el cheapo home depot checkers, you plug it in the outlet and it lights up telling you whats going on "in ur wiringz"

I encountered the same issue in my garage. It was the in the wiring from the panel to the outlet I was using.

I ran a dedicated 20 amp to run my 3 garage systems on, and have had no more "shocks".

It does not necessarily mean that your PSU is bad, merely that your computer is not grounded properly. In fact, the most likely culprit would be bad wiring and not anything related to the computer itself. Try taking the computer to an outlet in a different location, or if possible a different house entirely and see if the problem still occurs. If not, you should have an electrician examine the wiring of that socket and possibly any other location with similar issues.

There's some serious electrical problems with your outlet. I've had some PC's I've built run from non-grounded outlets, without anything like that happening.

Call an electrician.

And although I'm definitely not the right person to ask on the subject, I'd be worried about your hardware running from there.

are you using a 3 prong to 2 prong adaptor at the wall, if so make sure the metal tab is under the center screw of the outlet cover plate, assuming a 12/2 wire is in your wall, most older houses only have a 2 wire system no ground. you are feeling a shock because YOU are acting as the ground!!!
please don't use your hands to check for ground problems a 100mA charge can stop your heart aka the output of a small cell phone wall charger, your psu has MUCH more stored amps than that (capacitance)

Unplug everything external to your PC except keyboard and mouse and try again. Could be an external device (i.e. its power supply) giving you the tingle and not anything PC related.

short in your pc maybe. check and make sure none of your cabling has been worn thru to copper. check to see if any open molex's have pins pulled out of them and touching the case. make sure you are not using any extra mb standoffs.

Wildfire788 said:

Okay so this morning I turned on my PC to find that pesky "NTLDR is missing" error. Puzzled, I restarted it a few times and the same thing happened. I decided to open up my case to make sure the SATA cables were plugged in correctly.

While I was fiddling around in there, I noticed my fingers receiving an electric shock whenever I touched a metal part of the case or other component (dvd drive, hard drive). It is a continuous electrical charge that I feel as long as I am touching the metal parts in my case. At first I thought it had something to do with the wiring in my home because this is a pretty ghetto house but even after flipping the PSU to off and unplugging it from the wall outlet I still feel the shock.

Does this mean that my PSU is bad and I should get a new one?

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Check the wiring! I had the same issue like a few others did and it was indeed the wiring.... The building I live in is 100+ years old.... and even the new outlet box was deceving for when I actually opened it up... it looked like 100 year old wiring lol.

Call an electrician too. The one guy is right... that zap if your not careful can make you deaded and we dont want that now do we?

Wildfire788 said:

At first I thought it had something to do with the wiring in my home because this is a pretty ghetto house but even after flipping the PSU to off and unplugging it from the wall outlet I still feel the shock.

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To everyone in the thread saying it's his wiring, how does that explain the above comment about it still happening when the PSU is UNPLUGGED?

drugs.

coolie_d said:

To everyone in the thread saying it's his wiring, how does that explain the above comment about it still happening when the PSU is UNPLUGGED?

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The electrical wiring in the house is probably pretty bad in general. Should have it checked out. In the mean time, you can do these things to work on your comp.. Make sure the unit is unplugged then try hitting the switch on your PC. This should use up any remaining power inside of the PC. Wear shoes with a good amount of rubber soles on them. If the place you were working on the PC is carpeted, try working on it where the floor isn't carpeted.

First, is not and can’t be a short or short circuit. By definition a short circuit would shut down the PC, smoke some wires etc or simply make the PSU go click and into protection mode.

Old house might be the giveaway, most old houses don’t run the third wire ground which you really do need both for your personal safety, fire prevention and of course the health of anything plugged into that socket.

Once unplugged the capacitors inside the PSU will hold a residual charge for a few moments but not for very long. So, if after 5 min or so you are still being tingled when touching the case there is another problem.

What else is plugged into the wall that is also plugged into your computer? A printer, scanner, USB hub, Router, monitor, speaker system, modem, and of course one of the biggest offenders the cable from your TV cable system. Cable systems are very rarely grounded properly and touching the ground on a your cable cable and touching a grounded appliance can often result in the buzz or tingle you are describing.

This is how we learn so pop off to Sears, Lowes or even Radio Smak and pick up a nice affordable mulit-meter.

Unplug EVERYTHING attached to your computer. You will need a known good GROUND such as a steam radiator in your room, a nearby water pipe or possibly the center screw in your wall socket.

Since the socket is probably the closest scrape all the paint from the center screw. Set your volt meter to AC volts and set the range to the closest to 120 VAC or higher, don’t go lower or if it has an “Auto Range” setting use that.

Plug one probe into one side of the socket and touch the other to the center screw. If you get a zero reading do the same with the other side of the plug. Hopefully you will get a reading than, but if not and neither side gives a reading while the other probe is on the center screw, you have no ground.

That could be a bad thing as well as explain any issues you might be having with booting or BSODs.

Post back here what you find and I’ll check this thread later to see where you are.

Luck

Check the ground on your outlet... I had exact same problem before, anything thats metal in my case shocked me when my ground was not properly wired on my outlet. Called maintenance, they wired it properly then it stopped shocking me.

I had this problem and never solved it, it was not my house and parents didn't want to bother fixing the issue. Now I'm out of that house and renting and I have a ground fault. Once again no one cares to fix the problem....

Sucks man I feel your pain. My old PC would actualy ground the frame through the Video cable running to my TV lol.

"NTLDR is missing"

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Google this error.

I had the same thing happening to me on 1 pc that was plugged into a partular outlet-felt a slight electrical shock on the bare metal parts of the case. It was a ground fault. My brother in law is an electrician, he just opened the outlet and corrected the problem.