• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Chassis ground loop help...

Joined
Sep 20, 2006
Messages
460 (0.07/day)
HELP, my computer chassis has a ground loop.. I'm barefoot and have discovered that my computer chassis bites.. or stings.. ...

My computer chassis is all metal; with bare aluminum panels got a "buzzing" sensation when I touched the chassis.. I'm getting the ground loop from the monitor cable ground/sheild that contacts the metal on the graphics card backplane that is screwed to the chassis..

here's how I found it..
I disconnected "everything" all power wires, sound,mouse,printer etc.. Except the monitor.. If the monitor display wire is connected to the graphics card, I get a ground loop from the chassis, through me, to the floor.... Once I disconnected the monitor cable, no more buzzing on the computer chassis.. If I touch the sheild of the monitor cable.. buzz... get shocked.. How the heck do I get rid of this ground loop?

All of my PC wires have a 3 prong AC cable, the house wiring is grounded as well as my power strip.... so why does the monitor have a ground loop on the video cable shielding, if it's grounded through the 3 prong power cable?

I've tested this on two monitors.. one is a flat panel lcd, the other is a crt, and they both have the same issue, different display cables as well.. my wall outlet have a crummy ground? how can I figure out how to fix this without messing with the inside of my monitor or the monitor cable.... I can't work on my computer with the cables connected if I get a ground loop... not a problem. but I don't want a ground loop on my computer period.. if I put it on the floor? metal to floor, what's gonna happen? is the chassis going to have 60hz voltage flowing through it? this is crazy...

I remember getting this same sensation when going from the beach into the casino/neptunes kingdom to go play some arcade games, touched a bare metal bolt on an arcade machine control panel and got shocked pretty good.
 
Top