umair23
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Thursday, February 13, 2014 10:27 AM
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Hey guys! I am in sort of a dilemma here. Since the house which I live is quite hold, it did not observe proper grounding procedures. So using other alternatives become the necessary plan. So here is what I did: Took a thick copper wire, wrapped it around the screw that is positioned in my casing and took the other end of the wire and wrapped it around the water pipe that leads underground. Before grounding my PC, I always use a tester to check to see if there is any level of current flowing. The light in the tester illuminates brightly when I haven't grounded the PC. After I ground the PC and then use the tester, there is no illumination. So I think, my PC is grounded. However, whenever I physically touch the metallic part of the casing, I feel a slight jolt. What does this mean? The light is not lighting up in the tester and still I feel a little buzz every time I touch a metallic part of the casing.
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HotRodPolk
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Thursday, February 13, 2014 11:56 AM
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Sounds like current is flowing through case, probably not a good thing... You need to connect that ground wire to the ground lug on the wall plug. If it's a two prong plug, go to Home depot and get a grounded type or 3 prong plug, connect to pipe end with a grounding clamp.
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umair23
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Thursday, February 13, 2014 12:45 AM
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UPDATE: Made some extra loops around the pipe with the copper wire. Now the current in not flowing through the case. However, I have this 3.5mm jack extension for my headphones. When I touch that, I feel the jolt.
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bcavnaugh
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Thursday, February 13, 2014 1:12 PM
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Note about "Made some extra loops" you need to CLAMP the copper wire to the pipe. I would also add a ground wire to your PSU to one of the four mounting screws. A loop no matter how many loops you have is not really a ground.  or
post edited by bcavnaugh - Thursday, February 13, 2014 1:15 PM
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umair23
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Thursday, February 13, 2014 1:24 PM
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That is exactly what I did. Added a ground wire to the PSU. Regarding the 'clamp the copper wire to the pipe', I tied some duct tape around it. Will that suffice? Or does the term clamp mean something else?
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HotRodPolk
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Thursday, February 13, 2014 1:32 PM
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Look at pix bcavnaugh posted shows 2 clamps with a ground screw on the side. You have to use one to get a good ground. Duct tape around loops will NOT cut it... Also copper wire should be solid, not stranded...Home depot will have what you need.
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umair23
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Thursday, February 13, 2014 3:06 PM
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Link Please. And I live in Pakistan. So no Home Depot. Also, I removed the insulation of the Ethernet wire, and twisted all the wires to form one single copper wire. That is how I used it as a grounding wire.
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Randolla
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Thursday, February 13, 2014 3:14 PM
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That is not going to work. You need a solid wire. The heavier the better. An Ethernet wire will not be sufficient. There is not enough copper to ground anything. It will only give you false hope.
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HotRodPolk
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Thursday, February 13, 2014 3:35 PM
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OK, I guess Home Depot would be a long drive...  There's not enough surface area in a wire such as you describe, though I'll give you points for using what's on hand. If there were a problem, that wire would burn like a fuse-link, possibly taking the house, and computer with it. I stress this is important to have done right, not rigged. You run on 220v, right? If so, it's even more important to have a correct ground. Proper ground wire is single strand, approximately 10 or 12 gauge. (Maybe 1.5-2 mm). There have to be hardware stores in Pakistan, go there to get what you need.
post edited by HotRodPolk - Thursday, February 13, 2014 3:48 PM
Gigabyte Z590 Vision G Mobo, intel i3 10105 CPU, 32GB GSkill Ripjaws DDR4 3200 RAM, EVGA GTX 750ti FTW Video Card, EVGA SuperNOVA 850 G2 power supply, Fractal Design Focus G (White) case, Cooler Master Hyper212 RGB Black CPU cooler. 2 Dell LED Monitors (20" & 24"), SK Hynix Gold 1TB SATA SSD (OS Drive), 6 WD HDDs 13TB total (Storage). Rig is a partial update on the old Gigabyte P43/Q6600 OC rig... The WD HDD's, (13TB, total), Blu-ray & DVD burners, GTX750ti FTW & Supernova 850 G2 psu, migrated from old setup... Will get an 11700K, and an RTX 3060 12GB Black card, when I'm ready to OC... Windows 11 Pro set for performance, and it runs at 4.2Ghz... Thrustmaster Ferrari GT Experience Wheel/Pedals, Built for Gaming, Video Production, and Cakewalk, Cubase DAWs...
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umair23
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Thursday, February 13, 2014 5:46 PM
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Ok so all I need is a copper wire, wrap it around the screws mounted on the power supply area and wrap the other end on a pipe leading underground? Then I am finished?
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Randolla
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Thursday, February 13, 2014 7:39 PM
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Yes, you should be as long as it is connected properly ( clamped, not duct taped) at each end and of course the pipe going into the ground, is in fact doing that. Depending on where this pipe is, you may want to run the wire right outside from the computer. All you would have to do is to bang about 4 feet of copper (or some other kind of conductive metal) pipe into the ground with a sledge hammer and the attach your wire to it.
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ty_ger07
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Thursday, February 13, 2014 8:10 PM
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As hotrodpolk mentioned, I would ground the ground wire at the outlet, not the computer case. You want a good ground reference into the power supply. Leaving the ground into the power supply "floating" (not grounded) and then grounding the case is a pretty bad thing to do and may cause a power supply or hardware failure due to the power supply not having a good reference voltage to adjust in relation to. One wire in your power cord is a ground wire; ground it there.
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umair23
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Thursday, February 13, 2014 9:43 PM
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Can someone please explain to me what clamping means!!
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DAVE2HOT4U
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Thursday, February 13, 2014 10:27 PM
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whiskers54
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Thursday, February 13, 2014 11:23 PM
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umair23, When attaching your wire to the water pipe make sure that the surface of the pipe that will be used is clean. By that I mean that there is no rust or other foreign material that can offer a means of insulation to the wire you want to attach. Look at bcavnaugh's pic in his post to you. He shows 2 clamps. What they do is wrap around the pipe and when tightened it will give you a secure connection to the pipe. You will still need to insure that the surface area on the pipe that the clamp is to be attached to is clean. Then attach your wire to the clamp.
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ty_ger07
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Friday, February 14, 2014 0:44 PM
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Of course we are assuming that the pipe you are attaching to is metallic and we are assuming that the pipe is metallic all the way from where you are clamping the wire to up to the point where the pipe runs through the ground. If you are unsure whether the pipe is a good ground, you should pound a copper stake 4 feet into the ground outside your window and ground to that.
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bcavnaugh
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Friday, February 14, 2014 1:11 AM
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HotRodPolk Look at pix bcavnaugh posted shows 2 clamps with a ground screw on the side. You have to use one to get a good ground. Duct tape around loops will NOT cut it... Also copper wire should be solid, not stranded...Home depot will have what you need.
The clam on the left is for solid copper wire and the one on the right is for stranded copper wire or more then one solid wire. "Clamping means!!" A Tight Medal to Medal Connection with little or no Resistance. Tape may melt or even catch on fire. Also you should use the COLD water pipe and Not a Hot water pipe for Grounding.
post edited by bcavnaugh - Friday, February 14, 2014 1:15 AM
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umair23
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Friday, February 14, 2014 12:01 AM
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Right now, I have connected two wires (not at the plug outlet, but wrapped around the mounting screws of the power supply). It is only there for a temporary basis. I don't feel the current passing through the casing or any where for that matter (probably because I used to a second wire to hook up to a second pipe). Nonetheless, I will ground the PC from the plug outlet but at a later time.
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Gomez99
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Saturday, February 15, 2014 1:46 AM
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Please for the love of god do it as soon as possible
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ty_ger07
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Re: Confused About Grounding My System
Saturday, February 15, 2014 10:12 AM
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Gomez99 Please for the love of god do it as soon as possible
Agreed! I am a little concerned about the lack of motivation in doing this properly. The power supply absolutely needs a proper ground reference point to work properly. With an improperly grounded ("floating ground") input into the power supply, the power supply will do the best it can, but the difference between the PSU's floating ground and the case's ground can cause major problems and cause your power supply to fail or even cause your computer hardware to burn out in worst case situations. Your PSU uses pulse width modulation ("PWM") to regulate voltage output. It's voltage output is referenced in relation to "ground" potential voltage. If the ground is "floating" (not grounded), any static electricity which builds up in the PSU's ground wire will offset true ground and cause a similar voltage rise in PSU output. As you have already experienced by the fact that your computer case zapped you and your headset popped, your PSU is not grounded. Grounding your case is a band-aid but does not fix the root problem. You have grounded the PSU's output by grounding your computer case. More than likely, the grounded output is tied into the ground input which means that when you grounded the case, you probably also effectively grounded the PSU's input; but it is not certain and is a risk you are taking by assumption. If you want to be sure that you did it properly and want to make sure you don't burn your PSU out or burn out the computer hardware in your case, you need to ground the PSU input. No normal computer case in the planet is grounded directly in the way you have. Everyone grounds the input wire into the PSU and you should do the same in order to use your computer the way it was designed to be used.
post edited by ty_ger07 - Saturday, February 15, 2014 10:34 AM
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