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Author: Subject: Static on the USB sockets is causing me grief...
iank

posted on 13/8/13 at 08:38 PM Reply With Quote
How do the drivers know he's touched the case before plugging in?





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David Jenkins

posted on 13/8/13 at 09:05 PM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by deezee
Just thought I'd quickly chime in and mention that your case, nor the components require grounding! Hence the reason cases are painted and components come with plastic feet. This isn't a car and no power or signal goes via a ground. Its all done on the cables. Your PSU has its earth and thats it. Please don't try to ground your components.

I'd estimate you have a faulty mobo, or faulty drivers. Do you have another distro you can try or even windows?


I take your point... but the case must be earthed for safety's sake - it's not a double-insulated device, hence the earth connection to the PSU.

The motherboard has a lot of copper under the point where the mounting screws go through, so it's a fair guess that the manufacturer expects those points to be at case potential (and therefore earthed/grounded).

It might be a faulty MB, but it's good in every other respect - and the drivers come from Debian/Ubuntu/Mint and the Linux community. They may be faulty, but at the moment I'm not going to mess with them.

I might try another distro off a CD-ROM, but Windoze is going NOWHERE near this machine!






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David Jenkins

posted on 13/8/13 at 09:10 PM Reply With Quote
mookaloid - I don't have a spare PSU! And I'm not in a rush to spend another £50 to test a theory.

jossey - Although a PSU tester would be good, I think I can get the same info from a system monitor installed on my system. This shows me all the important voltages used on the motherboard (and they're all good at the moment).






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andyace

posted on 14/8/13 at 08:57 AM Reply With Quote
Search on tinternet found people with similar issues :

"Yeah, I've seen this issue myself. It ended up being a lack of a gound from the USB ports. I would recommend checking the front panel USB board on the case and see if you can solder or connect a cable from the outer USB shield back to the metal framework of the case. Otherwise I suggest changing the case. "

"I have had a rash of machines recently that have been rebooting when users attempt to use USB drives. All the cases have been Cooler Master however motherboards have been Asus, Asrock and Gigabyte. I stumbled upon this when I heard a machine reboot. I could actually hear the pop from the ESD. I then noticed that all machines experiencing the issue has plastic wheels on plastic carpet savers. I decided to do some testing and got an elite 331 and sure enough I can make it reboot over and over. I grabbed some cat5 took out a pair and solder and covered a small connection to each USB and then ran the cables over to a screw hole on the front of the case and tested. No more reboots and then I did this to the four machines I had doing the reboot issue and so far not a single customer complaint.

This is just FYI. I will probably just take to modding each case before I ship them out so I never have to worry about this issue again."

"the nearest I 've had was back in the mid 80's
when static discharge to the control panel on a AMPEX VPR2 vt machine would
switch the machine to ready
we just sprayed the carpets with a antistatic spray"

Have you tried it on another mains circuit? or in a room with no carpet ?


[Edited on 14/8/13 by andyace]

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Not Anumber

posted on 14/8/13 at 11:17 AM Reply With Quote
As someone who used to build >10 PCs a day by hand and had to troubleshoot on the fly my initial instinct would be a faulty cable between the motherboard and ports.

See what happens if you plug your USB devices in via

1. An unpowered USB hub &

2. A USB hub that has it's own power supply.


Do either make any difference ?

(borrow the hubs from friends and neighbours rather than buying them. one thing ive learned is the last thing you want to do when troubleshooting is throw too much time and money testing each stage)






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mcerd1

posted on 14/8/13 at 11:33 AM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
mookaloid - I don't have a spare PSU! And I'm not in a rush to spend another £50 to test a theory.


I'd lend you one if you were a bit closer - maybe someone near you has one you could borrow ?

[Edited on 14/8/2013 by mcerd1]





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craig1410

posted on 14/8/13 at 11:33 AM Reply With Quote
Hi,

Pretty sure it's nothing to do with static but depending on what peripherals you have connected and what type of power supply they use, you can see little sparks as you connect devices sometimes. This is often caused by peripherals such as printers or external hard drives having unearthed power supplies. This causes the shell of the USB port on the cable from these devices to "float" to a voltage roughly around 180 volts. However, as soon as you plug the device in, it should earth this floating voltage and all should be well. It's why you sometimes get a tingle in your fingertips when plugging stuff in.

However, you say that it happens even with memory sticks which don't have an external PSU. So might not be that.

The other thing I have had trouble with in the past is with the CRT or LCD monitor. I had one which caused an awful electrical buzz and video distortion when connected via one video cable but which worked fine with another video cable. This was the 15 pin SVGA cable at the time but the same thing might happen with DVI or HDMI or whatever you are using.

So, try swapping video cable and/or monitor if you can and try again.

HTH,
Craig.

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mookaloid

posted on 14/8/13 at 02:04 PM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
mookaloid - I don't have a spare PSU! And I'm not in a rush to spend another £50 to test a theory.




I have never spent anywhere near that much on a PSU before - maybe that's why I have had a few failed ones!





"That thing you're thinking - it wont be that."


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David Jenkins

posted on 14/8/13 at 06:05 PM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Not Anumber
As someone who used to build >10 PCs a day by hand and had to troubleshoot on the fly my initial instinct would be a faulty cable between the motherboard and ports.

See what happens if you plug your USB devices in via

1. An unpowered USB hub &

2. A USB hub that has it's own power supply.


Do either make any difference ?

(borrow the hubs from friends and neighbours rather than buying them. one thing ive learned is the last thing you want to do when troubleshooting is throw too much time and money testing each stage)


I have an example of both kinds of hub - I'll give that a try.






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David Jenkins

posted on 14/8/13 at 06:11 PM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by andyace
Search on tinternet found people with similar issues :

"Yeah, I've seen this issue myself. It ended up being a lack of a gound from the USB ports. I would recommend checking the front panel USB board on the case and see if you can solder or connect a cable from the outer USB shield back to the metal framework of the case. Otherwise I suggest changing the case. "
<snip>

I've used my multimeter to check the metal shield around the sockets - there's a zero ohm connection between the shields and the case. There are some aspects of the case I don't like, e.g. if I struggle to get a USB stick out then there's a fair chance that my knuckle will push the off switch (but that's not the cause of this issue!) so I might yet replace it. Rather reluctant because it's new.

Have you tried it on another mains circuit? or in a room with no carpet ?

The trouble is that the failure is so random that I could spend 2 weeks trying to reproduce it, wherever the machine is placed. The same goes for replacing the PSU.









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David Jenkins

posted on 14/8/13 at 06:13 PM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by mookaloid
quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
mookaloid - I don't have a spare PSU! And I'm not in a rush to spend another £50 to test a theory.




I have never spent anywhere near that much on a PSU before - maybe that's why I have had a few failed ones!


I've had PSU problems in the past, so I decided that I'd get a decent one! It's modular, so I only use the leads I need which makes the inside of the case really tidy, and it's very quiet (important to me).






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mookaloid

posted on 14/8/13 at 06:22 PM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
quote:
Originally posted by mookaloid
quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
mookaloid - I don't have a spare PSU! And I'm not in a rush to spend another £50 to test a theory.




I have never spent anywhere near that much on a PSU before - maybe that's why I have had a few failed ones!


I've had PSU problems in the past, so I decided that I'd get a decent one! It's modular, so I only use the leads I need which makes the inside of the case really tidy, and it's very quiet (important to me).


I'm thinking of building a media pc for the living room at some point so I might invest in a quiet £50 PSU for that.





"That thing you're thinking - it wont be that."


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jossey

posted on 14/8/13 at 06:48 PM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by mookaloid
quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
quote:
Originally posted by mookaloid
quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
mookaloid - I don't have a spare PSU! And I'm not in a rush to spend another £50 to test a theory.




I have never spent anywhere near that much on a PSU before - maybe that's why I have had a few failed ones!


I've had PSU problems in the past, so I decided that I'd get a decent one! It's modular, so I only use the leads I need which makes the inside of the case really tidy, and it's very quiet (important to me).


I'm thinking of building a media pc for the living room at some point so I might invest in a quiet £50 PSU for that.


@@@@@@@@ Or buy a raspberry pi n download xbmc it's great.





Thanks



David Johnson

Building my tiger avon slowly but surely.

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mcerd1

posted on 14/8/13 at 11:30 PM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by jossey
@@@@@@@@ Or buy a raspberry pi n download xbmc it's great.


^^^ been playing with one for a we while and I find it a bit slow - nice toy though and cheap as chips





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