Faulty speakers or monitor? Power spike?

Something odd is happening with my hardware. I don't know what it is and it might be either bad hardware, loose cables, or some ghost that's messing with me.

Specs first. All parts were bought 2-3 months ago:

• i5-750 2,66Ghz (OC'd to 3,2Ghz)
• GTX 460 1Gb (Direct CU v2)
• P7P55D Deluxe
• Corsair 8Gb DDR3 RAM 1600Mhz
• 2 x SATAII hard drives
• Corsair CX600

The older stuff includes:

• 1 IDE HDD, speakers (no subwoofer), 1 optical drive, some usb stuff (keyboard, tablet, mouse, etc.), 2 x 19" LG Monitors.

The first scenario happened two weeks ago. Please don't laugh.

I was on my way to bed and had turn off the computer 5 minutes ago. I took off my, uh... lovely tracksuit pants and did what I usually do to clothes -- threw them on the back of my computer chair. Which at the time was situated about 1,5 meters from the monitors. Immediately when the pants touched the chair, there came a semi-loud POP. It sounded like it came from the monitors, but I can't be sure, because the speakers are right next to them. I didn't think about it until the next day when I booted up the computer -- or tried to. Nothing happened. After a few days of scratching my head and looking though all the parts for any visible damage the electric-charge-tracksuitpants might have done, I replaced the PSU with an older one I had. Computer booted up. I went to the store where I bought the CX600 from, it was still under warranty so they gave me a new one.

I explained the situation at the store and they told me it was probably a failure with the PSU and that it shouldn't normally break by a small amount of external electric charge/power spike like that (?). Or something. I'm afraid I don't remember what exactly he said any more, and my knowledge of electrical hocus-pocus is near zero. (I guess I'm living up to my gender stereotype here).

Anyway, everything works fine for 2 weeks.

Until yesterday evening. I was -- again -- about to go to sleep and I threw my hoodie over the back of the chair. This time the pop was a bit fainter, but it still clearly came from the direction of the monitor/speakers. As a side comment: both times I've actually been stupid enough to not check whether the speakers were actually on or off.

The next morning I booted up and whee, no problems there... until it got past post. I now get "Overclocking Failed! Please enter Setup to re-configure your system". OK. After changing all settings to good ol' boring default the computer booted up normally. Haven't tried fiddling with the settings since then.

Yes. So. I'm quite confused. What's happening? Should I begin changing clothes like at the downstairs lobby or perhaps begin to vacuum twice a day?

Or could it be bad/loose cables? This house was built a year ago, so all plugs are grounded. Before I got my current rig (2 months ago) I had no problems whatsoever with the previous rig, which hardware-wise was kind of crap anyway. And I've lived here for a year now. Gah, I don't understand, haha.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance! And sorry for this long rant post.

That SOUNDS like static electricity but I don't know as somehow it would have to go from the clothes->chair-> comp? I have no idea. Is it on shag carpeting or anything?

snowbrdd said:

That SOUNDS like static electricity but I don't know as somehow it would have to go from the clothes->chair-> comp? I have no idea. Is it on shag carpeting or anything?

Click to expand...

Nope, no carpets. Anti-static linoleum floors. I think the computer chair is made of some kind of semi-static material like polyester. The bottom part/frame is made of metal and the wheels are plastic.

Just wanted to add (and also to bump the thread a bit) that I put my system back on a light overclock; the same which, after the second "incident", threw the "overclocking failed!" message. Now it's booting up fine even though the overclock is the same. Though I've yet to do a thorough stability test, so it doesn't really prove much...

This whole thing haves me dumbfounded still, thus I'd appreciate any insights or even just hunches that anyone might have, about what this odd system/electrical behaviour could be. Thanks!

First, many higher end power supplies have protection in them that will shut down when they get power spike, like a static discharge. I had a Sparkle Server PSU for instance that would not power back up fully unless you unplugged the main wall power cord and cycled the on-off button a time or two. Plugging it back in worked fine from then on.

Second, Static electricity can travel through the air a short distance, as evidenced by a static meter not needing to either contact the test subject or be grounded to test. Static electricity can easily be in the thousands of volts, a Styrofoam coffee cup can hold 3,500 volts, and 50 volts can fry most IC components.

Third, every internal power cord has a negative wire (ground), which means any component plugged into your computer eventually grounds through your power supply, including wired mice and keyboards and speakers and monitors too. Static discharges near them can conduct straight through your PSU. Even if the items are plastic, there's a dielectric effect which means there's an electrical charge produced on conductors inside plastic cases.

Lastly, love your computer and stop throwing your dirty clothes at it!