Improper electrical grounding.

[panz]

So, today I was testing my new 24 bay case with a consumer motherboard, but with all the PCIe cards that will be put in my definitive build: IBM M1015, Intel RES2SV240 expander and Intel NIC.

All was going well when - touching the case - I suddenly felt a little "electrical" vibration typical of improper grounding.

I immediately tested with a phase checker, discovering that I had live current on the case, PSU, etc. Touching the case with a properly grounded wire caused the phenomenon to disappear.

After 2 hours of checking I discovered that I was using a faulty cable to connect the PSU to the UPS :(

All other procedures where in place (anti static ESD mat, wrist strap, ESD shoes, ESD tools, etc).

Did I damage my precious electronics?

 

[cyberjock]

If its still working fine, you didn't fail anything in the here-and-now. You may have stressed some components with the improper ground. But you'll find out when stuff starts failing. If a month from now you've replace your motherboard, CPU, 2 of your 4 sticks of RAM, and 3 hard drives, then I guess the answer will be "yes, you damaged things". LOL

To be honest, if its still operating fine I wouldn't worry too much about it. What's done is done. Now you just need to check your backups and make sure everything is still kosher in case your server suddenly exploded for no reason.

 

[panz]

I'm concerned for the M1015, the Intel RES2SV240, the PSU and the 6Gb backplanes; the other hardware (motherboard, CPU, RAM, etc.) is going to go into a Windows 7 build which may explode with a lot of fun for me ;)

Thank you for the quick answer cyberjock!

 

[cyberjock]

And for those of you that use server racks, there's a reason why you ground those with huge thick cables. Even at home I made a custom ground strap that uses the wall plug. It's a backup for problems like this.

I'm an electrician by trade, so I was able to make my own cable easily.

 

[DrKK]

I think the odds are 99% that any damage you did would already have been evident. I think you're fine.

 

[ECCfrenaslover]

can you post a pic of your custom ground strap cyberjock?

 

[cyberjock]

My "cyber"jock strap? Sure! ZING!

Oh.. my ground strap! Literally, what I did was bought a 3-prong plug and wired the ground only to a broken extension cord. Then the other end I connected to the base of the server rack where the grounding strap installation goes. It's nothing more than that.

 

[ECCfrenaslover]

got it!


and that was funny!

 

[cyberjock]

Oops.... here's the one I use.. http://www.lowes.com/pd_89198-334-5...L=?Ns=p_product_qty_sales_dollar|1&facetInfo=

 

[jgreco]

what I did was bought a 3-prong plug and wired the ground only to a broken extension cord. Then the other end I connected to the base of the server rack where the grounding strap installation goes. It's nothing more than that.

Wow. #codefail :)

 

[cyberjock]

Hey, it works like a charm. :)

 

[jgreco]

So does cooking a hot dog by sticking an electrode in each and and running a current. Raises some safety questions though!

 

[cyberjock]

I was looking for one of those plugs that has the hot and neutral that are plastic and only the ground prong is metal, but I couldn't find any.

 

[jgreco]

Google: "desco ground plug"

I like the Desco stuff, reasonable quality at a lower price. It's their laminate product on the shop bench, not the much pricier 3M stuff.

 

[jgreco]

Oh. Wait. Actually that was what was bothering me. That type of solution isn't suitable (as in I'm pretty sure violates code) for a permanent installation like a rack. It could potentially be dangerous if it was inadvertently unplugged, and NEC and inspectors get really funny about that sort of thing.

 

[cyberjock]

Google: "desco ground plug"

I like the Desco stuff, reasonable quality at a lower price. It's their laminate product on the shop bench, not the much pricier 3M stuff.

Found one! It'll be on order in 5 minutes. Thanks!

 

[jgreco]

Isn't your rack in your basement?

 

[cyberjock]

Actually, my rack is in the living room.. the server is in the basement.

Both were in the living room, but the server was getting too hot(no A/C in this house). So I moved it to the basement and the server is happy. But the rack is so big and has other stuff in it, so I didn't bother moving it to the basement.

 

[jgreco]

Ah. Confused about that, sorry.