One of my users has his computer sitting on the top of a counter (similar to a kitchen counter). Next to that counter is his desk, on which sits his monitor, keyboard and mouse. There is a metal edge on all four sides of his desk. His computer does not touch the metal edge of the desk. (It’s about one inch from it.) Obviously, the keyboard, monitor and mouse are directly cabled to his computer.
On an average of about once a day he will touch the metal edge of his desk and produce a small static charge. At the instant of that static charge, his computer will reboot itself. This does not happen EVERY time he produces this static charge, but only sometimes (maybe one in four). He had a different computer in the past, which was setup the same way. He?s always had instances of that static charge, but it never caused that previous computer to reboot. He’s had this particular computer for about two months. The problem has been occurring for about two months.
His current computer is almost identical to his previous one. It’s a Pentium II 450 on a QDI motherboard, 128 MB RAM, ATI graphics card (replaced a Diamond Stealth), 3Com NIC wired to our LAN with cat5 cable & RJ45 connector, Viewsonic monitor, Microsoft keyboard & PS2 mouse. It?s a pretty standard desktop PC. The previous QDI motherboard blew a capacitor and I replaced it with an identical motherboard. That capacitor literally blew itself off the board with a loud POP. (I wonder if that old motherboard’s blown capacitorand this reboot problem are related?) He is connected thru a UPS, a Liebert PowerSure. His network connection is also routed thru that UPS unit.
Does anyone have any ideas as to what could cause this problem and/or what could prevent it? I know, he should ground himself first someplace else, but that’s not really practical.
(It’s time I give you guys back some of these points.)
Regards,
jr
