Antec Solo Front Panel Grounded?

[blaster5k]

My story... so a few days ago, I started up my PC and it hung, as it had been doing somewhat regularly since installing Vista. There's a lot of static electricity from the carpet and as I hit the power button, I gave it a pretty big shock. I thought nothing of it since the front of the case should be grounded, right?

When the computer started up, the mouse wasn't working and I noticed a message in the corner saying that Vista had encountered an error communicating with a USB device. I tried a different mouse, same thing. Then I plugged it into the secondary USB hub and it seemed to work.

I went to the bathroom, came back and the PC was off and refused to boot. Pressing the power button didn't do anything... though the light seemed to flash rapidly at times. I verified that the power supply was not responsible.

So it seems the motherboard was damaged by the shock. The case is an Antec Solo. Any ideas what might have happened and if there's any way to avoid having static electricity around the power button cause damage in the future? That is, when my new parts come in...

 

[Zepper]

Be wary of coincidences - they can make you jump to confusions. Plastic front panels are almost never grounded - a solid metal path needs to exist to the metal of the chassis itself. Make sure that your video card. If you get a static spark then something near the button is grounded, but it shouldn't have gotten to the mobo from the pushbutton. Is the button itself metal? But the spark would only occur if you come in contact with something that is grounded or a large enough metal mass that can act as its own mini-ground (doorknobs are common)
. Id check to see that the memory and video card are seated properly.

.bh.

 

[blaster5k]

The Solo has an aluminum front panel. The buttons are plastic. It wasn't a seating issue. I suppose it could be a coincidence that the motherboard died, but what are the odds? It certainly seemed like the motherboard's USB controller that's attached to the front panel was damaged prior to total meltdown.

 

[taterworks]

The Solo's front panel features an aluminum layer that is adhesive-bonded to a plastic panel, like the P180. There's a nice large (1-1.5mm) buffer region between the aluminum panel and the front ports that is just plastic. However, if you received a static shock, all that charge had to have gone somewhere, or else you wouldn't have been shocked. I don't think the Solo's front panel design was at fault, however.