Static shock while touching mouse, permanent damage?

[Gabrielle11]

Hi, I was walking across the carpet to my PC (which was on), and I touched the mouse. I think I might have ESD static shocked the mouse, because the mouse pointer stopped moving. I unplugged and replugged the mouse USB cable back in, and now it appears to be working again. I'm not 100% certain that there was a static discharge when I touched the mouse, but the room is pretty staticy due to the dry winter conditions...

Would an ESD shock via the mouse like this be likely to cause permanent damage to the mobo? As I mentioned, everything seems to be working, and I'm running a round of IntelBurnTest overnight just to be sure...

 

[PreferLinux]

No, because the mouse is plastic.

 

[Gabrielle11]

Understood, but even though the mouse is mostly plastic, it does have metal components in it, and is connected to the rear USB port of the motherboard, right?

I shutdown/restarted the PC a few times to make sure Windows would start OK, and IntelBurnTest ran about 10 times with no errors. Does this seem good enough to make sure the PC is working?

I'm asking because I had a plan to give the PC away to someone and so I want to make sure I don't give away a messed up box.

 

[Veliko]

You are being paranoid. It should be fine.

 

[gorcorps]

You're quite worried about nothing IMO. Static can hurt a board because you're zapping very delicate components, usually right ON said component or at least very near it. Aside from the mouse housing being plastic as noted before, you also have a couple feet of cable to contend with. Copper is conductive, but still has some resistance. Static is not going to be able to travel through that cable, through the port on your motherboard, and then find a special part to fry. Electricity always takes the path of least resistance, so if ANYTHING it would burn out something in the mouse itself. If the mouse still works then that means nothing even got into the mouse circuitry, let alone the cable or board.

I don't see why you're so worried. It's not only very unlikely, it seems to even be impossible to do such a thing through your mouse.

 

[Gabrielle11]

Thanks guys.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I remember back in the days of serial-port mice, someone walked across the new carpet, sat down, and touched the mouse. The mouse was fine, but the port got blown.

 

[Hogan773]

Understood, but even though the mouse is mostly plastic, it does have metal components in it, and is connected to the rear USB port of the motherboard, right?

I shutdown/restarted the PC a few times to make sure Windows would start OK, and IntelBurnTest ran about 10 times with no errors. Does this seem good enough to make sure the PC is working?

I'm asking because I had a plan to give the PC away to someone and so I want to make sure I don't give away a messed up box.

I think you should run Intel Burn Test for at least 48 hours just to make sure. And in the future, please wear a grounding wrist strap at all times you are using the machine.