Originally posted by: UltraSmooth
Ok on further testing (and crashing) I determined that it must be some electric shock or static causing the shutdown. I just touched a screwdriver off the front usb port and the pc crashed the same way. Also I noticed when I touch the front of the case with my finger I feel a little static shock like you get when you scuff your feet on the floor and touch a door knob or something.
So how do I go about getting rid of this static charge, is it the computer or us? Strange this wasnt' happening before.
I also worry about that.. you could easily fry your USB port controllers, which, in the case of front-panel ones attached directly to the mobo's chipset, you could also fry your mobo's chipset in strange and mysterious ways.
I think that Intel should specify that for externally-accessable USB (and other) ports, there should be a small square metal panel also mounted near the ports, and explicitly tied to chassis ground (perhaps through a small resistor?), as a static-discharge plate.
I had an experience like that, working in an office with newly-installed carpet (evil!!!!). If you walked across the room, and put your hand mearly 1" away from the metal doorframes when walking out, you would get a nifty shock, and see static arcing to the doorframe. (Well, maybe not 1", but you wouldn't even have to touch the frame.) Likewise, I once sat down at a machine to fix something, touched the mouse, and ZAP!... turned out that I had fried the multi-I/O card in the PC. Thankfully nothing else (no mobo/RAM/CPU), and the mouse itself seemed to be OK as well, surprisingly enough.
Static and computers definately DO NOT mix.. it's a shame that Intel didn't impliment some safeguards into the spec regarding this.
As far as a solution, various companies sell static-dissipation mats and whatnot, get one of those, attach it somehow to the PC, and make sure that you inform in no uncertain terms that anyone intending to use the USB ports, MUST touch the anti-static pad first.
(Even better, really, would be a *metal* USB-port cover, that was grounded, that they would have to open in order to get access to the USB ports. Perhaps that is what Intel should specify for externally-accessable front-panel USB ports.)
