Shorting... or not?

[Zogger]

I saw a similar thread to this a couple of days ago but this is a slightly different situation.

A week or so ago I was reseating my heatsink and tidying up the cables in my computer, and I had switched off the psu at the back but neglected to switch it off at the wall.

While I was tidying the cables I was holding one in my hand (a 6-pin connector I believe), and I rested my other arm on the case to find that it gave me a minor tingling electrical sensation. At first I thought it was just the case 'vibrating' as I moved my arm accross it but after a while realised it was actually electricity. I switched off the surge protector and it stopped, and didn't think much of it.

Then today I plugged my mp3 player in to charge, and noticed that while my mp3 player was in one hand, when I touched the case with my other hand it gave me the same electric shock feeling. Not remotely painful, just felt like something shaking under my hand.

I'm just wondering if this is a serious issue (motherboard shorting) or if it could easily be something trivial? I'm not sure exactly where else the issue could be and if having something held in the other hand changes the possible cause.

thanks

 

[Zogger]

Okay, so I just did this with my old computer plugged in to the same surge protector and it does the same thing.
And I've just tried it again with the old computer plugged into the same 2-way wall socket as the surge protector. Still does it..

edit: well that's weird. I unplugged my old computer entirely and it still does it. Pick up the mp3 player in one hand. Electric shock. Put it down and it stops.

 

[Smurfy]

sounds slightly puzzling is the MP3 player pluggin into the mains when this happens? I would have thought that a battery in a mp3 player would have a real hard time giving you an electric shock.

 

[siclilmonkey]

when i touch the back of my pc case and the wall at the same time i get a very unconfotable feeling in the hand even arm that is on the case this cant be good lol

if i do it for long enough my hand goes numb

 

[Zogger]

sounds slightly puzzling is the MP3 player pluggin into the mains when this happens? I would have thought that a battery in a mp3 player would have a real hard time giving you an electric shock.

Yep it is plugged in. It does suggest that the mp3 player itself is electrically charged on the outside :s. That sounds like a dodgy mp3 player to me, but the thing that makes me wonder is the initial situation where I was holding the psu cable in one hand and resting my arm accross the slot for the side panel in the other.

Someone says I should get a multimeter but I wouldn't know where to measure.