Zap the PSU through the USB?

[Bopher]

Heres a funny one for you. My wife sat down at her computer tonight and grabbed the mouse and got a huge static jolt. First just the mouse refused to move but I figured if anything the USB port was now toast because of the shock so I moved the plug to another port and everything went downhill from there.

Monitor went into sleep mod, computer shut completely down. On pressing the power button all we got was blinky drive lights and HDD activity light. First thought was the motherboard was toast. But no. I figured I'll try the easy approach and pull the PSU from my Dell, we both have the exact same models, and plugged everything in. And everything powered on. So the shock went through the mouse, which still works, thought the motherboard and back up the PSU lines and toasted it. Weird how that works huh.

This just means one thing, I need computer parts and gives me a reason to buy stuff for 3x NES!! woot!

[xmastree]

That's bizarre. Presumably she was charged up by walking around, and discharged through the mouse.
Ages ago I was installing something from floppies, and left the room between disks. On returning to swap the disk, I pressed the eject button and the static discharge reset the computer. No damage though.

If this happens often, I would suggest getting yourself a cordless mouse. Although this might just delay the inevitable until she touches the keyboard...

[Eclecticos]

What type of mouse?

[Bopher]

Just a 5 button GE we picked up at Wal-Mart the last time her mouse died. (Not from static) 90% of our house is carpet and I guess her slippers were perfect to charge up the static. It was so loud when it shocked that I heard it halfway down the stairs. I would say maybe 6ft and around the corner.