[barry_black]

After lunch today, I sat back down at my desk, took off my shoes, and started working on my powerbook. All of a sudden I felt these small shocks to my wrists. It really started to hurt and I had to type without touching the case. Anyway, I called some people over to see if they could feel it and it seemed to go away. Then I tried it again, and I wasn't getting any shocks. So I went back to work and after about 15 min it started again. But this time I figured it out. I have a pc with the case taken off under my desk. When my feet touch the frame of the pc and my wrists are touching the outer rim of my powerbook, I get these kinda painful but small shocks. Needless to say, I unplugged the pc.

strange.

[seanyepez]

It's needless to say now, but the PowerBook G4's case is conductive of a slight electrical current while charigng.

[El Pre$idente]

Touch the corner of the Ti book with your elbow's funny bone.

[romeosc]

Also you get an "AC hum" if you use a telephone while resting your wrists on the Ti case!

[romeosc]

You also get an "AC hum" if you use a telephone while typing!

[The Dude]

Something isn't properly grounded. In one of Apple's brilliant moves, they took out the third prong on the power jacks that is used for grounding, and this means that the odds of you being shocked by your TiBook skyrockets. I've had it happen to me with my 550, and the way I isolated the problem and cured it was by making sure everything I had plugged into the TiBook was properly grounded. The culprit was my stereo. It was on a 1to3 plug adapter with no third prong. I realized that my disconnecting the audio jack from the TiBook, the shocks went away.

Check all the devices plugged in, it's gotta be something there that isn't grounded.

[Microns]

Check out the discussion of this issue over at the MacInTouch site. Its at -
http://www.macintouch.com/pbg4review.html

Searching on the word "shock" should get you to the posts you want.

Cheers...

This turns out to be a time consuming search so, since I've already done it, the most recent posting from MacInTouch is appended below.


From MacInTouch

"A quick addition to questions from several other readers to the issue of PowerBook users receiving an electrical sock.

Background information:

+ My computer is an Apple powerbook 550/G4/gigabit.
+ It is completely stock (as manufactured by Apple) and operating normally.
+ The problem only occurs if the user is grounded and the charging unit is attached and plugged into the AC power source.

Under these conditions a distinct, painful electrical shock is felt by anyone using the computer. The electrical differential between the computer and ground is approximately 20 volts DC at approximately 3 microamps.

Resolution:

Called apple support and asked if this is normal operation. Was almost immediately transferred to a second level support person. Before this person was willing to answer any questions I was required to answer a long series of questions obviously meant to establish that I had not been harmed and that the computer had not been damaged.

This prologue and the rest of the conversation left me with two conclusions. First, that Apple's response to my question was driven by their desire to prevent me from bringing legal action rather than a desire to factually answer my question (which they would not). Second, that there is nothing wrong with my powerbook; this is the normal condition."