this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
72 points (96.2% liked)

Selfhosted

40173 readers
650 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I know that the answer is yes, I should, but outlets near the setup are not grounded (even though they look like they are) and I don't want to have wires running though my living room.

The real question is what are potential problems ? Occasional system reboots? Permanent damage to PSU? Permanent damage to other components?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 55 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (14 children)

It will not affect system stability, but... Surge protectors do not work at all without a ground wire to drop excess voltage to. Any kind of line voltage disturbance could kill every device.

Additionally, without any ground wire to pull the housings of devices to ground, the potential for a short to energize the case and then electrocute you is also high.

additionally additionally, if you have grounded outlets that don't actually have a ground connection running to them, that means either the wiring system is broken or it was "updated" by an unlicensed hack job who has undoubtedly made numerous more dangerous decisions elsewhere in the circuit.

If your house is entirely ungrounded you really should have an electrician come update it ASAP. Outlet grounds have been mandatory since 1971. The chances are high that wiring predating that code is still using old cloth-wrapped wire insulation or even knob&tube, both of which are huge fire risks as the insulation is decayed badly by now. It's expensive to have all new wire pulled but it is necessary.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Surge suppressors do not drop extra voltage to ground. They selectively short out surges between whatever two conductors have a high potential between them.

No ground conductor means there cannot be a high potential between it and anything else!

load more comments (13 replies)