Curious phenomenon

[CORed]

A few minutes ago, I had an unexpected event. My forearm made contact with the table some of my comuter equipment, including an LCD monitor sits on, and there was an audible static discharge. The monitor blinked (very briefly went dark then lit back up again).This is a rather old table, with steel legs, a strip of metal (aluminum?) around the edge and a laminate (wood and plastic) top. The table sits on a carpeted wood floor and is not grounded.

In looking for a cause, I notice that both the power cord and signal cable for this monitor are in contact (physical, not electrical, as they are of course insulated) with the metal edge of the table, so my best guess is that the electrical pulse, caused some sort of inductive effect in one of the cables (probably the signal cable), with enough voltage to briefly interrupt the signal or power to the monitor, or else the voltage of the discharge was high enough to jump through the insulation.

 

[elgarak]

I don't think so. Pretty difficult to get a static discharge through the insulation of modern equipment.

My first impulse would be to check all cables and making sure they are seated correctly in their respective receptacles. In my experience, such events are nearly always mechanical (you hit the table, and the cable wiggled enough to momentarily loose [lose? Never can remember the correct one] contact in the receptacle). The sound you heard was probably a power-on/off (dis-)charge within the monitor.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

delete

 

[CORed]

I don't think so. Pretty difficult to get a static discharge through the insulation of modern equipment.

My first impulse would be to check all cables and making sure they are seated correctly in their respective receptacles. In my experience, such events are nearly always mechanical (you hit the table, and the cable wiggled enough to momentarily loose [lose? Never can remember the correct one] contact in the receptacle). The sound you heard was probably a power-on/off (dis-)charge within the monitor.

Maybe, but I have not observed any blinking of the monitor before or after the static discharge. Otherwise, I would think that I had a loose cable or other malfunction and that the blink happening at the moment of the discharge was a coincidence. Of course, I can't rule this out completely. I'm not at home now, but I will check the seating of power cord and signal cable.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Poltergeist. Probably a young male. Get a psychic reading of your computer table area at once.