Posted on 07/31/2007 12:46:10 PM PDT by Pistolshot
A 20-year-old student in Shanghai, China, was electrocuted Monday when he opened his computer's external case while the machine was still on, the Shanghai Daily reported.
The man, identified only by the common family name of Wu, had apparently opened his PC's case to prevent its central processing chip from overheating — because he didn't want to turn his air conditioning on. His sweaty legs came into contact with the computer's internal wiring, likely causing a short circuit.
According to the newspaper, which drew from a report in the Chinese-language Eastday.com, police and medical respondents found blood in the dead man's nostrils and bruises on his legs. The computer's internal voltage can reach as high as 380 volts in power-storage capacitors, which is enough to give a deadly shock. Powering down and unplugging the machine for a few minutes before opening it would have spared the man's life.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Most of the world uses 50 Hz, 220 Volts. There’s a lot to be said for 117 Volts used in North America, if in fact, it was the power mains that kilt (sic) him.
Simply shocking!
IATZ!
He had to have gotten his “sweaty legs” in contact with the power supply, which calls up a nasty picture, as well as requiring some serious contortions. Wonder what really happened.
Being frugal was not his problem.
Powering down and unplugging the machine for a few minutes before opening it would have spared the man's life.
Not taking simple and fairly obvious safety precautions was. He may have done this many times before and gotten away with it as most people do when they take foolish chances.
Five minutes for a reboot would have saved his life.
The price of being "green".
Geez, what was his computer, an old IBM System 36?
When you are sweaty, live electricity is not your friend.
It sounds like he ran the computer without a cover habitually, in order to prevent overheating of the chip. In a modern ducted cooling machine, of course, heat control is better with the cover on than with the cover off. But I have no idea what this guy was running.
There are bits in there that can hurt you, presumably. I am looking at the guts of my computer right now, and am seriously considering replacing the cover. First I will have to find it, since it has not been on in a couple of years.
But I don’t go sticking my sweaty leg in there, or anything...
Depending on the quality of the insulating material ( internal leakage ), some capacitors ( I reveal my age- they used to be condensors... ) can store a nasty jolt for some time.
We always shorted them with insulated pliers before getting near them...
“Avoiding turing on the A/C”
Why didn’t he open windows?
If it was on the floor at his feet, the contortions would have been very easy.
I wonder what type of carbon footprint he left behind.
If it were not for Global Warming, the man would not have been sweating, and would never have died...
In China summers, there is no avoiding the heat w/o air conditioning - windows or no windows opened.
The ironic side is that he may have saved electricity and the earth, but increased his carbon foot print by getting zapped !
See? Trying to keep your carbon footprint low can kill you!
Well, I just happen to have one of my boxes open right now on the work bench. Unless they have different power supply locations in China, it still seems to me that he had some stretching to do to find his way to the power supply at the top of the case by accident even on the floor. And then there’s that thing about where he made contact. Short in the box most likely.
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