Electric current - short?

qwertyjjj

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Just recently, I would occasionally press the shift/ctl key and I felt a small electric shock running through it (just a little shock, nothing bad, but you can definitely feel it enough to go wtf!). This only happens if I'm pushing hard and I think it's when I touch some part of metal.
I had some other areas on the laptop where the black plastic covering exposed some metal surface and when I touche these I get the same shock.
Also, just lately, I plugged in a line out so I could plug it into my stereo, the end of the line out has the same current running through it as I felt it when I touched the audio LR by mistake.
Any ideas what this could be?
I've covered 2 or 3 of the exposed metal bits by the CD eject button (it's always on worn areas) with tape.

I've got 2 external monitors plugged in, a cooler fan, mouse, external; hard drive.

Dell Inspiron 9300.
 
You have what we call a "floating ground".

You can do one of two things. You can start unplugging devices to discover what is causing the problem. Or you can run a single wire from the chassis of each device, tie them all together, and ground that point. Notice that I didn't say daisy chain (tie everything together with a single wire.
 

qwertyjjj

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I'm pretty sure it's the USB monitor.
I reconnected the USB plug from this monitor to the computer but touched the metal part of the USB and got a small shock.
I thught one of the other USBs did this as well but could be imaging it. As you can understand, I'm reluctant to touch the metal parts of all USBs as it hurts a bit :)
If all the USBs do it, then could it be the actual extension plug? I have an extension with 7 plugs going into it and then that goes into the wall socket.
 

qwertyjjj

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Europe, the wall sockets are usually grounded although they are only 2 pin, the grounding is inside the wall.
The extension is a British extension and has 3 pins so everything should be grounded. However, there are a variation of 2 or 3 pin plugs going into the extension depending on the monitor type or peripheral (printer, external hard drive, etc.)
 

qwertyjjj

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Any idea what to do or check?
I don;t understand how tieing a metal cable rounf the plastic base of the monitor will help...