Thursday, January 2, 2020

Do electrical spark sounds from the power plug hint for higher risk of damage?


I was moving my PC while it was turned on (at the Windows 10's Login screen) when I heard some electrical spark sounds from the back and the PC fell out. Looking at the back I noticed that I didn't push the power supply cord firmly into the PC socket, so it fell out while I was moving the PC.


Now from what I've read, a PC shutting off unexpectedly could mainly corrupt files and to a lesser extent damage hardware. My PC is running normally afterwards and chkdsk didn't find any problems. But what I am really worried about were the electrical spark sounds because of the power supply being a bit loose.


Do these sounds hint for surges and/or electrical fluctutations within the PC before it fell out, which give a higher risk of damaging the hardware? In other words, was it more safe if the plug got disconnected immediately instead of creating sparks for a short time first?


Answer



If everything is working and chkdsk shows no problems, the incident doesn't seem to have hurt anything. There isn't anything I can think of that could have been damaged in a way that wouldn't be apparent (and even if it was, there would be no way to detect it or do anything about it). You don't need to "wait for the other shoe to drop".


If the power cord fell out only because it hadn't been pushed in all the way, some arcing wouldn't be unexpected in the process. A one-time, momentary event isn't a problem.


It would be a problem, though, if the plug is really loose even when properly pushed in. In that case, it could produce recurring arcing that would eventually degrade that connection. That condition can lead to the plug getting extremely hot, to the point where it fails in a nasty way. So if the cord isn't snug when properly pushed in, get a replacement cord.


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