Surge Protector / PC Electrical Spark

Thread Starter

TacKnight

Joined Oct 8, 2017
1
Hey everyone,

Within the past week, I have had to misfortune of being on the wrong side of the all powerful and magical electricity. My first mistake was rather foolish but explainable, I have a phone charger plugged into an outlet by my bed in order to keep it charging so an alarm can go off in the morning. Unfortunately, I was cleaning my carpet and pushed the bed over trying to clean under some of the bed frame, not thinking about the charger plugged in, and when the bed hit the charger it sparked and left the plug blackened. Thankfully it didn't start a fire! I assume this happened due to it being knocked in a weird position and not having a correct electrical flow.

Nonethless, an even bigger problem occurred the next day. I had a surge protector that was connected to a computer, a lamp, some speakers, and another electrical device. I was again, cleaning my floor, when I decided to unplug the lamp in order to move it out of the area. I grabbed the lamp plug and when I began to pull it out, SPARK, a flash of light scared me and my computer shut off. Immediately I knew something terrible happened. I assume that since I wasn't pulling the plug out carefully that I somehow shorted a circuit and blew up something in the surge protector? Also worth nothing, the outlet itself suffered no damage as I currently have another electrical device plugged in without issue, it was purely on the surge protector as a plug on the surge protector is now blackened as well. What's interesting is every electrical component on that outlet is fine and working now EXCEPT for the desktop. Many people in these cases say that the motherboard or PSU of the desktop is shot and simply needs to be replaced, HOWEVER, I also had a usb phone charger plugged into a USB port of my computer. After the spark at the outlet happened, I looked at the USB charger and found it to be blackened and ruined as if the current traveled out to the tip of it and blew up.

Additionally, I am currently living in a dorm-room on a college campus. The building in which I live doesn't seem to be extremely new, which leaves me feeling a little afraid because..

Is the issue with the surge protector with me? Considering I foolishly tried to rip out the lamp plug from the surge protector without thinking
OR
Is it the campus? When I talked to a friend who has an electrical engineer father, his response was that the circuit is probably unstable from people having so many things plugged in like mini-fridges, lamps, fans, computers, iPhone chargers, etc and it had something to do with this issue.

NOTE: I have been living in the same room for two years and never experienced any electrical issues until this weekend.

If it was just me, I can safely remember for the future not to be jerking cords out of the surge protector while many other things are on or at all. But if it's the building itself, then I am terrified of doing anything with another desktop.

How would I protect myself in the future?

I apologize about my severe lack of understanding, I am simply terrified to buy a new computer and have it blow up again.
(I use high-end gaming and rendering computers so the computer not turning off is also a pretty big scare for me. I don't know if it's just the PSU or the motherboard or what happened)
 
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