Ever need an extension cord at home and all you can find are the two- prong type? (My wife seems to buy them in bulk). Why do they even make a 2-prong type when all outlets are supposed to have a ground anyway?
I've told the wife to never buy a 2-prong extension cord.
Short answer: because there are lots of things you can plug in that have
2-prong plugs. (I ASS-ume you're talking about US/North America?). Most of them are perfectly safe and don't need a ground (double insulated, etc.)
The code (NEC) doesn't have total control over each and every device that gets plugged into an outlet. And 2-prong cord sets may still be UL/CSA approved.
I wouldn't sweat it, unless you have a lot of stuff with grounded plugs and have to use lots of 2-to-3-prong adapters (which does get really annoying).
Grounding is a Good Thing, but its benefits are still often wildly overstated. I've worked on plenty of houses around here with old wiring (no separate ground conductor), and for 99% of devices they're perfectly OK. Even computers and other "delicate electronic equipment".
I'm surious: just how did that happen? Did you plug 2 things into two different outlets? Otherwise, hard to see how you could blow a soundcard just by plugging a computer into a 2-prong outlet.
And I'm ASS-u-ming that your new outlets are actually grounded? Of course, installing grounded outlets won't help you in an old house which has 2-wire circuits.
Both computers were on 2-prong. In which case (I should have known at the time), there is about half the net voltage on the case, because of the netfilters build into the computer.(duuu...) I connected the line input of one computer to the line out of the other computer, with a 2-male small connector cord. Well, the tip of that connector touches ground on the computerside first, when inserting, inputting ~100 volt into the other computer, and that was definitely that. Now why both cards were gone, is harder to explain, unless the other card had a floating ground, in which case you can kill both cards..... But I have no schematics for those two cards, one of which was build into mother board card. Luckily the bios allowed to disable the malfunctioning chip.
7 euros for one soundcard and an old soundblaster for for the other (old)computer, restored things.
Excellent advice. When you've got a 3-prong appliance and only a 2-prong extension, you're possibly at some risk. Better to have any one you grab have the ground IF needed.
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