I know that the answer is yes, I should, but outlets near the setup are not grounded (even though they look like they are) and I don’t want to have wires running though my living room.
The real question is what are potential problems ? Occasional system reboots? Permanent damage to PSU? Permanent damage to other components?
It will not affect system stability, but… Surge protectors do not work at all without a ground wire to drop excess voltage to. Any kind of line voltage disturbance could kill every device.
Additionally, without any ground wire to pull the housings of devices to ground, the potential for a short to energize the case and then electrocute you is also high.
additionally additionally, if you have grounded outlets that don’t actually have a ground connection running to them, that means either the wiring system is broken or it was “updated” by an unlicensed hack job who has undoubtedly made numerous more dangerous decisions elsewhere in the circuit.
If your house is entirely ungrounded you really should have an electrician come update it ASAP. Outlet grounds have been mandatory since 1971. The chances are high that wiring predating that code is still using old cloth-wrapped wire insulation or even knob&tube, both of which are huge fire risks as the insulation is decayed badly by now. It’s expensive to have all new wire pulled but it is necessary.
Can confirm. Neighbors house had an attic fire with knob & tube wiring.
… Just like the stuff still in my place today. Eek! Landlord won’t upgrade unless there is a problem. In my house, the breakers are all 20amp and that’s a lot to run on, best guess, 70 year old wires.
Oh, and do not assume anything is wired as expected. Test after. I’ve found a couple plugs “upgraded” to 3-prong by jumping the load and ground together. That made for a fun firework show when my metal fan touched something metal. Even the landlord was impressed by that stupidity.
A cheaper solution is to take a copper wire and connect the ground screw of the socket to a water pipe. It does the job and is better than nothing.
Note to anyone heeding this advice: it has to be a metal water pipe, no plastic.
Yeah it’s pricey, very pricey, but the risks are just too high for a home not to be properly grounded anymore. Homeowners have had 50 years to do it, it’s time to get it done.
Heh. House I rented was built before ubiquitous electricity. At some point, someone slapped a fuse box on the outside of the back wall and drilled a bunch of 1" holes in said wall to pass wiring. House was built on piers, so they just dragged wires around to places where they wanted outlets, which were mostly planted in the floor. Not a ground wire on site. I have no idea how they got away with renting that out, but it’s not like I called code enforcement, either.
My house was built in 1939. Initial installation of ecectric cables consisted of a wire in a sleeve filled over with concrete. That was all replaced with proper tubing and isolation, but these few outlets do not have ground.
Surge suppressors do not drop extra voltage to ground. They selectively short out surges between whatever two conductors have a high potential between them.
No ground conductor means there cannot be a high potential between it and anything else!