On May 23, 4:47*pm, john wrote:
I believe that that you are incorrect. *I have experienced the 'puter
shutting down because of a static charge when I plugged a a USB drive
in. *The solution to my problem was as simple as raising the humidity to
about 25%. *Have not had any problems since.

The previous post was about load. If a USB load can cause a PC
shutdown, the defective voltage is obvious with numbers from a
multimeter even when the computer is loaded and not causing a
shutdown.

Transients such as a static electric discharge must be so large as
to be obvious by sight or even feel. One reason is because of the
filtering required on every USB port (and that might be missing on a
discounted USB port).

I have even seen static electricity eventually cause damage to the
USB device and still not crash the computer. IOW is a static
discharge is causing a computer crash, well, first the filtering (and
how chassis ground connected differently from digital power ground)
would explain that failure.

One test of any computer is to put it on a glass table (because wood
and other materials are much too electrically conductive). Then build
up major static electricity and touch various corners of the
computer. Some computers are so poorly constructed (either
motherboard connects to the chassis at too many points) as to crash
when that static electric discharged occurs to the chassis. So yes,
static electric discharge can crash a computer. But only if the
computer is improperly assembled so that static electric discharges
into the digital (power) ground.

Again, posted was a response to a USB load created crash. Not a
'static electric discharge' created crash. Due to filtering, that
discharge still should not crash the computer. And that discharge
should be obvious to create a crash if the different grounds are
improperly implemented.