Don't try and plug your laptop into a non-grounded outlet, you computer will most likley shutoff, may damage some computer parts (HD, motherboard...ect) and may corrupt some of your files.

If your plug is not grounded, and don't want to have to worry about this, you can buy a powerstrip that will protect you from these issues.

Hope this could help out!
-Rob-

I don't think that is entirly true "God".... I would look a at it on case by case bases....We have a DEll Latitude 4000 at work and one of the Engineer has removed the Ground plug from the wall jack (over a year ago) and we did not have problem with the laptop yet....., actually I will ask the engineer what was his testing all about.


Cheers

This Is Not True Goc ........................a Powerbar Has To Be Grounded In Order To Function Properly.and Yes A Non-grounded Outlet Is Not A Good Idea!!!!!!!

partial FUD. Yes its true you shouldn't plug a computer into an ungrounded outlet. For the most part you're ok, the dangerous part is if the power spikes, which can occur during thunderstorms, power problems, etc.

If you are expecting a storm unplug your computer, from any lines, power, phone, cable. For that matter just unplug it from the source: the wall. Theoritcally you could fry your dsl modem, switch, and computer just from one hit. (I've seen it fry 3 cisco routers, came in through the phone system ::shock

I had my Router reset itself and all the settings went crazy during a recent thunderstorm, and that's behind a fully grounded socket, surge protector and surge protection on the telephone line :?.
In future the whole system will be unplugged.

Well... I have tried this on my three laptops, and my two Dells and Compaq both did the same this as I mentioned above. When I attached my other powerstrip(surge protected), it worked fine. It was a surgeprotector strip, I forgot to mention above I was using a non-surgeprotected strip when I had these problems.

This is a good topic to discuss at this time of year (with all the thunderstorms looming). Last year at this time, I lost my whole system due to a thunderstorm. So...I'm with Vidster and will also unplug the system.

I have never lost a thing to a thunder storm :-O

Thats cause i always have unpluged my computer ;-)