Overview – What Flea Charge is & how it happens

Flea charge describes when the components inside of an electronic device have wound up being charged with some amount of voltage that falls outside of engineered tolerances, causing it to malfunction.

Imagine a commercial flour sifter or coffee grinder with some amount of static charge built up, causing flour or coffee grounds to statically cling in undesired parts of the machine: flea charge is a similar phenomenon, but with the capacitors, transistors, and other components inside your electronic equipment.

Flea charge ordinarily accumulates in workstation equipment. It is not dangerous to people or to the equipment itself but a variety of temporary malfunctions might occur due to its presence. You might (in the most extreme case) feel something like a static shock while sitting down to use your equipment, but so long as your equipment is not physically damaged and has not been disassembled, it will still be physically OK.
The equipment should function completely normally if the flea charge is drained.

Common Symptoms

• Intermittent flickering of displays

• Failure to properly detect displays

• Failure to properly detect USB peripherals

• Malfunctioning touch screens

• Malfunctions in other touch-sensitive equipment, e.g. laptop touch pads

• Intermittent & brief disruptions of network connectivity

• Excessive wake time from Sleep/Hibernate power states

• A wide variety of other peculiar computer misbehavior

Universal Prior Steps

If directed to perform a Flea Charge Drain by your IT support team, or if you wish to try resolving suspected flea charge problems yourself, you should take care to perform these steps before the rest of the procedure.

1. If the device you'll be draining flea charge from is either a laptop paired with a docking station or a docking station alone, you should disconnect the laptop from the docking station.

2. If the device you'll be draining flea charge from is a computer, you should use an in-Operating System button to power the device down (e.g. Windows Start menu > Power button () > Shut down ), saving and closing any important work you might have had open before doing so.

3. Ensure the device has completely shut down before proceeding with the remaining steps.

Draining Flea Charge

From Desktop Computers

1. Once your desktop has shut down (reference the Universal steps above), you can disconnect its power supply from power by disconnecting its power cable.

   1. This can be done by unplugging the power cable from the wall, or by disconnecting the power cable from the computer's power supply, whichever end is more convenient to access.

2. While the power is disconnected, locate its power button – typically located on the front face with other I/O like USB ports and such.

3. Hold the power button for thirty seconds.
   While holding the power button, the various components responsible for the accumulation of flea charge will be given a path to discharge – "draining" the flea charge and helping to coax internal components & circuits to behave as designed.

4. After a full 30 seconds have elapsed, the desktop's flea charge can be considered drained.
   If your workstation has other equipment you would like to try draining flea power from (or which you have been advised to try draining flea power from), you should proceed with draining flea power from those other devices now. Otherwise, though, you can plug the computer back into power and resume normal use, monitoring for improvement.

From Laptop Computers

1. Once your laptop has shut down (reference the Universal steps above), verify that it is disconnected from any external power supply (charger, docking station, etc.).

2. With the laptop disconnected from all sources of external power, locate the power button – typically located near the keyboard, or added directly to it as a specially-dedicated key, normally towards the upper/right edge of the open laptop's surface.

3. Hold the power button for thirty seconds.
   While holding the power button, internal components responsible for the accumulation of flea charge will have a path to discharge, enabling them to "drain" and return to normal function.

   1. Laptops can behave a few different ways while performing this process on account of having a built-in battery – ignore any behavior like the laptop beginning to power up, or so on: watch a clock, mark time, and continue holding the button for a full 30 seconds.

4. After the thirty seconds of button holding have elapsed:

   1. If your laptop has powered up and remained so (e.g. the logon screen is being shown to you, or the laptop is in any other "powered-on" state), locate the in-Operating System power options and Restart the laptop.

   2. If your laptop is powered off at the end of the thirty seconds, that is also completely normal – ignore step 4a, and instead, press the power button to power the laptop up, like you normally would.

5. After the laptop has powered up again (from step 4a or 4b), the laptop's flea charge can be considered drained.
   If your workstation has other equipment you would like to try draining flea power from (or which you have been advised to try draining flea power from), you should proceed with draining flea power from those other devices now. Otherwise, though, you can reconnect the laptop with any peripherals you have (power supply, docking station, etc.) and resume normal use, monitoring for improvement.

From Docking Stations

From Dell Docks (standard)

1. After undocking your laptop (reference the Universal steps above), locate the dock's power supply cable – this is generally a round barrel-style plug, located at the left edge of the dock if looking down at it from the front.

   1. All other cables can be left alone during this process.

2. Disconnect the dock from power – this can be done by either method below, whichever is more convenient to access works equally well:

   1. Disconnect the barrel plug power adapter from the docking station, taking care not to "lose" it behind your desk if that would be difficult to retrieve

   2. Disconnect the entire power adapter from power at the wall

3. While disconnected from power, locate the multifunction button on the docking station's top. This is typically located in one of the right corners, and serves as a shared power button for your laptop while the two are connected.

4. While still disconnected, hold the dock's multifunction button for thirty seconds.
   While holding the button, internal components responsible for the accumulation of flea charge will have a path to discharge, enabling them to "drain" and return to normal function.

5. After the thirty seconds have elapsed, the docking station's flea charge can be considered drained.
   If your workstation has other equipment you would like to try draining flea power from (or which you have been advised to try draining flea power from), you should proceed with draining flea power from those other devices now. Otherwise, though, you can plug the docking station back into power, re-dock your laptop, and resume normal use, monitoring for improvement.

From Surface Docks

1. After undocking your Surface device (reference the Universal steps above), locate the dock's power supply cable – this is generally a round barrel-style plug, located at the right edge of the dock if looking down at it from the front.

   1. All other cables can be left alone during this process.

2. Disconnect the dock from power – this can be done by either method below, whichever is more convenient to access works equally well:

   1. Disconnect the barrel plug power adapter from the docking station, taking care not to "lose" it behind your desk if that would be difficult to retrieve

   2. Disconnect the entire power adapter from power at the wall

3. With the dock disconnected from power, it will steadily drain its flea power into the ambient environment without additional intervention.
   Surface Dock devices do not have any buttons with which to force a complete circuit for draining flea charge, so the docking station now needs to be left idle while disconnected from power.

4. While disconnected, leave the dock alone for absolutely no less than 2 minutes.
   The longer the dock can rest and passively discharge its internal components, the better – an optimal time to do this process would be while leaving one's office for an in-person meeting, or while leaving at the end of a business day, letting the dock sit idly for an extended period while your workstation isn't being used.

5. After the time has elapsed, the dock's flea charge can be considered drained.
   If your workstation has other equipment you would like to try draining flea power from (or which you have been advised to try draining flea power from), you should proceed with draining flea power from those other devices now. Otherwise, though, you can plug the docking station back into power, re-dock your Surface, and resume normal use, monitoring for improvement.

From other unusual dock models

Most of the docking stations issued and acquired at UNI will be Dell or Surface docks, but exceptional cases can certainly arise.

Visually inspect the docking station to locate its power source and any buttons.

If the docking station has a dedicated power cable, you can reference the other instructional steps without any additional complexity.
If the docking station has no dedicated power cable (draws power over the same connection that plugs into the laptop, e.g.), undocking your device will cause the equivalent loss of power that disconnecting a power supply ordinarily does.

If the docking station has any physical buttons onboard, refer to the Dell Docks (standard) section above, substituting one of the buttons (ideally a power or "primary" button) for the Dell multifunction button described there.
If the docking station does not have any physical buttons, instead refer to the Surface Docks section above.