Any electricians in the house?

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I have a bit of an odd electrical situation here. Background story I just moved into a house that was built in the 40's so nice old house but all the fun electrical crap that comes with it. The circuit I am dealing with has the outlets for two bedrooms and a bathroom on it and has just had a circuit breaker installed. A week ago it was still running on a fusebox.

The circuit is on a 20 amp fuse and has about 4 lights and two fans on it plus my computer system and a TV. The issue arises from the TV and in fact just one TV in particular. I have a small flat screen LCD TV with 3 prongs for the bedroom that worked fine at the old place and in fact works fine when plugged into a different circuit in the living room. If I plug it in without hooking up the cable it turns on fine and I get just some snow. However I went to plug in the coaxial cable in the other night with the TV plugged in and I then got shocked at the cable outlet when it made contact with the cable. That also tripped the breaker and with the TV plugged in and the cable plugged in the breaker would not come back on but would just instantly trip again.

If I plug an older CRT TV with 2 prongs in though and hook up the cable that TV works fine and I do not get shocked. If I hook up the flat screen to the same cable outlet and run an extension cord from another circuit to it the flat screen also works fine. If I plug it in to another outlet on the problem circuit that trips the breaker instantly again. This happens even with all the lights off and the computer system unplugged.

As a side note the first night we were here I did get a small shock after taking a shower with my feet wet on the flow and my hands a little damp as well I went to flick the light off and the metal screws on the face plate gave me a small shock. Not a visible one but the screws felt like they were burning me just a little. It did not happen 5 minutes later though after drying off or since but we have put the bathroom rug in since then. This is on the same circuit as well.

Any ideas on what the issue is? Bad grounding? I checked the outlets with my volt meter thing and they all seem the same as on the other circuits though I may not know exactly what I am looking for.

[stevew]

Did you run a 3 prong tester thing? It's like 6-8 bucks and lights up in a pattern if the outlet is properly grounded.

[azjoe_02]

In a lot of older homes they didn't even run a ground wire for the outlets. So don't be surprised there.

Likely you have an exposed wire somewhere on the circuit (wall/attic/crawlspace) and that is causing the shocks that you experienced. If a ground were ran then the circuit would not reset - because the exposed wire (hot or neutral) would be shorted to ground. You should, without a doubt, call an electrician/handyman and make sure he knows your local codes.

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I will pick up that tester and see how that works. I did figure I was at the point of calling an electrician but just wanted to see if anyone had any other ideas. I narrowed it down as much as I could think to.