Static Electricity?

L

LooN3y

Member
i keep hearing warnings about that, what precautions can i take?/what should i do,


at my house theres carpet everywhere, should i take it to pitching where its tiles?


when Im putting together a computer?
 
Make sure you are grounded, while building your desktop touch a metal part which is grounded. Mostly you can touch the PSU regularly while building you PC. Keep plastic chairs away from the build area and yes keep away from carpet, probably you can wear rubber footwear but its best to avoid static current.
 
The safest way is a grounding strap, but you can accomplish the same thing by simply touching the metal of the case. As long as you aren't moving around on the carpet without touching the case you will be fine.
 
Copied straight from my No POST Diagnostics tech guide...

Plug the PC into power, make sure the power is turned OFF at the wall, touch a part of the case that is bare shiny metal (a screw usually works) and then you are done. Try not to move around too much as you will build up charge again. To ground yourself again, just touch the same screw or bare metal part of the chassis you touched before. The earth is always active regardless of power switch on wall or PC.
 
To be honest its unlikely that you can build up a static charge large enough to damage equipment anyway let alone in a house, I just stripped an old power cord, took out the positive and negative, tied the earthing wire round a finger and then it grounds myself into the grounding of the house. :) (couldnt be bothered to buy one for £5).

I did that purely because I have no evidence that you cant damage it and better safe than sorry, eh?

Personally, I think static damage is overrated.

EDIT: forgot to mention, my case is completely painted interior wise so i had nowhere to hold on to :(
 
SilentRabbit said:
To be honest its unlikely that you can build up a static charge large enough to damage equipment anyway let alone in a house
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I'd disagree. You're constantly moving around the house walking over carpets and usually wearing socks. You build up a charge when walking over carpet, and then you move around creating more charge.

Every time I have forgotten to ground myself I've wrecked hardware. I've destroyed several RAM sticks in my time due to ESD, and old Radeon X800 XT too, so I'd say grounding yourself is a must.

Some people build up charge quicker than others though - I mean, I get zapped really easily. I sometimes used to get zapped by the doors on my Dad's cars and I even got zapped by a metal chair leg at school in a maths lesson once (not joking either). At the end of the day it really depends on what you're wearing and how much you move around.
 
In my personal experience the static shock killed my RAM few months ago, in college canteen there are plastic chairs and metal table, so while sitting in the chair or getting up I develop quite much of static electricity to give others a shock lol.
 
As long as you don't move around much and touch the case often, carpet won't matter. I built my PC on carpet and nothing happened.
 
Yeah I built my PC on a carpet too, but I put all the parts on top of their boxes or anti-static bags whilst they were 'waiting' to be installed into the case.

So long as you are grounded and your parts are kept safely (on a box, on an anti-static bag, on a book etc) then you should be fine. :)
 
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