This one is really very simple. Ive been a pro PC tech for my entire adult life, over 20 years. If you intend to tie your hand to something while you work on your PC, why not just go ahead and handcuff that hand to a rear belt loop? It'll work out about the same, is my point. Yep, there are lots of folks that would love love love to sell you thirty five cents in material and manufacturing costs for a mere $20 USD, but the truth? Always always have the habit of having your hand on the metal chassis that is the inside framework of every single PC, server, point of sale terminal, etc etc. It has to have that metal framework, because specs require it for other things to ground to, to prevent a fire. Static is because of a differing electrical potential (imagine your body is a big ole capacitor, because actually, it is. Your body and it's ability to hold electrical potential is the cornerstone of touchscreen tech, in fact.) between two objects, and it discharges, nullifying that differing electrical potential. However, your PC chassis will always discharge static safely, if it's the first part of the PC you touch. Just get into the habit of physically moving it around the bench by that chassis with an un-gloved hand, and you will be fine. Ive never worn a wrist strap, not once in 20 years. Not once in 20 years have I killed a part with static. In fact, I bet if you were standing behind a pro bench looking to churn and burn through 40 repairs in a shift and you pulled out a wrist strap? You'd prolly get laughed at a mocked behind your back as an anal retentive OCD case. A static wrist strap is a solution desperately in search of a problem, and I assure you, anyone claiming you need one does not do productive work on serious hardware, period.
Its funny, even people at work occasionally buy into this nonsense- I dont mean nonsense like ESD doesnt exist, but nonsense that you need to do anything but discharge your body to the chassis. Ive even seen something labeled 'ESD damage' in the outbound rack, pulled it, and no... you just didnt look hard enough, there are known issues with any RAM with adolf revision 2.0b chips from that ODM running over this other obscure VIA chipset on freeBSD.... split the 2GB RAM into two boards and that oddball error you are having will stop entirely. From my perspective, working the back side of small computer shops- "ESD damage" is a catch-all diagnosis, and something like half the time I can find the problem and fix it. I find a lot of power supplies with blown out 12 volt rails after bad thunderstorms get labeled 'ESD damage' when it really is not. In response to the person posting all of those wonderful ESD guides? We cant know who wrote wikipedia, not really- but I notice just about everyone else on your list, conveniently, has wrist straps for sale for 1200% markup... Am I wrong to be suspicious of the claims that its absolutely needed when I have absolutely ignored that professionally for my entire career, and have yet to damage a single part? See, I can know that because if I was running around having ESD problems, my RMA numbers on brand new hardware being installed would reveal it.
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yes you do need esd strap and mat, it takes almost 3000 volts of static to feel the shock and it only takes 100 volts of static to fry the electrical components inside the laptop. Always use esd strap and mat when working with computers, ALWAYS
crwdns2934271:0crwdnd2934271:0 Rex Clark crwdne2934271:0
I've had too many components "dead on arrival" that i had to forfeit because i didn't use an anti-static strap... that's the most incredible attitude to not follow best practice standards "because I know better" than not to understand basics of electronics and electricity. Awesome...
crwdns2934271:0crwdnd2934271:0 Chilli Starz crwdne2934271:0