Do leather couches have a static charge?

[VirtualLarry]

I recently worked on my friend's machine, and had multiple problems with it after I worked on it. I used his leather couch as a table, could that have had something to do with it?

The video card I brought over for testing, had vertical lines through the display when I POST tested with it, so the vidmem on that card is shot. The RAM I brought, which came from a working system, gave me "no RAM present" series of long beeps on the mobo I was using, and finally, the original mobo from my friend's system, that I was upgrading (an IP35-E), seemingly got fried. I replaced it with an IP35 that I had spare.

What a nightmare, I've never had such bad luck upgrading a machine.

Thankfully, nothing happened to the HDs.

 

[BoomerD]

Leather shouldn't have a static problem. What kind of material was the flooring?

 

[corkyg]

The leather may not be the problem. The problem could be you moving to it without grounding. Boomer D implies static generation as you glide across the floor.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It did have a carpeted floor, and I was rolling across it slightly in a nice leather chair. I did touch the case, before I touched the motherboard, and I don't remember feeling a shock. (I know electronics can get damaged by static at levels that you don't even feel.)

Generally, I'm careful.

I think perhaps then, if the leather couch is not the issue, then the standoff that was floating around under the mobo (that I initially didn't know about) was probably shorting something out. I wondered why it wouldn't even turn on at all (no red LED on the mobo, front case LEDs not lighting up when powering on.)

I did get it working with the replacement mobo.

Gave the first mobo to a friend, who has this theory that perhaps just letting the mobo sit for a while (month?), sometimes they start working again.