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Has anyone actually fried or damaged a part with static?

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At least, I *think* I did. Had a soundcard once that would be detected and install just fine, but none of the jacks would work. No sound would come out.

Nate
 
I've never staticly killed antyhing, I always use magnetic screwdrivers, I set pieces down on whatever's handy while working... Never had a problem.
 
Nope, and I practically never ground myself at work (commercial/industrial grade low pile carpet), but I often ground myself to my case at home.
 
my roommate was rubbing himself and touched his mouse. felt a static shock and his mouse never worked since. hahah...that was hilarious.
 
yes, dropped a harddrive on my carpet...

it had like 700 mp3s and this was back in like 98 when it took 20 mins to get one song....the pain
 
i've done a HUGE amount of computer work and never had a problem - while it always pays to be careful the truth is that modern ic's are designed with circuitry to protect from large voltage spikes.

i did kill a cpu once - by cracking the die on an athlon xp when installing the heat sink. after that i ALWAYS used a shim ... !
 
nope, i usually just touch the inside of the case when i'm working on a pc...seems to discharge the static. at least i think so anyway 😉
 
Those of you who claim to have never had a problem don't know how many components you've shortened the life of by exposure to static electricity.

Always ground yourself and the equipment on which you're working.
 
The closest I came to destroying a part(s) was about two months ago. I was replacing my motherboard with an nforce 2 socket A board. After installing the CPU and attaching the HSF, I dropped the damn motherboard on the floor. It sounded horrible. I was so fooking angry. To my astonishment, the thing booted up with no issues at all.

<Homer> I like stories </Homer>
 
I haven't. However, a woman I knew in college decided to present a colloquium to students on how to build a PC. She brought in her own PC, was putting it back together in front of the class and a static burst fried her motherboard. She wasn't very happy.
 
Originally posted by: NogginBoink
Those of you who claim to have never had a problem don't know how many components you've shortened the life of by exposure to static electricity.

Always ground yourself and the equipment on which you're working.
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This has been said twice in this thread now... Do you have any proof of this? I have built a few systems that have now been running for several years with no issues. I have also lost motherboards to bad capacitors. Would you tell me that carefully handling my equipment but not wearing a grounding strap is what killed those motherboards? I'm having a hard time believing that this should be a practical concern of mine without seeing some acceptable proof.
 
never happend to me

but i want one of them EMP thingy's like they had on that jeremy clarkson show (greatest inventions or something?) where they locked a computer in a room and zapped it with EM radiation....that was cool
 
Never but the only time I ever messed up a PC in 10 years was forgetting to put arctic silver on a athlon 1700. Turned it on and *POOF*, cloud of smoke within milliseconds 😀
 
i used to be extremely careful but now i handle my hardware pretty crudely, but ive never damaged anything as a result. maybe im just lucky? perhaps i have shortened the lifespan of stuff though. ive had some memory go bad on me a couple of times, but rarely.
 
Humidity is high here - the cahnge of frying your comp. via static is low. I'd even put together a computer on carpet without fear.
 
I think physical damage is MUCH more likely than static. I've chipped cores, shorted pins by touching them, ripped out cable and headers but never killed something with static that I knew of.
 
I've never actually notably damaged anything; but I'm very glad I took static precautions in one instance: My friend's laptop had a bad DC jack, and the official repair chaps wanted something like 500 for a new motherboard. I figured that it was worth attempting a repair, as the machine was useless otherwise, and hardly worth the cash to fix. This was my first ever laptop, and not mine, so I decided to be really, really careful. Worked on a grounded aluminum table, with wrist strap. As I clicked in to begin work, I got perhaps the worst static shock I've ever had. Luckily, that was the only static of the entire operation.
 
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