Has anyone actually fried or damaged a part with static?

[Cheezeit]

I just put together a rig and once again, saw all those caution, static warings.

I did the whole thing on carpet and never discharged myself once, and didn't fry anything.

I know its always good to be safe than sorry, but I was just wondering if anyone has ever actually had anyhitng happen to them.

Post if you haven't had anything happen or have. Im sure if you have theres an interesting story to go with it.

 

[tm37]

I have never done it but I practice very good sESD habits

I have seen stuff get fried

 

[Scouzer]

yes

 

[blodhi74]

nope

 

[venk]

poll?

 

[rudeguy]

never

 

[Mrvile]

I don't think so.

 

[brxndxn]

It would be very hard to damage any computer component with static electricity, imo. I've worked at a computer store and had my hands on 100's upon 100's of computers.. even seeing a static spark every once in a while. It never caused any hardware to go bad on me. It's one of those precautions that noobs can take.. even though they'd be 1000 times more likely to physically damage a component.

I had a motherboard go bad on me once (broke a pin on the bios chip by bumping it pulling out a molex connector) and one or two video card fans stop working. Other than that, it only seems like hard drives, fans, and power supplies go bad.

 

[mobobuff]

No, and I've never used an anti-static wrist strap, but I always touch the outside of the PSU before touching anything else. Where I used to work we had anti-static floor mats. The only kind of stray foreign charge I've seen ruin a computer is lightning.

 

[biostud]

only myself

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

I had a motherboard die on me once for no apparent reason once, could have been ESD that killed it.

 

[sniperruff]

people have blown up a caravan with static.

 

[Cattlegod]

nope, if you ground yourself out on the case you shouldn't have an issue.

 

[Cheezeit]

Polls fixed now

 

[cjgallen]

Nope. I even tried destroying a motherboard once by rubbing it all over the back of a subwoofer magnet, IT STILL WORKED!!!!

 

[Cheezeit]

Originally posted by: cjgallen
Nope. I even tried destroying a motherboard once by rubbing it all over the back of a subwoofer magnet, IT STILL WORKED!!!!

wow, why did you want to do that?

 

[PottedMeat]

Originally posted by: cjgallen
Nope. I even tried destroying a motherboard once by rubbing it all over the back of a subwoofer magnet, IT STILL WORKED!!!!

why would that damage it in any way?

 

[Rastus]

When CMOS devices first came out, they were very static sensitive. In those days it wasn't uncommon to have a whole tube of devices go bad one at a time just removing them from the tube and inserting them in the circuit board. If they got in circuit safely, the board usually was reletively immune to static.

We use to cover our work benches with anti static plastic and wear ground straps when doing that kind of fab work. It was still iffy. I haven't seen anything blow from static since those days.

 

[Amused]

No, and i hope I never will

 

[Yossarian]

no, but my cell phone caused a gas station to explode once.

 

[Conky]

Unless you wear bunny slippers and live in a house with shag carpeting then static electricity is a non issue for working on computers.

However, a surprising percentage of ATOT computer builders are into the bunny slipper thing, so go figure.

 

[jlee]

Originally posted by: Yossarian
no, but my cell phone caused a gas station to explode once.

 

[Cheezeit]

Originally posted by: Yossarian
no, but my cell phone caused a gas station to explode once.

really? did you pay?

 

[LordMorpheus]

I never have. I've kinda relaxed my precautions. That means I will soon and I'll go back to being very careful.

 

[AdamSnow]

Damage done to an electronic device from statis is not always instant... You may have damaged it and not even know it... All it will do is shorten the life of the unit... So, chances are many of you have done static damage to something and not even know it...