How do you become properly "groundeD"

[niwi7]

people say before doin n e thing w/ inside of ur computer ground urself...how r u supposed to do this? stand still and touch some kind of metal or something? lol

 

[Afro000Dude]

Touch the metal of your case or the casing of your power supply (if it is plugged in).

 

[ethebubbeth]

As afrodude said, touch the power supply casing to ground yourself, and then try to move as little as possible afterwards.

 

[AnarchyInTheUS]

That is the basic way to ground yourself which can still be troublesome. I bought a grounding wire which really helps a lot in terms of trying to remember if I have just touched the case or not. They are pretty cheap and give you that extra security if you work on computers a lot.

 

[OverVolt]

Originally posted by: AnarchyInTheUS
That is the basic way to ground yourself which can still be troublesome. I bought a grounding wire which really helps a lot in terms of trying to remember if I have just touched the case or not. They are pretty cheap and give you that extra security if you work on computers a lot.

I can never work with those things. The wire is always in my way when i install mobo,HD's, ect. And normally i have the parts sitting a good 10ft away cause of space issues.

 

[BD231]

Who gives. The chances of you killing anything with electro static are slim, and if your dumb enough to play with a balloon or wear socks on carpet while working on your computer that part has a right to be put to death.

 

[ScottMac]

Electrostatic Discharge Protection is a good thing. Depending on the environment, you can generate a substantial charge. By the time you see or feel a spark, you're already at tens-of-thousands of volts.

As often as not, you don't outright kill a/the chip; you destroy some of the internal paths, or erode them (make 'em thinner). The effect is glitchy random failures.

It's not so much that you have to be grounded, you and the components you are working on should all be at the same potential ... "ground" being the easiest to accomplish.

The other thing to remember is that if the power cord is plugged in, and the power switch on the PS is not in the "OFF" position, there's power being fed to the motherboard (the PCI bus, The AGP slot, the RAM, the processor, etc). If you plug something in with power applied, even standby power, it can also damage the component or motherboard. If your power supply does not have a power switch on it, then you should unplug the power cord before adding or removing components.

With the power cord removed, you still need to equalize the charges between yourself, the component, and the place you're plugging the new part. A wrist strap tied to the chassis is the easiest way to make sure you don't zap something. If you don't have a strap, then make sure you touch the chassis periodically. Don't remove the component from the anti-static wrapper/container until you do.

ESD protection is a small, easy thing to do and might save you many headaches later on. Systems these days are more tolerant, but why take the chance?

FWIW

Scott