What components can the static kill?

[VBboy]

Which computer components can the static electricity actually kill or seriously damage? Can it only damage the motherboard, or also the CPU, memory and other components?

E.g. if I am holding a hard drive (and touching something on its PCB on the bottom) and happen to drag my foot across the carpet, can I zap the hard drive?

 

[mindiris]

One rule of thumb would be that if you can see chips, you can zap it and kill it.

If you are referring to charge buildup from one measly brush on the carpet, you'd likely not build up that much charge. If you are worried, then you can always periodically touch the case, or if you are more paranoid, or simply work with a lot of computers all the time, a grounding strap will work quite nicely.

 

[JonnyDuke]

If you walk across a carpet and build up enough of a charge, it's possible to wipe out anything inside the box. A surprisingly small amount of static can do horrendous things. Understand that it takes quite a charge to jump from your finger to the casing. About the only thing that could be considered "safe" is the power supply, since it is actually dealing with large amounts of electrons. Not completely safe but less likely to be damaged by a single discharge.

 

[Pederv]

Some semiconductor devices can be killed with 50 volts of static. It takes thousands of volts of static for you to feel it. As said earlier, if it has chips you can kill it.