So I am finally ordering my build today, woohoo. Anyway, I was wondering, is a discharge strap required? I'll be building on a laminated surface, so there's no carpet. Would regularly touching the metal of the case ground the static well enough? I was concerned because I live in the north of England, so it gets pretty cold, and I hear that the cold causes lots of static.
Congrats As long as you ground yourself on a something metal ie the case you should be fine. I have never in the nigh on twenty years I've been doing this ever seen damage to a component due to static. It's not a myth by any stretch of the imagination but you would have to be wearing a shell suit and rubbing yourself with balloons and cats in primark socks on a man made carpet to get anywhere close to teh amount of static required to actually break something.
I use one just simply for peace of mind, it only cost £5 so its not a big loss for me. My friend used one on his first PC build and he did something to his motherboard (Not exactly sure what as I haven't checked it over). Apparently it still works but it took a while before it would boot properly. I'm pretty sure this was probably just down to him having not connected something properly though haha
I'd say so. I never wear a wrist band and I've never killed or damaged anything with static discharge.
Thanks guys! Another question, just to save starting a new thread. I'm getting an i5 3450 - will the stock thermal paste be fine for it, or should I get some aftermarket paste?
Not while it's on though, right? I in fact have two other questions. It shouldn't matter if the metal surface I ground myself on is painted over, right? Also, this one might seem a little silly, but do socks cause static?
Haha Thats true! TBH I wonder whats the rate of failure for modern hardware via static discharge? Must be alot lower than the olden days? no? EDIT: it dont matter if its painted or not, usually when I discharge via a case its either painted or anodised. Yes Socks cause static
Paint will not make a huge difference, so a radiator or metal window frame for example would work. Socks have the potential to generate static if they have a high polyester count, all cotton will reduce it significantly.
I've never had it happen, but then I have had things that are DOA so did I kill them with static or were they dead already? If a tree falls in the woods and no-one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
Plastic is one of the worst for creating static. Having worked in production electronics for many years, components are so well buffered from blowing theese days, not like the old days. Ive blown many components over the years within work, but as a % prob only equated to 0.000001%. After the iso bs900X standards and the like when esd became a must as customers could demand it. However even though i should know better when doing my own pc builds and stuff i havent blown up anything. Well i did blow a 7575 a/d convertor when i was making a sound digitiser, but that was my own dumbass fault for touching a monitor screen by mistake. Then again a wrist strap is pretty cheap soi no harm getting one in for future builds.
Well when I was Building PCs for a living we just has an old PSU plugged in and touched it every now and then to keep the static down with all the plastic packing material that PC parts get delivered in.
Dont wear nylon knickers you can get a lot of static from that I'm told and work on a wooden surface and you will be fine
