another quick question: if i don't bother earth myself, can i still pick up CPU's and graphics cards by their non-conducting edges?
Had a friend who was convinced he'd fried his mobo due to the static generated by using a vaccumm in his case... didn't take me long to locate the problem, he's sucked a couple of cap's clean off the board!
Yeah you can, bear in mind that things like the heatsink and bracket will be electrically connected to the cards earth and so static COULD fry something, having said that I do pick things up by the heatsink, particularly motherboards and Ive never fried anything. Moriquendi
Those wristbands are more likely to cause damage by catching something on the curly cord and knocking it off the table. I've never killed anything and I'm far from careful about static. Coincidentaly I was hoovering out my pc case last night, I was running the attachments over everything in there, it's all fine.
Its your first build so you're a little apprehensive but don't worry about it. Just keep everything simple. Touch the case after plugging in PSU to ground. Magnetic screwdriver probably won't damage anything, but its not that important anyway. Just use a standard screwdriver, spend 5 mins more and don't think about it again.
