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Static Discharge Causes Flaky Damage
Stephen Bucaro
Some time ago I purchased a motherboard, CPU, and memory from a local computer store.
The sales person did me the "favor" of plugging the CPU and memory into the
motherboard. I held my breath as this was done with no care whatsoever taken to
prevent damage from a possible electrostatic discharge.
A static discharge can damage or destroy integrated circuit electronics. The problem
is that you may not see a visible spark. You may not know that a static discharge
occurred. And, you're lucky if the static discharge totally destroyed the circuit.
Often a component is only damaged and appears to work. This type of damage can
produce occasional or frequent errors. This is what technicians call "flaky" because
the failure does not occur reliably enough to be able to track it down.
The technician can't determine if the errors are caused by software or hardware. All
they can do is keep changing things and waiting to see if the problem goes away. This
is very time consuming and costly.
The proper way to handle computer circuits is to wear a grounded wrist strap. Any
electrical charge that builds up on your body is then immediately conducted to ground.
But experienced technicians have tricks for controlling static electricity.
One trick is to leave the circuit board laying on top of an anti-static bag or
anti-static foam as much as possible. Another is to leave the computer plugged into
the AC outlet with the computers power switch off. This places ground on the computers
metal case. Then the technician works with one hand always on a metal part of the case.
Any electrical charge that builds up on your body is then immediately conducted to
ground the same as with a wrist strap.
The important thing is to take static discharge seriously. Don't stick yourself or
someone else with a flaky computer because you were too lazy to take basic care to
protect against static discharge.
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