The Shocking Truth (And Lies) About ESD

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Have an interesting ESD story? Let's hear it!

I once zapped my home's thermostat when I was attempting to change the temperature setting. The LCD went blank and refused to come back on. I ended up replacing the unit. About a week later, the controller circuit board on my furnace failed. I'm guessing it was related to the static, but I have no proof.
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Not ESD-related, but I did kill two soundcards because I forgot to turn my 1000W speakers off before changing inputs :eek:. I didn't learn the first time, so the second time I killed my beloved original Sound Blaster Audigy :(.

I honestly don't think I've had any incidents related to ESD in my 30+ years on this earth. It's a habit to always discharge myself before touching anything electronic.
 
During the dry months of the year (in CO) I blast static electricity any time I walk on carpet. I've gotten into a habit of touching metal things to release it as I've literally killed 2 different devices with it. I recently fried a Z77 mobo after powering on my PC and letting off a spark that looked like a fireball. It never booted again. Same thing happened with a PS2 a few years back.
 
Zapped a keyboard on an IBM PS1 (long long long ago) with static once. It killed the CRT monitor that was hooked up to the computer. Surprisingly, the computer was fine. Since then, I always try to discharge static electricity before using a computer. Metal file cabinets and snack tray tables are good for that. :D
 
I've killed so many floppy disks just by touching them. They wont read, format and I cant write to them. I'll have a floppy that I have put something on use it maybe once, try to use it again and nadda. Or i'll put something on one at work to use on a comp at home and it may never work, and then I cant read,write or format it.

It must be my magnetic personality :rolleyes:
 
In the early ninety's, the company I worked for brought in an ESD expert to teach us how to avoid ESD damage of components. (my employer was a mfg or electronic components) The expert gave a very good informative class. After the class we were asking random questions regarding ESD safe films and bags. He explained the part number for the film, which was 8 digits with a bunch of zeroes following was actually his birthdate with the zeros for padding. He had actually played a key role in developing the ESD safe handling and storage materials and his company had let him pick the part number for the film....

Kid
 
Once wiped the firmware from the EPROM on a printserver circuit board. Had walked across an office carpet and as I reached out to take the circuit board form my colleague we both saw the blue spark jump first. Board refused to work until we re-uploaded the firmware.

Also had a motherboard that needed RMA... I was asked to "make darn sure it is duff before it is sent back". So the motherboard spent a bit of time being shaken around in a large bag of polystyrene beads.

Or the 1980s computer room we had at school. In a small carpeted office room. Nice hot radiator drying everything out. Plastic office chairs. And metal cased dumb terminals.... can't see what could go wrong there!! When we got bored of belting each other with large static charges to the back of the skull we would walk up to the screens and hit them with static. These were 1970s\80s dumb terminals with green screens on which you could build some funky patterns. (Think old style radar screens) Physics in action
 
Never have used an ESD-strap, never have killed a PC component due to touching it.

As a habit, I always avoid touching contacts (really, only touch PCB to be safe), and prior to handling components I discharge static by touching the bare metal on something that's grounded.

Oh, and store sensitive components in anti-static bags.

ESD is pretty damn easy to avoid.
 
I have never damaged anything due to ESD. I used to be a LOT more careful about it when I was younger. At one point I even used ESD straps when I worked on computers lol.

Now I don't do much more than only try to touch ram modules, etc by the sides. I might ground myself by touching the metal of the case first but that's about it.

Then again it's not nearly as dry here as it is in other places...
 
I have loads of ESD stories, as I work at a contract PCB manufacturer. We take a yearly ESD test to stay up to date on trends and safety procedures, it has actually helped being in IT. I used to think it was a myth (or more of a guideline) until I watched a video of a person frying wire bonds on an EEPROM, super thin gold wires that connect via's to an IC. The video showed this person generating 25,000 Volts - really low amperage of course - and it cooked the wire right in half. With the sensitivity of the work we perform - military and medical - it's imperative to follow ESD rules, someone's life could depend on it. Haven't fried one PC component yet though! Well, in high school I took a stick of RAM home in my pocket, but hell, there was no way that was going to work when I got home. I kind of expected that...

I've built loads of PC's on carpet with no dissipating or grounding items attached to me, just handled the edges of the PCB. ESD works a few different ways, the initial jolt that can fry a component or, damage a component and shorten it's lifespan. Those are the ones that are really difficult to find, something just stops working one day and you have no idea why, could have easily been damaged by ESD months or years ago. That's why they make grounding mats, de-ionizers, grounding straps, wrist straps and bench top mats. This one is really cool.

http://www.amazon.com/ModRight-Anti...id=1429031486&sr=1-2&keywords=pc+building+mat
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
I haz no idea what ur talkin bout.

catstatic.jpg


But honestly, just move to Houston. Having soup like quasi-liquid air means no concerns about shocking your components.

Contrast that with my last ski trip, and the air was so massively dry that when I lifted the big wool sheets it was like a lightning storm lighting up the room.
 
The problem with ESD is that you can damage a component and not know it. The "spark" hit's the board, travels along a trace until the trace makes a turn, because the harge is more then the trace can handle, it can "jump" across to another trace when it hits that corner and blow out part of the corner weakening the trace. It may not kill the component immediately but it can shorten it's life and the next time even a smaller ESD charge can finish off what the first one started so even if the first spark doesn't kill it the next one might.

Also, the damage doesn't actually have to kill a board, it can just knock out a feature of the board. You can have a dead PCIe slot you never use and never know you killed the slot with ESD or you could knock out one channel of a sound card or one video out port of a video card.

I'm like many of you, I don't wear a strap and I just touch the back of my PSU (as long as it's plugged in). A water faucet is good too, usually the copper lines in a house are grounded, you can always test by doing the carpet thing, if it sparks there's a ground for discharging.
 
Armenius said:
I honestly don't think I've had any incidents related to ESD in my 30+ years on this earth. It's a habit to always discharge myself before touching anything electronic.
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In my ~24 years of building computers I have never given ESD even a second thought. I've never grounded myself or worn a strap.

I mean, I avoid touching leads or components directly when handling CPU's or boards, preferring to grasp them by the non conductive corners, and I do generally stick unused components back in those silver ESD bags they came in, but that's about the extent of it.

I've never either knowingly shocked a component or had any unexplained component failures a rational person may deduce have something to do with ESD.

Maybe I've just been lucky?

I'm a strong proponent of ESD protection when handling components in a manufacturing setting, just from personal experience the ESD problem when it comes to finished components is a little overblown.

That being said, I guess it would only take one ruined expensive component to change my mind :p
 
I was one of those guys who didn't give a damn about ESD.

Until I destroyed a Dell U2410 panel. Which was uh....two weeks ago. Soon as I felt the static leave my fingertips I knew I was boned. Couldn't have shocked it in a worse spot, right on the leading edge of the exposed LCD panel.

On the plus side, my hunch about the blemish I saw on the screen being caused by dust trapped between the panel and the reflective backing was correct. So there's that.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041546989 said:
In my ~24 years of building computers I have never given ESD even a second thought. I've never grounded myself or worn a strap.

I mean, I avoid touching leads or components directly when handling CPU's or boards, preferring to grasp them by the non conductive corners, and I do generally stick unused components back in those silver ESD bags they came in, but that's about the extent of it.

I've never either knowingly shocked a component or had any unexplained component failures a rational person may deduce have something to do with ESD.

Maybe I've just been lucky?

I'm a strong proponent of ESD protection when handling components in a manufacturing setting, just from personal experience the ESD problem when it comes to finished components is a little overblown.

That being said, I guess it would only take one ruined expensive component to change my mind :p
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You don't live in a cool dry climate, like Arizona in the winter?
People double as lightning rods here.
 
lcpiper said:
You don't live in a cool dry climate, like Arizona in the winter?
People double as lightning rods here.
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Here in Boston (and previously in Sweden) winters are cold and dry, and I've given myself some horrific shocks over the years.

Hardwood (or basement cement) floors are however the norm in my work areas. Not much around to rub up against and create a static charge.

Again, as I mentioned, I have probably just been lucky.
 
I've never wore a a strap either and in thousands of builds and other electronics repair I've yet to zap anything. Knowing how to ground yourself is amazing knowledge. That said I'm going to call outright bullshit on a couple of the examples in that article. You aren't killing a switch port or motherboard handling the wire with simple ESD. Nor are you going to kill a furnace board through the thermostat. Another problem happened in those scenarios and it just got blamed on ESD.

That said during the Winter here in western NY it gets dry. Everything is a static mess. Everytime I go to plug my controller into my PS4 through the usb I get zapped and it interrupts the picture.
 
I blew up a motherboard once. I saw a spark from my hands and the motherboard refused to boot. Luckily, it was RMA'ed. I use the strap when working on the computer these days.
 
XViper said:
I blew up a motherboard once. I saw a spark from my hands and the motherboard refused to boot. Luckily, it was RMA'ed. I use the strap when working on the computer these days.
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Uh,

That seems a little disingenuous to me.

RMA:ing a product that you yourself acknowledge you destroyed.

Warranty is supposed to protect you against manufacturer defects...
 
Zarathustra[H];1041547153 said:
Uh,

That seems a little disingenuous to me.

RMA:ing a product that you yourself acknowledge you destroyed.

Warranty is supposed to protect you against manufacturer defects...
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Ok honesty time here...Who here hasn't RMA'ed at least one thing in their life where the failure of said thing was dubious at best on if it was your fault? I mean I generally try to be honest, but I can be forthright and say I'm sure I've probably claimed warranty on at least something that was likely my fault but couldn't be proven one way or the other. I would HIGHLY doubt anyone here who has built any number of computers over the years hasn't had at least 1 questionable RMA/Return.
 
I've never killed anything with ESD. However, I have killed plenty of things with direct shorts, AC and DC directly to the wrong places, etc. :D Well, actually not that many things, but a few. A few good memorable ones too. Also you'll never forget the first time you solder in a decent sized electrolytic capacitor in the wrong polarity. Whenever I test a new linear power supply, I point it away from me. :D

Also, back in the Pre-ATX, AT case days I welded a power connector from the power switch to the case, and shut down all the power in my friend's house. Luckily we got the breakers reset before his parents noticed.
 
J3RK said:
I've never killed anything with ESD. However, I have killed plenty of things with direct shorts, AC and DC directly to the wrong places, etc. :D Well, actually not that many things, but a few. A few good memorable ones too. Also you'll never forget the first time you solder in a decent sized electrolytic capacitor in the wrong polarity. Whenever I test a new linear power supply, I point it away from me. :D

Also, back in the Pre-ATX, AT case days I welded a power connector from the power switch to the case, and shut down all the power in my friend's house. Luckily we got the breakers reset before his parents noticed.
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That makes for some very...Very vivid memories indeed. :eek: Same here though, never killed anything with ESD. Shorts or a "short sighted im tired" solder job are another story.
 
Never had a problem with unintentional discharge (except for getting viciously zapped removing a new case from it's Styrofoam and cardboard), but I *always* rest my forearm on a piece of open equipment before going hands on.
 
The problem with ESD damage isn't the problems you can see, or are readily apparent.

The major problem with ESD damage is the problem you CAN'T see after it's done. Like soft errors on memory chips. They are nearly impossible to find with a diagnostic and wreak havoc with system stability.

That's just one example.

ESD is important. If you don't think it is, leave that case closed.
 
BTW... When I was an instructor in the Navy, the quickest way to get yourself tossed out of my Lab (short of an outright life-threatening dip shit move), was to grab a yellow edge (ESD Sensitive) board without being strapped up.

Buh-bye.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Ok honesty time here...Who here hasn't RMA'ed at least one thing in their life where the failure of said thing was dubious at best on if it was your fault? I mean I generally try to be honest, but I can be forthright and say I'm sure I've probably claimed warranty on at least something that was likely my fault but couldn't be proven one way or the other. I would HIGHLY doubt anyone here who has built any number of computers over the years hasn't had at least 1 questionable RMA/Return.
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I never have. Though I thought about going back to Home Depot and exchanging an appliance dolly that had the strap fall between the cab and bed, twist around the driveshaft, and get the entire dolly sucked into the 1.5 inch gap and get mangled. I was going to say it fell down some stairs and it ended up like that :D I didn't actually return it and still use it to this day in mangled form.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Ok honesty time here...Who here hasn't RMA'ed at least one thing in their life where the failure of said thing was dubious at best on if it was your fault? I mean I generally try to be honest, but I can be forthright and say I'm sure I've probably claimed warranty on at least something that was likely my fault but couldn't be proven one way or the other. I would HIGHLY doubt anyone here who has built any number of computers over the years hasn't had at least 1 questionable RMA/Return.
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Well for myself, I haven't had that many RMA's.

Been building computers since I was 11, so I guess that means I've been doing it for 24 years.

In that time I've only RMA'd a handful of things:
  • Two OCZ SSD's that were dying (one 120GB original Agility, and one Vetex 4)
  • 1 Gigabyte Radeon 7970 because of flickering and color issues (replaced it with a Sapphire version that had the same problem, concluded it was a GPU issue not a board issue) If i didn't later kill the 7970 (see below) I would probably have RMA:ed this one too.
  • Newegg was kind enough to take back a few items over the years when I realized I ordered the wrong thing. They waived the restocking fee which was kind. This is hardly the same as RMA:ing something I knew I damaged though.
  • in 1997, 3 days before the 1 year warranty on my Matrox Mystique ran out it died on me. It hadn't been touched since it was installed a year before. I brought it back to the retailer, they - surprisingly - credited me for it (rather than sending me to the vendor for RMA) and I spent my refund on a Miro Highscore 3d (the european version of the 6MB Canopus Pure 3d Voodoo 1 board)

That's every RMA I've ever done.


Let me - however - copy you on an email I sent to Sapphire in 2012

Subject: Board Repair
From: <REDACTED>
To: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:21:51 -0400

To Whom it May Concern,

I have a Radeon 7970 manufactured by you which I damaged through my own
fault. I know it is ineligible for Warranty, and I wouldn't feel right
asking you to replace it.

Do you offer repair services? If so, I would like to pay to have the board
repaired. It appears to be a simple issue of a cut trace (I slipped with
my screwdriver when checking out what the board looks like under the
plastic shroud), but the trace is too small for me to repair it myself.

I appreciate any assistance.

Thank you,
Matt
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Their response was what I expected (note this was a hail mary pass, I didn't expect them to have repairs)

Subject: RE: Board Repair
From: "RMA\(AlthonMicro\)" <[email protected]>
To: <REDACTED>
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:01:45 -0700

Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting Althon Micro, Inc.

Sorry to inform you that Sapphrie doesn't has repair service for damaged
products.

Regards,

RMA Dept.
Althon Micro, Inc
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Note that the 7970 was launched officially on January 9th of that year. After launch shortages and RMA issues I'd only had this $570 GPU for a couple of weeks. I went back to using my spare 768mb GTX460 until I had saved back up for a 2GB GTX680 a couple of months later, considered it a lesson learned, and haven't played with aftermarket GPU coolers since :p

Now, this was adult me. 32 year old with a job, me. Had this happened when I was younger without a steady income and I just spent a years worth of savings on a GPU, I probably would have been very tempted to try to RMA it.

I probably would have been too embarrassed to tell people on the internet about it, if temptation got the better of me though.
 
J3RK said:
You're a fool. It's an invention of the media!
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not sure if srs...

I work in the electronics industry. I had to deal with reports due to shop floor workers causing ESD damage.
 
:D

I design analog circuitry myself actually for audio and synthesis applications. Of course I wasn't serious. However, that said, I've still never done any damage to anything with ESD. I use common sense and some degree of caution, but I don't keep myself strapped up or anything like that.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
I've never wore a a strap either and in thousands of builds and other electronics repair I've yet to zap anything. Knowing how to ground yourself is amazing knowledge. That said I'm going to call outright bullshit on a couple of the examples in that article. You aren't killing a switch port or motherboard handling the wire with simple ESD. Nor are you going to kill a furnace board through the thermostat. Another problem happened in those scenarios and it just got blamed on ESD.

That said during the Winter here in western NY it gets dry. Everything is a static mess. Everytime I go to plug my controller into my PS4 through the usb I get zapped and it interrupts the picture.
Click to expand...

You sure about that network cable call? You don't think you could discharge ESD by touching the end of the cable at the "pins"?
 
lcpiper said:
You sure about that network cable call? You don't think you could discharge ESD by touching the end of the cable at the "pins"?
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I'm not saying that it's impossible. That would be silly. However, the cable itself provides quite a bit of resistance, there are typically IO protection resistors, sometimes optical coupling, internally, etc. etc. Static discharge is high voltage, but very low current, which is why it doesn't damage a person. There are VERY static sensitive parts out there, but you wouldn't typically expose them directly to IO connections. You could damage them by zapping them directly, and as mentioned by someone earlier in the thread, it is possible to do some damage that you can't see. The conditions have to be right though, and not all situations are equal.

One should definitely be conscious of it, but some people are definitely overly paranoid for the given situation.

Obviously if you're assembling sensitive and expensive equipment in an assembly plant, especially for mission critical systems, then yes, strap yourself up, step on the mats, put on the smock/gear, etc. etc.

If you're working with 60 cent CMOS chips and discrete components at home, you probably don't need to do that.

It's all about context.
 
lcpiper said:
You sure about that network cable call? You don't think you could discharge ESD by touching the end of the cable at the "pins"?
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Discharge, sure..actually damage things through it? Extremely unlikely. There is just too much resistance in a typical network cable for it to carry enough charge for ESD to damage it. I mean I suppose if you had a perfect storm of a sub 2' cable that was just of amazing copper quality, an extremely old switch that had seen years of use and was essentially on it's last leg and anything was going to be the straw. But beyond that? not even.
 
The motherboard of my plasma tv was fried when my brother plugged in his macbook pro via mini displayport/hdmi plug. It wasn't so bad as my tv was still under full warranty, but the timing was horrible.

Happened at the end of the year (December 2014,) a repair tech came to inspect that the tv wasn't tampered with. He told me he had to order the part but it would take a few weeks to get it. I look him straight in the windows to his soul and said "SUPER BOWL!"

It took LG about 4 weeks to ship the part from their warehouse in asia to Canada and 1 day for UPS to deliver it to the tech. The Thursday before The Super Bowl I get a call at about 8am, the guy was outside my house ready to replace the motherboard. 10 minutes and 1000000 screws later my tv was back on the wall. Disaster averted.
 
I once spent my whole life not wearing an ESD wrist strap or taking any precautions against ESD and didn't damage any hardware.
 
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