Touching your metal case to ground yourself?

TheHogDog

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When people say that, does it make a difference whether you have your PSU plugged in (With every switch turned off) compared to just plainly touching the case without the PSU inside?
 


your case is a grounded object, it works on the principle of a faraday cage. So touching the FRAME of the case will ground you.

plugging in the psu will ground your psu. nothing else. worse, it will cause electrical power to flow through your pc as a whole. probably not a great idea when you're plugging and unplugging things.
 

Dunlop0078

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You want to touch bare metal not painted metal. But to be honest you really dont have to worry about this much just dont walk around rubbing your feet on the carpet then go touch your gpu i have been working with computer components for many years and i have never managed to damage something with static. I even tried to fry an old ram stick with static and i failed. Just work on a wood floor (or anything thats not carpet) and try not to wear like a fleece or any clothes you notice make a lot of static when you put them on or take them off.
 

TheHogDog

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Oh, I thought you should plug in your PSU to ground it etc..

Then you can discharge by touching the case/psu or whatever so the charge goes into the ground.

If I were to just straight up take out my case and just touch it, the discharge goes into the case? which the static is still in me?
 


Yes. The static electricity is discharged to ground via the case, the PSU earth wire, house/building earth wire, and then to earth/ground via an earth rod or earth mat.



Provided the case is electrically connected to earth via the above mentioned components, the static electricity will discharge via the case to earth. There will no longer be any static electricity on your person, until you move around on carpeted floor when static electricity will once again build up on your body. So for this reason, after moving around on carpeted floor touch the earth case with both hands to once again discharge the static electricity.

If the case is not connected to earth (for example PSU cord withdrawn from power socket; or PSU removed from case) then the static electricity will NOT discharge because there is no direct connection to earth/ground. The static charge will still remain on your body.

 

TheHogDog

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Ok, say if I placed my motherboard inside my case on the standoffs etc... if I was to try discharge myself, would it have any chance of being discharged into the motherboard?
 


Touch your case frame. you're grounded, now. you'll discharge nothing into the motherboard.

and the people talking about power plugs and grounding are mixing up 2 different things. plugging in the power supply grounds the electrical system. it has NOTHING to do with the person putting stuff into a case. the case itself is a grounded object by means of the Faraday Cage effect. it does not need a connection to a plug, or being placed on the ground or any other trick to make it grounded. touch the frame of the cage will make you grounded as well (as long as the case is made out of a conductive material this is true anyway, read up on faraday cages to understand this better)

note: the anti static wristbands connect to the computer case "frame" they do not require a psu being plugged in or the case being put in any special location to work.

When i work on a pc. I've grown accustom to keeping some part of my bare arms touching the frame of the case whenever i handle electronics. In 20 years of building and working on the insides of a computer I've never damaged anything with static electricity, when i work on the insides of a computer i do it with the power plug disconnected, this is my job. I do it daily.
 

mdocod

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The main concern here is making sure not to allow a large differential in static charge release through a component.

Say you unpack all the parts onto a table, and the whole time you are touching the table and the parts etc, then you are constantly "balancing" your static charge level with the work area and the components you are working on.. The static concern becomes a non-issue pretty quickly at this point. Touching the case unplugged just balances the static charge level of yourself with the case. The "level" of the static charge is not harmful to any of the components. The harm comes from the FLOW of electrons rushing quickly through a component.

You can plug in the case if you want, that will just bring you and all the stuff you are working on down to a different lower static charge level, but won't necessarily reduce the risk of damaging something with static. In fact, in some cases it can make the risk even greater as you work on things, because now the static charge you are building as you work has a low resistance route it wants to follow. accidentally reaching in and touching a component in the case after walking across the room, with the case plugged in (and failing to first touch the case), is apt to produce a larger static discharge through that component than would have happened if it were unplugged.