Anti-static wrist strap question

Any bare metal that is out of the way of your work is fine for the clip.

Your power supply should not be plugged in.

I personally weld the clip to the PC and get the wire under my skin to ensure a good connection. I also ground my body to a copper water pipe.....


J/K

LOL, "under my skin", that must hurt. Have a few beers first, it helps.  

@OP: change that 500GB to a 640GB disk, it's faster.

is it faster? they both look the same to me. I'm new at this (title of my thread = dead give away) so maybe I dunno.

500gb (mine)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

640gb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

I did 500 also because I want to get another and see if i can run just those two in raid 1 for data and leave the velociraptor running just the OS, games and apps. I don't know if that setup is possible though. If not I'll still get another and use it as a back up. But in either case I was just looking at having an even # capacity. (500gb in raid 1 or 1 TB total)

Oh yea and thanks everyone for info on wrist strap. I just borrowed my neighbors sledge hammer and after much labor WAS able to find a copper water pipe in one of the load bearing walls in my high-rise so "whew!!".. now I can get started with the insertion and tracking down a torch. I just hope installing my CM V8 will be just as easy a process.

Lol. Now at work we actually have a wrist strap that plugs into a 3 prong cord, like say the cord that goes to the back of your pc. However, the only tooth on plug for the wrist strap is the ground. Not a bad way to go either imho.

I'll see if I have a connection for that. My concern is when I put the cpu, and memory on the motherboard because it won't be in the case...so I won't be grounded if i'm hooked up to a case that isn't plugged in and working with a MOBO on the desk. I should have mentioned earlier that i'm doing cpu and mem first before putting in case i guess. If i don't have that connection maybe i can just stick (or spot weld) the alligator clip in the ground of an extension cord and plug that puppy in.

thanks

For home use though, this is coming from a guy who's apple certified btw, I use a wrist strap at work, but at home, as long as you touch the bare unpainted metal of your case before you touch a part and don't move much, you probably won't have much to worry about as long as you handle everything by the edges. I've been dealing with pc's for about 11 years, and if you are just smart, wrist strap or not, you are likely not going to fry anything. Like don't go touch pins on the ram or on the cpu especially, do the work in an area without carpet if possible, touch the unpainted metal on your case before touching a part, etc. You will be fine. Just relax, it's all good 

Cool. Thanks for info. I've heard you can do that too. I'm just trying to be anal since this is my first build...also with about $2100 in brand new parts. Some people mentioned I should use strap when I first inquired about building but it seems it's not always necessary. I'll try strap when I build but then I'll probably revert to just touching the case when I make and changes. Thanks again.

Better safe than sorry. I personally have a wriststrap that hookes onto an anti-static mat that has a long cord hooked to the radiator in my workroom. A bit much, yes, but in my opinion you can never be too careful, whether it's your PC or someone else's.

Few bucks for added peace-of-mind? Yes please!

Yeah, wrist strap is a good idea if you are into the thousands. Now if it's a budget build, maybe not so much. Main thing is like I said, be careful and don't touch the connectors and be sure to keep grounded somehow, whether by touching the case or using a wrist strap, etc, and you should be fine.

The WD5001AALS shows 75 MB/s average transfer rate in HD Tune. The WD6401AALS shows 98. By the way, there's also an older (and slightly cheaper model) called WD6400AAKS which shows 91.

The reason why 640GB models beat the 500GB models is that they have more dense platters (320GB instead of 250GB). The bits are closer to each other so more of them can be read or written in the same time.

i just plug the clip into an out let (in all seriousness) it instantly grounds you and no, you will not get shocked. My father is an electromechanical systems engineer and I have been building pcs for the past 4 years since i was a teenager, I know this works