ESD Paranoia - HELP PLEASE!

nintygaming

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I'm really worried about ESD (static damage to PC parts) because I'm about to replace my i5 2300 CPU for a i7 2600 CPU, plus replace my 6GB of RAM for 16GB of ram, and replace my Caviar Green HDD with 2 Samsung 830 SSD's in my stock Gateway PC.

I've read that your suppose to keep the PC plugged into a surge protector, WITH the surge protector turned off (I do have a surge protector so this is not a problem). I've also heard that I'm suppose to not have ANYTHING plugged in, and just touch the bare metal chassis from time to time while installing my upgrades. I've seen so much contradictory information, that I'm doubting the majority of what I read.

So I'm asking you guys, what should I do? Should I be scared? Should I sit in a wooden chair on concrete with rubber soles on my shoes? I'm going nuts with this and I don't want to damage my expensive parts. Any advice on how to do this would be very appreciated, thank you!
 

jay_nar2012

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ESD damage rarely happens, most of the time its over exaggerated...

If you are worried get an anti-static wrist band from your local comp shop, you don't need a surge protector, plug it in a socket but turn the socket off or turn the PSU off via the power switch if it has one, if you are on a carpet, touch the case every now and again.
 

Flying-Q

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When you keep the machine plugged in but switched off the earth line stays connected. If you touch the case with your hands then you get earthed through the case and remain electrically neutral to the components. Therefore no ESD. I have a habit of leaning my fore arms on the case whilst working inside (case flat on side) so I remain earthed all the time. I've never lost a component to ESD.

Q
 

Ry4n

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If you check on amazon, You can purchase a anti static wrist strap with a UK Plug so all you have to do is plug the cable onto the strap and plug then insert it into the wall on the off position.
 

Lutfij

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First ground yourself by touching a faucet. ESD can happen when you have socks on and move on carpets from room to room. You become electrostatically charged and this charge will kill your parts. Just avoid it and voila, your good to go for cpu swap.

Then you can operate on your rig.
 

nintygaming

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OK so let me make sure I got this straight........

1. Plug PC into surge protector.
2. Turn off surge protector.
3. Plug surge protector into the wall.
4. Touch bare metal chassis constantly or frequently while installing upgrades.
5. Done

Is this correct?
 

Flying-Q

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got it
 

nintygaming

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Thanks very much. I've installed my i7 2600, and my 16GB of ram, and was EXTRA careful while doing so, as if I was doing brain surgery. LOL. Everything was a success. Now....to get rid of my bottleneck (my Caviar Green HDD) via installing 2 Samsung 830 SSD's.....which are on the way!
 

Flying-Q

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Why 2 SSD's?

If you need capacity then one larger one would be better. If one is big enough for the OS and applications then all your data can go on the CaviarGreen. OS and apps will load like lightning and you will have large data capacity.

Do not be tempted to RAID the 2 SSDs together as the TRIM command (part of SSD housekeeping) is not yet supported under RAID.

Q
 

nintygaming

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Because I do frequent video encoding, and reading from AND writing to one SSD will be only half as fast as reading from one and writing to the other (one SSD would be akin to "Read - Pause - Write", whereas two SSD's will have no pause at all, constant flow providing that it reads from one, and writes to the other simultaneously). My Caviar Green is not up to par with read speeds, nor write speeds. And as far as RAID is concerned, I don't even know what that means let alone how to do it.
 

Lutfij

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(one SSD would be akin to "Read - Pause - Write", whereas two SSD's will have no pause at all, constant flow providing that it reads from one, and writes to the other simultaneously)
this is raid on a normal HDD, the ssd raid is completely overhyped, no real world scenario where you'll benefit form this setup. One large SSD is better than going dual ssd in any raid setup. as Q mentioned.

If your cav green wasn't upto the task, then a caviar black would've sufficed being available at a larger capacity for the same price point.
 

nintygaming

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Again, I don't even know what RAID is, let alone how to do it properly.

I'm simply going to be using one SSD for storage, and the other for Windows 7.

When it comes to video converting, others have claimed that its always much faster - if not twice as fast - to read your video from one drive, and convert it to the other, so that there is no interruption.

To quote an individual from the ConvertXtoDVD forums "Video processing can not use 100% of i7 CPU, because your drives become bottleneck.
Conversion requires constant read and write operations, and those slow down the system.
You can optimize it a little by using different drives for reading and writing, best is to have original on SSD and target on fast SATA3 drive.If you are reading AND writing to SSD then that IS your bottleneck.
SSD is very fast on reading, quite fast on writing but VERY slow on doing both at once."


Solution? Simple....use 2 SSD's. (and Amazon gave me a fantastic deal. I was able to purchase two 128GB Samsung 830 SSD's for 199.98, which was cheaper than buying one 256gb SSD, plus they gave me a $50 gift card, reducing my price to 149.98, can't beat that).
 

Lutfij

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storage will fail on an ssd and the OS will be miles ahead of your HDD, thats for sure.

You should join THGF office and become a member at the board of directors with that ground shattering solution. ^
 

nintygaming

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Sounds very anti-SSD.....

I'm not saying that your biased towards SSD's, but I've heard lots of people claiming that their SSD's are a few years old and still going strong. (and I don't even put alot of stress on my drives like most of these guys do)
 

Lutfij

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OH! , I am for SSD's mate, just not one for buying it for storage, only programs that you'll frequently use(by that I mean opening and closing a program after desktop has started up not I/O work by a program).

If you're talking about going strong, read up MTBF on wiki/google search.
 

nintygaming

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Gotcha.

So, lets say that I only use my storage drive 3-4 time a week, and only video encode (read from storage drive, and write to the main OS drive) 2-3 times a week. Under those light-stress circumstances, how long would my Samsung 830 last in your opinion?
 

nintygaming

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Says its 1,500,000 hours, and considering that I wouldn't have my PC turned on any longer than 3-5 hours a day, this SSD should last me "forever" in a hypothetical sense. Besides, I'd be more worried about the lifetime of my crappy Caviar Green drive (failure rates are super high with them things, too bad it "came" with my PC)
 

Lutfij

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thas hypothesis, like physics, Einstein's E=MC2 theory was broken...and it changed alot of theories worldwide!

They could even be dead on arrival...so don't base your assumptions on the MTBF - nor assume it'll last you forever for a few hours of usage. I've had adrive die on me on a few months while another(same capacity) lasted for well over 6 years.
 

nintygaming

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Well, to be on the safe side, I could do what I always have done, and use my 32GB SD Card as a fail-safe. Heck, I could use the Caviar Green as another fail-safe.

P.S. If a theory is broken, then its not a theory, but a hypothesis. A theory is a set of principles (principles based on facts) which claims to be a correct description of some aspect of reality. A Hypothesis is just a carefully considered opinion when used correctly. Starts first with a Hypothesis (opinion), then Theory (i.e; the facts....of course once the hypothesis has been proven). (which is why something like Evolution is not a "theory", but a "hypothesis", because its nowhere near factually based, but there's no need to get deeper into that topic, which is beyond the scope of this thread)

So the next time you hear some politician or joe blow say he has a theory, listen very carefully and notice that its actually a hypothesis (apparently its easier on the tongue to say "theory" instead of "hypothesis".......ahh we lazy humans should use words precisely).
 

nintygaming

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I looked at the prices of the 10000rpm WD drives....YIKES is all I can say for something that is slower than SSD.

One must do what he/she believes is best however. Thanks for your input regardless!
 

nintygaming

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Yes, and honestly, I have a hard time filling up 80GB (I rarely keep most videos that I download. Files that I preserve are word files and a few audio files. When I'm encoding video, I only keep it long enough to watch it on the big screen via DVD, then erase the same disc, download, convert, burn, watch, erase, download, convert, burn, watch, erase, etc......)