does washing your hands discharge static electric

But you have to wipe your hands, do you? It would generate static charges.

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

is that a joke?

oh sorry, I mean washing hands to discharge static electric.

Oh, you were talking to the first poster. No, I don't think that was a joke either.

Neither do I, Crash. But I might as well help out other people, otherwise they'll just complain about their broken stuff.

<font color=orange>Quarter</font color=orange> <font color=blue>Pounder</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Inside</font color=orange>

If the taps (fossets to the yanks) are metal, touch them. That'll discharge the static to earth (ground to the yanks).



<b><font color=blue>The Cisco Kid</font color=blue></b>

Ahem [cough]. What did I just say?

<b><font color=blue>The Cisco Kid</font color=blue></b>

sometimes i even work on my PC when its still running!
typically disconnecting fans, fiddling with cables.
risky stuff

The lack of thermal protection on Athlon's is cunning way to stop morons from using AMD.

Do people actually use the keyboard power on function?

For some reason pushing a button on the tower and seeing the lights just puts me at ease.

"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
No Overclock+stock hsf=GOOD!

Some people do I guess, no idea why.

<font color=orange>Quarter</font color=orange> <font color=blue>Pounder</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Inside</font color=orange>

Yeah, I guess that is what I really meant.

Just have to comment. It's funny, do you redcoats really call us yanks.

Radiators eh? I think they disallowed those on the mayflower for intellectual property copyright reasons.

Heh, J/K around BTW.

ROFL!

No they don't. I just used that word because [sigh], Americans is a longer word.

<b><font color=blue>The Cisco Kid</font color=blue></b>

yeah - a lot of non Amricans call Americans yanks. Not in a bad way, just do...

Radiators may not work as they are invariably painted and so not a true earth/ground.

Water pipes in a newer building are fine, but beware very old buildings (in the UK) as their water pipes were often lead. Also make sure the water system is setup as a ground, since often new buildings are fed via plastic mains water feeds and lose the natural earthing ability. Such buildings need to have specification to deliberately earth the water system somewhere.

-* <font color=red> !! S O L D !! </font color=red> *-
To the gentleman in the pink Tutu

I'm no electrician, but I think thats what most residential codes rely on around here, the water feeds being grounded. I think, again not sure, that you can safely/reliably use that ground for residential stuff.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by knewton on 01/24/02 01:58 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

<font color=blue>"heard that this works too as the water is grounded in a sense. any opinions as to the truth of this?"</font color=blue>

Absolutely not!

Static electricity is a result of a difference of potential (voltage) between 2 bodies. So let's assume that washing did give you a "zero" potential. As you reach for the towel, you are changing your body capacitance, which changes your potential. Lift your leg to take a step, your potential changes yet again. Now, lets assume that you are still at zero potential. If the device you plan to work with is not at zero potential, then static discharge will occur.

Static discharge will occur even if you ground yourself to a water pipe. If the device you are working on does not have a dedicated earth ground, it WILL NOT be at zero potential, and static discharge will occur.

The only way to prevent static discharge is to have the 2 bodies at the SAME potential. Wear a wrist strap, and connect it to a ground point ON THE DEVICE you are working on. This way, you and the device are at the same potential, and no static discharge will occur.

Humans cannot feel static discharge under 50,000 volts. Just because we cannot feel it doesn't mean it is not happening. A discharge as small as 1000v can damage a chip. Perhaps not destroy it, but change its characteristics slightly, and certainly shorten its life. Don't forget, you cannot feel these discharges. As chips get smaller (.13 micron now), it takes less to damage them.

Does that CPU no longer overclock like it once did? Damaged gates, but not destroyed, will degrade the performance of a chip until it no longer operates properly.

Not "grounding" yourself to the device you are working on will definetely cause small amounts of damage to the components, and shorten the life span of the device. It is an accident waiting to happen.

<font color=blue>This is a Forum, not a playground. Treat it with Respect.</font color=blue>

Touching your case does NOT discharge static electricity unless it's plugged in and grounded. It DOES however make sure the static charge in you and the case are the same. It's not the static electricity that gets ya, it's the discharge.

I personnally like to pee on my computer before I work on it. It fixes any static problems and generally just lets the computer know who's boss. Ya never really have any problems after that.

ever hit a spinning fan with a screwdriver?!!

Sometimes, just to get one to shut up. One of my old power supplies would sound pretty quiet for a while if I would just shove it in the fan a couple times after it was up to speed.

Fingers aren't the only things that can get caught in fans.



<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

Some comments, seeing as I work in the semiconductor field.

A: he is right, a static charge capable of damaging an ic can be had way below human feeling threshold.
B: the damage from the static is to the gate dielectric ONLY, thus the shift to .13micron or any line size for that matter has no effect in itself, thinner gates would make static damage more possible however.
C:Static charges cannot shorten the life of an ic(in any way I know of) they either do blow the gate dielectric, or they do not, there is no try.(yoda joke, sue me )

"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
No Overclock+stock hsf=GOOD!

The gates on a transistor are so thin their leakage is already rather high(given the current levels) if you damage the gate dielectric even slightly it will result in a transistor failure. I do realize that there may be instances where damage occurs but not failure, but given the tight specifcations of the gateox this occuring is rare.

"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
No Overclock+stock hsf=GOOD!