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Static electricity question

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My ikea Markus chair is an esd monster. I once killed an hdd by wiping it with a dry microfiber cloth.
 

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My ikea Markus chair is an esd monster. I once killed an hdd by wiping it with a dry microfiber cloth.
New pcb needed to restore it
 
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i think it reads wrong but that's my poor English, you cand definetly kill it. I mean to say it's hard to kill it, hard to damaged, like the linus video says.

That is because the RAM is so well protected; not all chips will be so fortunate. I did not mean to imply that things are generally so robust; my bad. That is why I added the story from Horowitz and Hill.

New pcb needed to restore it

Where are the factory bad sectors normally recorded? If on the PCB then one will need to swap a chip along with the board.
 
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No, just plain BS. Complete with resistor to nowhere.

I thought about this some time back, and one might be able to have a strap with an inbuilt ion generator; that way one might actually be able to discharge without a connection.

I wonder how ion propulsion gets around this problem.
 
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I thought about this some time back, and one might be able to have a strap with an inbuilt ion generator; that way one might actually be able to discharge without a connection.
Or a store of ions large enough for several years' use. Or a UV source. Or an X-ray source. Or maybe another strap, properly grounded, on the ankle. At least one of those options can be done for $8.
 
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It was just one of my many silly ideas.

I am not doing well on this thread; first I accidently gave the impression electronics is invulnerable to static, then I mention a strapless grounding strap for fun... not my finest hour.
 
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damn that would suck, I wonder if warranty covered him and AMD sent him a replacement? or since it was user error just out of luck? @turbogear care to update us on this?
I just sent it back to the shop where I bought it without saying ESD shock killed it but only described the ptoblem that card is stuttering when playing games.:D
This was reference 6800XT from XFX and the shop sent it to XFX.
A few weeks later I got refund with note that a replacement card is not deliverable.
 

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I just sent it back to the shop where I bought it without saying ESD shock killed it but only described the ptoblem that card is stuttering when playing games.:D
This was reference 6800XT from XFX and the shop sent it to XFX.
A few weeks later I got refund with note that a replacement card is not deliverable.
Thats good they honored it for you. I have a New (yes new) R7 250X GHOST which works perfectly in uefi on the AsRock Steel Legend B550 (colors match up too)
 
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That's usually how it goes.
It's always seems to either break stuff or not really do anything but electricity can do some weird stuff at times.

Always safeguard against ESD if possible.
Yes, in my case after ESD shock the 6800XT did not completely die but started stuttering.
So something on the card was not working properly anymore after the shock.
My suspension was that the VRAM was affected as the ESD shock was induced on Metal backplate of my water block near to a screw and in this screw area the EKWB backplate is designed to connect to the groud plane on GPU PCB.
So most probably high voltage burst went into GPU PCB on the ground plane and some component in that area got some damage due to it.
 

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Yes, in my case after ESD shock the 6800XT did not completely die but started stuttering.
So something on the card was not working properly anymore after the shock.
My suspension was that the VRAM was affected as the ESD shock was induced on Metal backplate of my water block near to a screw and in this screw area the EKWB backplate is designed to connect to the groud plane on GPU PCB.
So most probably high voltage burst went into GPU PCB on the ground plane and some component in that area got some damage due to it.
RMA time, i had that happen when a heatsink fell and hit a HIS X1950 Pro 512 AGP.
 
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RMA time, i had that happen when a heatsink fell and hit a HIS X1950 Pro 512 AGP.
I was just explaining what happened in the past in April last year to my 6800XT due to ESD.
It was RMAed at that time. :)
 
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New pcb needed to restore it
It was years ago, old 40 GB Hitachi drive that my brother recovered from work. By that point it was already unplugged due to being ATA and SATA was already on the second version.

But yeah, that chair is the only thing that's causing static charge accumulation in my room, it must be the fabric.
 

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It was years ago, old 40 GB Hitachi drive that my brother recovered from work. By that point it was already unplugged due to being ATA and SATA was already on the second version.

But yeah, that chair is the only thing that's causing static charge accumulation in my room, it must be the fabric.

Yup friction from it.

I was just explaining what happened in the past in April last year to my 6800XT due to ESD.
It was RMAed at that time. :)
Whew, yeah i was just sharing my experience with stutters, your gpu and mine were shorted by electricity by 2 different means
 
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before and during work with hardware i just touch with both hands a heater element that's always grounded.
 
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it is harded than you might think (Linus made a video with electro boom about it)
 
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That was for RAM sticks, other components are easier to zap.
 
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I lost a hard drive to ESD.
I lost one to gravity, I swear that guy Newton would pay for it but I heard he's been AWOL for a few centuries now :wtf:

it is harded than you might think (Linus made a video with electro boom about it)
Harder in some cases, easier in others ~ basically some amount of luck is involved & you need make decent fabric(?) choices.
 
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You need to be more specific for a proper answer.
To get a "proper" answer you need to ask a proper question. Other than that "Yes" is about as specific as you can get.
There are various types of protections in place against ESD, but they don't always work (or in case of ASUS motherboards - may cause more issues than provided benefits).
Here in Ukraine most old houses and apartment buildings don't have ground at all and local grids running at near or over capacity, so killing hardware with ESD or during thunderstorm is very common.
Have quite a few motherboards in my office that were killed by evil carpets. The latest one was ASUS Z170 mobo that lost audio(codec was still alive, but I suspect the i2c lane on PCH got killed).
On newer laptops it's quite common to kill PCH or SoC if you blast it with static through USB. At my main workplace we've had at least three Dell E6540 laptops, two mini-desktops and one powered hub die that way(all used in a car for data logging). Best case - just need to replace ESD protection IC or USB switch, worst case - it goes straight to chipset. In my workshop I have a small pile of laptop motherboards off cheap Acer and Lenovo laptops that cheaped-out even on rudimentary protection. All you need is one of those popular cheap mini flash drives with exposed pins and a polyester T-Shirt. Or in one case brought by a friend of a friend of a colleague - cheap chinese arc lighter and half-a-brain.
 

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To get a "proper" answer you need to ask a proper question. Other than that "Yes" is about as specific as you can get.
There are various types of protections in place against ESD, but they don't always work (or in case of ASUS motherboards - may cause more issues than provided benefits).
Here in Ukraine most old houses and apartment buildings don't have ground at all and local grids running at near or over capacity, so killing hardware with ESD or during thunderstorm is very common.
Have quite a few motherboards in my office that were killed by evil carpets. The latest one was ASUS Z170 mobo that lost audio(codec was still alive, but I suspect the i2c lane on PCH got killed).
On newer laptops it's quite common to kill PCH or SoC if you blast it with static through USB. At my main workplace we've had at least three Dell E6540 laptops, two mini-desktops and one powered hub die that way(all used in a car for data logging). Best case - just need to replace ESD protection IC or USB switch, worst case - it goes straight to chipset. In my workshop I have a small pile of laptop motherboards off cheap Acer and Lenovo laptops that cheaped-out even on rudimentary protection. All you need is one of those popular cheap mini flash drives with exposed pins and a polyester T-Shirt. Or in one case brought by a friend of a friend of a colleague - cheap chinese arc lighter and half-a-brain.
Yes, quite. A vague one-liner won't do. On the other hand, it's surprising how much it can spark conversation as people have their own interpretation of it like we have here. I still prefer things properly worded though.

That's shocking* about the ground situation in Ukraine. Running even 115v mains without a ground circuit is dangerous, let alone the 230v you're on. I hope the country upgrades its wiring one day, but that requires political will and lots of money and time I know, sigh.

*Sorry, couldn't resist the pun. :D
 
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I am not doing well on this thread... ...I mention a strapless grounding strap for fun... not my finest hour.

Not sure why you are being this hard on yourself, Andy. To me, you made it clear that "cordless" (not strapless) ground strap was rather useless by saying, in bold italics, no less, that it was "Most amusing".

I personally think it was good you posted that as it provided an opportunity to point out to those unsure, that they should avoid those gimmicky devices completely and get a real, quality strap, or get into the habit of frequently discharging any static by touching bare metal of the case interior.

just sent it back to the shop where I bought it without saying ESD shock killed it
Again, the two main issues with ESD are (1) destructive discharges are too small for us mere humans to see, hear or feel. And (2), the only way to determine if a device was destroyed by ESD is by close examination of the device under a very powerful microscope.

So, since there is no way for you to know if you killed it with an ESD shock, you did not technically commit fraud (a serious criminal offense!) by knowingly destroying something through negligent abuse then trying to get a refund or replacement for free, with deception (intentionally omitting facts).

Now if you want to incriminate yourself, that's your business.
 
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I am mad with myself for including a video that has given some people the false impression that

"it is harded than you might think (Linus made a video with electro boom about it)"

While the strapless ground strap is ridiculous, one could imagine a very sharp point that would help one discharge to the atmosphere, still useless for electronics work, but of some interest.

But I would like to add that ElectroBOOM went head-to-head with a Prof from MIT, and in my opinion won.
Kirchhoff’s Voltage Law versus Faraday’s Law: the Conclusion - Bing video
Despite his goofball ways, he really understands the stuff (to know is easy, to understand, that is the tough part).

At some point he would have died in one of his experiments if it were not for weak wiring.
Life Lessons from electroBOOM! - DON'T PLAY WITH HIGH VOLTAGE! (Mehdi Sadaghdar Interview) - #41 - Bing video
 
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