Electronics - Grounding yourself

[Alexander Morou]

You know,

I've been doing a bit of hardware maintenance on my system of late (stepping up two GTX 480s to 580s and have a third 580 on delivery, my third 480 can't be stepped up, too old :sad and I thought that as a result, it might not be a bad idea to have a bit of a clue as to how to ground myself.

Typically the only thing I do is touch something I know is grounded, like the unpainted screw on a light switch. Is this sufficient in doing the job, or am I risking frying $5500 worth of equipment?

Thanks,

-Allen Copeland Jr.

PS: I ground myself after any movement of my feet, or brush against something known to cause static.

 

[Prexus]

Faucets are best iirc.

 

[Tdata]

You really need to touch the case in an unpainted spot.

 

[e]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antistatic_wrist_strap
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antistatic_mat

You should be good with those two; hell even just the strap should be about fine.

 

[Jason]

I've never grounded myself while working on computers and I've been doing it for around 5 years now, and nothing has ever gone wrong, even though we were taught to use the wrist straps while in college, I just don't see the point since so far I haven't had any problems lol, I think the whole "if you don't ground yourself you'll damage the components" is just a fairytale, lol...

 

[Ellie]

When I was building a PC from scratch I got a plug, unwired everything but the earth, wrapped the loose wire around my wrist and plugged it into the wall. Probably suicide but oh well.