Confused about how to discharge yourself of static electricity?

[fatfluffycat]

They say you can touch your case to ground yourself, but if its unplugged this does nothing correct? I have a old PSU from a HP computer laying around, would touching that while it's plugged into the wall with the power switch off discharge static electricity?

[𝔇ave]

If the pc is not plugged in then it's not grounded. The spare PSU plugged in but switched off is grounded. Unless you live in a really dry climate and work on the pc while wearing high static clothing you really don't need to worry about static

[Jaunitta 🌸]

Depends what your standing on.
Carpet is a high risk of discharge wear an anti static wrist band you'll be right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akbuQeIlv9g

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Discharge by touching the PSU metal casing, with the PSU plugged in and switched on, just not running. When switched on it produces enough to activate your ground and the PSU stand by power.

[_I_]

touching the case gives you a common ground with the case
and handling components by their grounds does the same, making it safe to work with them

you do not need to be earth grounded, just a common ground with all the components you are dealing with

[fatfluffycat]

Originally posted by _I_:

touching the case gives you a common ground with the case
and handling components by their grounds does the same, making it safe to work with them

you do not need to be earth grounded, just a common ground with all the components you are dealing with

I'm going to have to work on carpet so I'm worried about building up a excess amount of static.

[_I_]

just handle components by their ground brackets and it will be fine

case, any metal
mobo, io panel, heatsnks and screw mounts
ram, heatsink or edge (not th edge connecotr pins)
cpu, ihs egees, not pins/pads
gpu, io plate or heatsink, not edge connector
2.5-3.5in drives, anywhere
m.2, heatsink or edges (not edge connector)
fans, anywhere

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Use the table without tablecloth, dont wear bunch of woolen sweaters or socks and hold the components by the edges (avoid touching the gold plated contacts of RAM and graphics card) and you will be fine without any wristbands and other mambo jumbo.

[DevaVictrix]

Does touching the psu when plugged into the wall work if you are in a country that has a two-pin plug? I've always wanted to know but never googled for the answer!

fwiw, I've spent 20 odd years doing stuff inside my PCs and have simply touched the case with a PSU installed and plugged into the wall. Never had a problem.

[𝔇ave]

Originally posted by DevaVictrix:

Does touching the psu when plugged into the wall work if you are in a country that has a two-pin plug? I've always wanted to know but never googled for the answer!

fwiw, I've spent 20 odd years doing stuff inside my PCs and have simply touched the case with a PSU installed and plugged into the wall. Never had a problem.

if you are reffering to european 2 prong plugs they have an earth pad rather than a prong.

otherwise all pc power supplies are earthed by law since they use a metal housing

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by fatfluffycat:

Originally posted by _I_:

touching the case gives you a common ground with the case
and handling components by their grounds does the same, making it safe to work with them

you do not need to be earth grounded, just a common ground with all the components you are dealing with

I'm going to have to work on carpet so I'm worried about building up a excess amount of static.

Wear tennis shoes or rubber flip-flops. Then there won't be any static build ups from working while standing on carpet. Just avoid long sleeve anything when working on electronics and also jewelry. Do the work on a sturdy table of some sort. Keep food, drinks, pets, babies, or younger toddlers away from the work area. Do the entire build on the table with the Motherboard flat on the box it comes in. Before handling a new part or touching the parts in general, just touch the PSU metal casing as I said. That will discharge you. Once the PC tested outside the Case and all is working, OD installed and tested, then shut it down and install everything in your Case. Install the PSU first, secure it and then plug it in to wall and turn of the switch. Now the PSU grounds the metal Case and thus now you can just touch the case to discharge at any time. Then simply turn off the PSU switch on the housing before plugging in power connections to components.

[_I_]

depends on the plug and socket
some are keyed to go in one way, one of them (N) is ground
the other (L) is 110/220v

but it will not help if you and the components you are working with are not at the same ground charge

[Bad 💀 Motha]

The ground on the wall socket has nothing to do with regards to discharging yourself by touch the PSU or Case. That ground doesn't even need to work for this kind of natural discharge to work.

[Carlsberg]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

The ground on the wall socket has nothing to do with regards to discharging yourself by touch the PSU or Case. That ground doesn't even need to work for this kind of natural discharge to work.

It has everything to do with it. The psu is 3 wire with a ground, whether powered off or not when plugged into a wall outlet it is grounded, anything that contacts the case is also grounded thru it. To discharge yourself of any static you simply need to touch the case and if its plugged into a wall outlet your grounded out.

[_I_]

you do not need to be earth grounded, just common with with the components you are working with

[Viking2121]

I've been tinkering and building PC's for quite a long time, 18 years now, never once killed something from static, I have zapped USB ports before, but it didn't kill them, I've also zapped a headphone port on my old Athlon XP which did shut the system down, but it still booted back up and worked fine.

Just touch the case before handling parts and you'll be fine, I do not recommend you leave the power plugged in and flipped off, some houses normally old houses with out of date wiring are not properly grounded.

If you are taking parts out of a computer, unplug it, and hold the power button down for a few sec to drain the caps, that can kill parts if there is still small bit of power, a system can hold power for quite a long time being unplugged.