I'm just an ascending peasant in the PC community, but...

[Gl17chM0D]

I have always been a casual PC gamer, until recently when I took and passed my last two college courses toward an AAS in Cybersecurity. I recently obtained my CompTIA A+, and Testout PC Pro certifications. One thing that I notice every time I watch Linus do a build (or anyone else on youtube), I notice a complete lack of ESD protection/consideration. I realize that CompTIA and Testout both have to explain that absolute correct way of doing things, with regard to any potential backfires in mind, but they really stress the importance of ESD protection, and obviously it doesn't actually matter. Is it all just a lie, or does Linus (or any other experienced builder) just know how to handle the components in a specific way? I realize LTT probably has insurance for damaged items, but I would think that, especially when dealing with these prototypes and stuff that Linus would be WAY more concerned. What is it that I just don't understand about this issue?

[Lurick]

ESD is not the death to everything you touch boogeyman those courses make it out to be, not by a long shot. You you could potentially kill something with ESD but LTT even did a video a few months ago with ElectroBoom where they shocked the hell out of components directly and in almost every case they kept running, and these were much worse shocks than typical ESD from your socks or something will generate. Where you should be more careful with ESD is when you're dealing with half million dollar servers or networking gear on the daily and don't want to risk super expensive parts but in day to day it's not something that in probably 99% of cases will cause actual damage. Parts are far more resilient than people realize.

[TetraSky]

Because the chances of you breaking something with ESD is so infinitely small these days, that it's not even worth mentioning. Just touch the shroud of a plugged in PSU to ground yourself and you're good to go.

Linus did a video on that. So did most other tech tubers.

[Vishera]

6 minutes ago, Gl17chM0D said:

Is it all just a lie, or does Linus (or any other experienced builder) just know how to handle the components in a specific way?

I have been building PCs since 2011,It's not a lie - ESD can definitely kill components!

But if you know how to handle the components and do it on less risky surfaces then you will be fine.

I ground myself by touching a piece of metal from time to time,I also use a box of a motherboard/graphics card as a surface to lay components on.

 

There are a lot of protections against ESD in the components themselves as well.

[Frugivore8894]

He has said he where’s a ESD strap in his ankle so that it’s easier to move his hands around on camera. 

[Middcore]

When I built my first PC in 2010 I was deathly afraid of ESD and wore an anti-static wrist band.

 

I haven't bothered since. 

 

Linus constantly dropping things is way more of a threat to expensive components than ESD is. 

[Gl17chM0D]

2 minutes ago, Vishera said:

I have been building PCs since 2011,It's not a lie - ESD can definitely kill components!

But if you know how to handle the components and do it on less risky surfaces then you will be fine.

I ground myself by touching a piece of metal from time to time,I also use a box of a motherboard/graphics card as a surface to lay components on.

I'm a bit confused about the science behind electricity. How does it ground you to touch a piece of metal that isn't connected to the buildings ground circuit. When I first strated building my PC, I thought I had to leave the PSU plugged in, but switched off in order for the case to be grounded, but it appears that isn't the case (pun intended after I realized the correlation).

[minibois]

12 minutes ago, Gl17chM0D said:

One thing that I notice every time I watch Linus do a build (or anyone else on youtube), I notice a complete lack of ESD protection/consideration.

Linus has often mentioned, at least in the build guides, that he uses an anti-static wriststrap, but wears it around his ankle.

Example:

If you were to make a "Linus PC build guide BINGO card", that can almost be used as the "Free Space" in the middle, as it's a staple of their build guides.

 

They have done a video in the past, showing that PC components can withstand quite a bit of ESD before damaging, but it's fair to say with their proper guides, they take the proper precautions.

I think most people will be able to get away with a static free environment (i.e. not a metal table) and periodically touching their PSU, but I would suggest an anti-static wrist strap to anyone nowadays, because they are so cheap.

2 minutes ago, Gl17chM0D said:

I thought I had to leave the PSU plugged in, but switched off in order for the case to be grounded, but it appears that isn't the case (pun intended after I realized the correlation).

Yes, that is true.

If you want to ground yourself, you touch something that is grounded. So that would include a (turned off) PSU connected to a (grounded) wall outlet 

After the PSU is installed in the case, the whole case (or the metal/non painted parts) will be grounded through the PSU too

[Gl17chM0D]

2 minutes ago, Frugivore8894 said:

He has said he where’s a ESD strap in his ankle so that it’s easier to move his hands around on camera. 

LOL! That has to be some kind of insurance friendly statement to protect LTT from litigation.

[Middcore]

1 minute ago, Gl17chM0D said:

LOL! That has to be some kind of insurance friendly statement to protect LTT from litigation.

 

Who do you imagine is going to sue Linus over parts being damaged by static?

 

I don't think insurance plays any part in this, since with some exceptions (3090's or the 56-core CPU he dropped) they can probably replace anything they break with a single phone call or email. All the major hardware brands are basically tripping over themselves to send LTT free stuff if it gets featured in a video. 

[Vishera]

5 minutes ago, Gl17chM0D said:

first strated building my PC, I thought I had to leave the PSU plugged in, but switched off in order for the case to be grounded, but it appears that isn't the case (pun intended after I realized the correlation).

It is the case,it's better when it is connected to ground,I am just lazy but it will cause any charges on me to go to the piece of metal - this is not ideal though.

[Gale]

Sure, ESD can be a threat to PC components, but a lot of parts these days are made to be much more resistant than their predecessors a decade ago that the risk is much lower now.

 

I've done a few builds while moving around on carpet and nothing bad happened. I just made sure to touch a plugged in (but off) PSU, or the case (I install the PSU first for grounding) every few minutes.

[Vishera]

1 minute ago, Gale said:

but a lot of parts these days are made to be much more resistant than their predecessors a decade ago that the risk is much lower now.

Even a decade ago components had very strong ESD resistance

[Gl17chM0D]

5 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

Who do you imagine is going to sue Linus over parts being damaged by static?

 

I don't think insurance plays any part in this, since with some exceptions (3090's or the 56-core CPU he dropped) they can probably replace anything they break with a single phone call or email. All the major hardware brands are basically tripping over themselves to send LTT free stuff if it gets featured in a video. 

I wish I could understand how to get all the best companies to send me all their prototype hardware/software! Just imagine how that would be... Every day would be like Christmas, and yes I'm sure there are things that don't go right, but I'd love to be able to reach that level of respect in the community. 

[Kilrah]

 

 

 

20 minutes ago, Gl17chM0D said:

LOL! That has to be some kind of insurance friendly statement to protect LTT from litigation.

LMG have hardware, they reuse it over and over, even if they don't pay for it in the first place they'd have to pay for replacements to continue making content using it if it was damaged, so regardless of whether that's true or not if they had things getting damaged regularly they'd do something about it (and say it's a problem).

[nbrowser]

Computer parts are stout thee days...not saying bulletproof but...

 

[akio123008]

36 minutes ago, Gl17chM0D said:

I thought I had to leave the PSU plugged in, but switched off in order for the case to be grounded

Plugged in, yes. Switched off, well, yeah sure whatever. Doesn't really matter. The PSU being on or off doesn't change anything. It's just not recommended to work on a computer with the power on, but it doesn't have anything to do with ESD.

 

ESD is very unlikely to kill computer parts. The biggest ESD risk is handling certain types of components¹ when they aren't yet soldered/attached to a circuit board. Once a component is soldered to a board (which is the case with computer parts), the risk of it being killed by ESD is quite small. I've personally never managed to kill computer hardware with ESD, whilst taking no precautions whatsoever.

 

 

¹ Just to clarify, component here means something like a MOSFET, an IC etc. I'm not talking about "parts" here like motherboards or graphics cards.

 

 

 

 

[Gl17chM0D]

6 minutes ago, akio123008 said:

Plugged in, yes. Switched off, well, yeah sure whatever. Doesn't really matter. The PSU being on or off doesn't change anything. It's just not recommended to work on a computer with the power on, but it doesn't have anything to do with ESD.

 

ESD is very unlikely to kill computer parts. The biggest ESD risk is handling certain types of components¹ when they aren't yet soldered/attached to a circuit board. Once a component is soldered to a board (which is the case with computer parts), the risk of it being killed by ESD is quite small. I've personally never managed to kill computer hardware with ESD, whilst taking no precautions whatsoever.

 

 

¹ Just to clarify, component here means something like a MOSFET, an IC etc. I'm not talking about "parts" here like motherboards or graphics cards.

 

 

 

 

Right, that was why I was conflicted and nervous about building at first, because I was told not to work on the machine until it's been unplugged and the capacitors drained by holding down the power button after unplugging. Then I was also told that both I and the case had to be grounded in order to prevent any mishaps. I was so confused, but I just watched the other students who had done builds previously, and they weren't acting like an EOD unit or anything, so I just went ahead using an ESD strap/mat (with the mat plugged into the ground socket of the power plug) and just was very careful to handle everything PCB by its edges and all that. Next time, I'll be much more confident and hopefully I'll do more research and buy stuff that's future proof, as there were several aggregious errors in my build, like using a completely non-modular PSU without at least a 80+ Gold rating (facepalm), and not using the M.2 slots for my system SSD (instead using SATA), and a mother board that isn't PCI Gen4 capable, and buying four 8GB Corsair DDR4 3200 MHz DIMM's, instead of getting 2 16 GB DIMM's and leaving two open slots for future expansion. Oh yeah and one more (embarrassing) thing, I paid $700 for an EVGA RTX 2070 Super (jaws drop to the floor), instead of getting an RTX 3080 simply because I liked the RGB LED of the 2070. Overall I'm happy with my PC for now!

[freeagent]

I used to build computers on the carpet lol.. ESwhat..?

 

The tower was on the plastic chair mat thing, but I was on the carpet dragging my knees and touching the psu to discharge lol.. I got pretty lucky..

 

 

[LogicalDrm]

On 5/22/2021 at 12:14 AM, Gl17chM0D said:

LOL! That has to be some kind of insurance friendly statement to protect LTT from litigation.

Huh? I don't see how anyone's insurance has anything relating to this. Even if you would build without ESD strap, the insurance would have hard time proving you cause damage on purpose. As for any other party, such as viewers, Youtube in general is not website that offers professional help. If you follow some guide there and damage something, you are not gonna get anywhere by trying to sue the channel you were watching.

 

Warranty of parts is another thing, but LMG does not need to worry about that for most of the times.

[Kronoton]

On 5/21/2021 at 11:12 PM, Gl17chM0D said:

How does it ground you to touch a piece of metal that isn't connected to the buildings ground circuit.

- everything has a resistance (as in nothing is 100% insulated)

- everything has a potential (a voltage is just the difference between 2 potentials)

 

So if you wear shoes with rubber soles (or something similar) you can build up a higher potential faster then it can be equalized through that high resistance -> you now have build up static.

 

Touch anything else and you create a 2nd way to equalize with ground potential, static is high voltage but very low current so if you touch something has a good conection to ground (like a water pipe) you get zapped if you touch something has a soso connection (like a wooden table) it might take a while. Heck if you stand still long enough you will loose your charge through those rubber soles and any moisture in the air.