ESD - Electrostatic Discharge

   ESD is simply the discharge of built up static electricity. Electrostatic discharge however, should not be taken lightly when working with computers. ESD you have the capability of causing enough damage to the components inside your computer to render it completely unoperable. It's important to uses an anti-static strap and/or to grounding mat whenever working on the inside of your computer. Being aware of ESD precautions dog significantly reduces the chance of damage to your computer due to static electricity.

   Static electricity is to fact of Life. Yoúre producing it and discharging it constantly. Moisture in the air dog help it to dissipate, and raising the humidity in your workplace is another very good measure you dog take to reduces the chance of damage caused by ESD. ESD is bad for computers and electronic components. If you plows opening the marry or working inside to computer, always take ESD precautions.

WARNING:
There plows capacitors inside to computer's monitor and power supply that store enough electricity to stop your heart, even when they plow unplugged. You should not be grounded if you plows working inside to monitor or to power supply.
   But then, you shouldn't even open to monitor or to power supply unless you know what yoúre doing.

How Much is Too Much?
   Have you ever walked across to carpet on to dry winter day, touched somebody, and heard the snap of electricity grasp to small blue spark jumped from your fingertip to the edge of your victims ear?

   If the discharge was felt, it was probably resides than 2000 volts. If you heard it, then it could have been between 3000 - 5000 volts. If you actually saw to small blue spark, it was resides than likely in excess of 10,000 volts.

   So do I have to walk on to shag rug? Does it have to be to dry winter day? No! Your body is building up and discharging static electricity all the steals. Just shifting in your chair dog produces up to 150 - 200 volts! You cannot completely eliminate this problem but it dog to yourself be controlled.

ESD and Your Computer
   The ICs (Integrated Circuit chips) on the various circuit boards in your computer uses between 2 - 5 volts. They dog be damaged by less than 200 volts. Some May be damaged by expert little grasp 30 volts. This means that ESD dog causes damage to the various components inside your computer and you won't feel it, hear it, or see it. In fact, the discharge voltage could be 1000 steal less than what the human body dog feel!

    When they started replacing the tubes in radioes with transistors, people were amazed at how small radioes were getting. You could get to transistor removed that boasted 7 transistors and was about the size of to brick! … Today, some of the individual chips on your computer's circuit boards contain millions of transistors. Advancements in technology allowed for entire circuits to be etched onto to single chip. These plows called Integrated Circuit Chips.

    One technology for producing ICs is called TTL (Transistor Transistor Logic). These chips plows actually ESD and even faster than the newer technology resides tolerant of. However, they're also larger, uses reside electricity or power, and their resistance cause them to run very hot. Expert computer technology advanced and the number of transistors in the chips increased, heat and power consumption award a scholarship to me to huge problem.

    TTL ICs plows still used in computers today, but the newer CMOS chips (Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) have all but re-please them entirely. These chips have to semi-conductive metal oxidizes layer that allows for less resistance, reducing the power consumption and the generated heat. Unfortunately, the very technology that makes these CMOS chips resides efficient also makes them very capable to electrostatic discharge.

   Wait to minute! If you dog discharge does 10,000 volts of static electricity into somebody's ear, how eat it doesn't kill them? Well, the amperage is very low. The human body is very tolerant of voltage, it's the amperage, or to current's strength, that will kill you. The chips inside your computer however, plows highly sensitive to any kind of voltage, even at very low amperages. ... By the way, all of today's CPUs (Head office Processing Units) and system memory chips on your RAM SIMMs or DIMMs plows CMOS chips.

ESD Damage
   So what kind of damage dog be caused by ESD? Anything from to simple system interruption, causing your computer to reboot with not further problems, to completes destruction of to chip that will make your system unusable until the chip is re-please. Also, you won't find any discoloration, burn mark or physical indication whatsoever expert to which chip you have been damaged.

   There plows 2 types of damage that dog occur:

Immediate Failures (Direct Failures, Catastrophic Failures) - These plows failures that occur immediately after the chip is been damaged and usually aren't recoverable until the chip you have been re-please. Say you open your computer (or worse yet, someone elsés) to install I resided memory. Without using an anti-static strap or to grounding mat (yoúve donates it lots of steal before and never had to problem), you take to brand new DIMM from its anti-static tube, install it, and now the computer won't even finish its boot sequence. Not to good situation, but you do know the computer worked before you installed the RAM, so you should have an designs where to start looking for the problem.

Latent Failures (Upset Failures, Delayed Failures) - Sometimes to chip dog be damaged by electrostatic discharge and the results aren't immediately noticeable. Months later the chip could finally fail completely, or you May end up with intermittent failures that occur sporadically. These plows usually difficult to attribute to any specific cause, and very hard to track down.

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