ESD Question?

Question

Ok well what happened is that two days ago I was workiing on my pc with no ESD protection (I didnt know). I reseated a stick of RAM, touched my video card maby around 10 times and installed a sound card, and touched my motherboard 3 times (with one finger). Well my components work fine but on the Internet I read that ESD may not cause damage immediatley. Do you think I am worrying too much?

Answer 1

What I think is happening here is that you have not directly in contact with the metal pins or parts of the ESD sensitive components (IC's, transistors etc) on the boards,e.g motherboard,video card,sound card and RAM card.
You may have touched the plastic encapsulated of the sensitive components or the edge of the boards.
That's why you find your components still work fine.

The sensitive components will be damaged by ESD when there is a transfer of static charges from your body into the sensitive components which is encapsulated by the plastic package.

In the future, please follow ESD protection rules.

Your ESD sensitive components may be walking wounded, i.e you may not know when it is going to fail.Most of the times, they would fail when used in the field.

Answer 2

I think you are worrying too much. I violate the rules for ESD all the time and have never had a problem. Don't worry, but be sure to do it right in the future.

Answer 3

Everything should be fine. If your computer is working now, i wouldnt worry. A tip for the future though.....before you begin work on your components, touch a metal part of your case. If nothing happens, nothing happens. If you get that familiar little zap.....better you than one of your components! But then you know you have discharged any built up static electricity and you can safely work on your computer.