[PLUG] Hardware problem

mike delamater mikedela at ipns.com
Sat May 11 04:52:10 UTC 2002


The issue at hand is bonding. Grounding and bonding are closely related, 
but different. Grounding is more about power, bonding keeps everything at 
the same potential, eliminating static discharges. Static discharges can be 
fatal for hardware at levels you can't even feel.

I'd run a wire from the computer case to any metal surfaces handy, then to 
a touch strip, like a metal edge on anything that's in your entry path to 
the area. Sprays work, but they wear off. It only takes one good zap to do 
hardware in. You might look for an ESD chair mat. I'll have to look for a 
picture I have of the plastic blown "clean off" the substrate of a 14 pin 
chip from static.

Mike

> One of my machines is set up under a leather topped, metal table. The
> monitor is on a laminate over particle board table with metal legs set
> at 90 deg to the metal table. The mouse pad is on the metal table. (See
> ASCII art(?), below.) From time to time, I'll feel a static shock when
> I walk into the room and touch the table, or even sit down on the
> Steelcase chair that is on a plastic mat over the carpet. Some of those
> times, my computer does a hard reset. Would grounding the tables and
> the computer case help, be a good idea, or a bad idea? 
> 
> 
>      -----------|-----|
>      |     Mon ||     |
>      -----------|     |
>             C   |Mse  |
>                 |     |
>                 |-----|
> 
> Mon = Monitor
> C   = Chair
> Mse = Mouse
> 
> -- 
> Regards,
> 
> Dick Steffens
> "Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati"
> http://rsteff.home.attbi.com/
> 
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