( Linus screams) - If you've ever built your own PC, you've probably noticed that most of the components come packed in these shiny bags. These are called E-S-D bags and they exist to prevent the sensitive electronics inside from getting accidentally zapped by a static charge that built up on your body when you were doing moonwalking on the carpet or putting on a brand new tuke from lttstore.com. But how dangerous is static electricity due to components actually. To find out we have arranged the crossover event of the century. And I'm not just talking about the crossover between his eyebrows. We have got the one, the only ElectricBOOM in the studio. ()
- Hi - Oh my God! What are we even doing right now? - Don't know, it's a little bit too loud. Lets ... (laughs). Do you want to touch it? Sure. - Not really.
- No, no go ahead. I encourage you. (ElectricBOOM laughs)
(electricity buzzing) - First. I got to tell you about our sponsor. Seasonic was all too eager to be involved. as soon as we said that I was going to have this guy here and probably going to get well, hurt. (ElectricBOOM chuckles) Go buy a Seasonic power supply if you support this endeavor. (upbeat music) I'm the kind of person that doesn't even like to lick a nine volt you know, to see if it's charged, 'cause it's like is it worse than that? - Yeah man. Come on, touch it. - Oh That's fine.
- There you go. - See you're a scared for no reason. - Well, I'm not scared for no reason. I've watched your video.
(ElectricBOOM laughs) - Well, it's no power. I can increase the power. - I saw your electric guitar, man. - That's a music channel for now. Now bring it close. You feel it? Not at all probably. (upbeat music) - Tell me why that is. - The reason is that instead of the arc going through a single point on your skin it's going over a large surface in your hands. So it spreads out. You don't feel it. I can actually increase the power now a little bit, maybe. (electricity buzzing) - Feel it? - No actually. - There you go. - Ultimate power. - Let's try something. Let's do the same thing with that.
- Oh sure. - And I increased the frequency again. (electricity buzzing) Now let me see if it jumps on me - Oh my God? (ElectricBOOM laughs)
- Yeah - Why, Why does it hurt when you do it? So it's just because it's a very small point.
- It's a point, yeah. It's more on a single narrow rather than spreading over a big surface. But then this is not the same as the static discharge that we worry we'll kill our, our RAM stick while we're installing it, is it? - No, it's not. - How do we, how do we simulate E-S-D? - That would be with a special gun called the E-S-D gun. - So this is it then? - Yes. That's the E-S-D gun
- Okay, I'll try not to break it. And all it does is simulate like a finger touching something. - Yeah. Yeah. So it's basically for humans handling electronics, simulating that. - And then what else we got in here? - This is the gun, with the long cable. And this part we can sensor that I think. - I think I just saw a robot dildo. - And that's where it goes - Before anyone gets upset by the way, the electronics that we're going to be sacrificing today are from Free Geek, a local electronic salvager that says, yes these are working, but no, these are not valuable parts. that anybody would want integrated into a salvage PC. So go ahead and kill it. We'll take it right back and make sure that it gets recycled properly. - Do You wanna try this one and see how it feels? - Okay. Yeah, that's fine. It was like a duller pain. I don't know.
- More shocking. - More shocking, yes. Why?
- Yes. - Well, it is DC and it is, like the duration of the pulse is longer. So it could feel actually it could hurt more compared to the Tesla coil. - That's why I asked you before and you didn't answer me properly. You just said, "It depends." And then pointed a gun at me. - I can put a higher voltage if you want or are you okay with 12 kilovolt? - I don't know. Sure, you tell me? - Okay. I'll put 25. Let me know how it feels. 25 kilovolt discharged to Linus. (Linus screams)
(ElectricBOOM laughs) - [Andy] Oh I missed it, can we do that one more time? Feel the pain again. Okay, go ahead. - Okay. That's fine.
(ElectricBOOM laughs) - I can't make it lethal unfortunately. - That's very helpful to know. What kind of voltage could I build up on my body while I'm just walking around my house before I build my computer - At home, you usually pick up eight to 12. If you build your computer you just wanna ground yourself with a proper strap, right? You don't, you don't want to have any charge on you because like RAMs or internals of the computers, components, ICS chips, they are usually rated for two kilovolts maximum. - That's it. Now I always ground myself correctly when I'm working on our projects. - That's what he says (Linus screams) - It shocked me. (Linus screams) You know, let's say hypothetically I've had situations where I've gone to pick up a RAM stick and I have actually felt the arc but the RAM stick did turn out to still work. How could that be? - Imagine all of us are standing on earth, right? If meteorite hits you on the head, you die. But if the meteorite hits the earth the whole earth shakes a little bit everyone on earth is fine, right?
- Yeah. - It's the same thing on the ground here. When you hit the ground, the whole board moves together, right? - I see.
- The voltage on the board, everything moves together. But if you hit a certain weak spot then its dead.
- So if you manage to not kill a component with an E-S-D discharge, you got lucky. - Yeah. Pretty much yes. (ElectricBOOM laughs) Now you want to kill it? Zap it
- Well, hold on a second. (Linus laughs) Should I be holding it while you do that? - Let's see what happens. - Hold on a second. Okay, fine. (upbeat music) (Linus screams) (ElectricBOOM chuckles) - Oh, you should have told him. - You knew that was gonna happen? - Exactly. What did you have to learn your lesson the hard way. So I had to do it. - Is it helpful or does it hinder that I'm touching it when you zap it? - No, it actually makes it worse. - It makes it worse. - Because when I zap it goes to your body so there is a path depending on where you touch, it could actually kill. It might already be dead actually. (ElectricBOOM laughs) - Only one way to find out. (ElectricBOOM chuckles) - When I discharge at 25 kilovolts. - I think we killed it, sir. - Is it dead? - It appears to be dead as a doornail. Probably doesn't have a.... (Linus screams) - Sorry.
- So the case does work as a ground. Now we know, because I felt that not just on my back, but also in my finger. That's why they say pain is nature's teacher. (Linus and ElectricBOOM laughs) - I've got my eyes on you. - Okay. Let's not kill them so quickly this time - So to give this a chance of surviving, what should we do? - Don't hold it in your hand. - Oh, okay. And are you gonna do the same voltage again? - It's 12 kilovolts now See all this area behind it is ground. So let's zap that. Ready?
- Yeah. I'm ready. - See it doesn't jump as much anymore. - Yeah. I see that. It's only D-D-R2, but it's hard to watch. - But now that you touched it, you might have killed it. - Oh, damn it! - Oh, it's alive.Yes.Good. - Heeee! All right. The system works. - Linus didn't kill it. - You were involved. (ElectricBOOM laughs) - No, no, no, no. Don't put it on me. So just to be clear they do ESD testing on a finished product. not on the internal component.
- Right - On the casing. Okay. (Linus screams) - It wasn't me. It, it was him. - So is there a way for me to simulate what we did the first time, but with my body, instead of with the gun. - I have to keep charging you. - So wait, wait, hold on. We need to have a plan, okay. You don't even have the RAM stick on hand ready. So I don't wanna be I don't wanna be doing this any longer than we have to. Okay. So
(ElectricBOOM laughs) So you tell me when it's time. Actually no, you can just move the stick to touch me when you think it's good. - If it doesn't stop jumping, let me know. (upbeat music) - Stop jumping.
- Yeah, stop jumping. - Good. Now you're charged. (Linus screams) - That was a proper human simulation. I guess - We are booting, but that clearly took longer with stranger behavior than before. Should we see what happens if we hit it again? - Sure.
- Okay. A different pin. - Sure we want it to go off of what we hope is the data pin, right?
- Right. - So then you should, you should touch this part. - Yeah.
- Okay. So I'll hold it like this. - Okay. - All right.
- Ready? - Charge me. - Charge. Is it good? Yeah. Okay you're charged. - I'm fully charged. - Fully charged and I'm gonna touch one of these. (ElectricBOOM screams) - Oh, is it running? - Yeah.
- Okay. Then unplug it. Let's try it one more time. - Okay. So tell me something If it arcs anyway, could we have it arc through a chip? - Oh no, not through a chip because these plastic stuff is quite non-conductive. It will block the E-S-D.
- Sure. - It will probably go around it hitting something else. - Got it. Alrighty all then. Well, let's just, let's just hit it then. - Yeah. Just let's just feel the pain.
- Okay. - How long? How long should we go? - I don't know, man. - This is five hertz. Yes. - Okay. All right. - And it's gonna hurt. - Yeah. Okay.
- Ready? Don't let go Ready?
- Wait, wait. Oh my God! Is that what you're gonna do?
- Yes. (ElectricBOOM and Linus scream) - Oh my God! If it's not dead, it's quite a strong RAM. - Holy (beep). - It is back. Maybe it going through our body loses some of its power. So it's much milder on the RAM. What you can do is do just leave the board on your hand and I just zap the board right on the chips and see what happens. Like this or charge you and zapping my finger. Let me know if it hurts more when I zap here. - Wait where are you zapping? Probably gonna hurt more. - Probably, Yeah, just... Okay, I'll zap you in the... - Just zap wherever. (Linus screams) - Okay good.
- Its fine. - Ready. Oh my God! (ElectricBOOM and Linus scream) - It better be dead now. Damn it! - Bloody hell, it's posting. - Wow. This is some good RAM. We can break it in half. Forget it then. That module is magic. In the meantime, let's try another module. So let's try to kill this one through us. This will be our last attempt at that. - Okay 12 kilovolts charged. (ElectricBOOM screams)
(Linus laughs) How could you? - What do you mean how could I? - I trusted you. (ElectricBOOM cries) - You did no such thing. (ElectricBOOM laughs) Okay. No, that works fine. What we've learned so far is that the weakest discharge to the module was when it was just sitting on the table because it's not grounded to anything and it reaches equilibrium very quickly. Then, we have a human hold it and we get a much stronger discharge. So that's because of the capacitance of the human body? - Right? Yeah you have a much body of charge to transfer electricity. - But we can make it much stronger by grounding the human body So the charge passes much more easily through it. So that's what you, so wait, really, this is your method? Okay. So we've got a ground to your wedding ring and then. - We gonna charge you with this one and then touch it with that one. - Okay.
- Ready? - Here we go. - Oh my God! (Linus groans) Ready? My God where should I touch? (ElectricBOOM and Linus scream) Oh my God. That was much more painful. (ElectricBOOM laughs) - What the hell - Its not dying. We go through so much pain for nothing Who designed this stupid RAM? - Well, how did we kill the first one? Did we just get lucky? - I think so. - We have a new plan. What's the new plan? - So we are gonna connect it directly to ground.
- Yeah. - So we won't feel pain. The problem is that because we are in pain, we let go quickly. We connect it to ground and just zap it directly and hopefully it'll kill it right. Ready? Die. (electricity buzzing) - Okay.
- You think it's dead now? - I think it's dead. I think it's dead. - Is it coming up? - Hold on. No. I think it's dead. (ElectricBOOM laughs)
- Killed it - Just because we had to create such a contrived scenario in order to kill the memory module doesn't necessarily mean that you just shouldn't worry about electrostatic discharge. Let's show you something different. This more realistic scenario is not that different from what ElectroBOOM, just set up on the table. Because the module is plugged into a computer that is plugged into the wall it is grounded in a very similar manner. Now, what we don't know is whether or not our lead was actually connected to like a data pin. And obviously here, none of the data pins would be grounded in that manner, but this is still
- Sorry (Linus laughs) - But this is still way more realistic and not that different from what we just did. So to test it, we're going to charge me up and I'm going to, so I don't know, give me five Hertz and then I'll reach in and take out the module. How about one Hertz? - One hertz okay. You are weak that way. Okay. Sure. Right? (Linus groans) Okay. Yeah am ... (Linus screams) Okay all right (ElectricBOOM laughs) Okay, screw it let's just go for that. (Linus groans) Dang it! Okay. So the point of that exercise was to simulate me working in a very careless environment, building up charge on my body while I'm working on the PC. Is that, is that reasonable?
- Yeah.That's right yeah. - Okay.
- But as you also saw it's very hard to get inside without touching anything else. - Unless you're working on an open test bench, for example in which case, this is totally realistic. I really don't wanna do this again. I really hope it's dead. (beep) (ElectricBOOM laughs) So How do we kill it with a finger? Oh yeah. We could have it running. - Yeah.
- Okay.The computer may crash. It might not die though. You might have to restart the computer when it comes back up. - All right, here we go. - You wanna ground yourself first and I zap you with 25 k and see how he feels. - Not really.
- It's a good opportunity for. - Good opportunity for what. (ElectroBOOM laughs) Good opportunity. - Okay lets see
- Oh, I actually, okay. Can I have 15? Let's do 20 first. - Ready? Where should I zap? - I don't know man.
- Ready (Linus groans) Okay. You go straight for the super... This is where you're supposed to check the baby's milk, okay.
(baby cries) Make sure it's not too hot. He goes straight for the most sensitive spot on the arm. - That's the sensor for that purpose - I'm onto you. (ElectroBOOM laughs) It wasn't super painful. More shocking.
- Right? (Linus laughs) So, okay. Give me 25. Give me 25. (Linus groans) Oh that one I could actually feel muscle contraction a little bit. Like that's
- Good. That's more? And I like.
- You want one more - No, not just yet. Okay. So here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna, found you. (ElectroBOOM laughs) - Try to bring your hand as close as possible to the data lines at the bottom maybe. - Oh, okay. Okay. Well, hold on. Hold on. Wait.
- I can't contain myself. - Okay. Just a second. Just a second. Just a second. - I am gonna charge your body and see what happens. - Okay. Well
(Linus screams) (beep) - That was, that was powerful. Nice. - Okay.
- How do you feel now? - I don't know if I got the RAM though. You gotta be freaking kidding me. (ElectroBOOM laughs) - See, that's why they put all these grounds exposed right in the way of your touching so that it always jumps to ground first before anything else Good design.
- But it felt like it actually hurt more when it jumped multiple times. Why would that be? - Well, maybe because you are jumping directly to ground. - But I was jumping directly to ground when I was holding the ground. - Lets see this was on one hertz. So maybe it was chipping. It was charging you every time. - So you forgot to change it. - Was I supposed to change it? - Well I was only supposed to zap it once. Okay. That explains why it hurts so much. - Yeah. But if I don't put it on one hertz.
- Yeah - It just jumps to you once doesn't charge you anymore.
- Yeah - You lose charge right away. You could still directly discharged. - No, no wait. Okay. I wanna kill it with a finger. - After this, you might have to go to a consultation. - ElectroBOOM therapy.
- Exactly. - Ready?
- Do it. - Okay. 20 kilovolt (electricity buzzing) (Linus groans) - Okay. No, no. Hit me again. - [Brandon] Oh my God, Linus - Oh my God. (Linus screams) (ElectroBOOM laughs) (Linus groans) - It's alive?
- No, it's dead. Yeah (beep) (ElectroBOOM laughs) - Well restart your computer or maybe the RAM is fine. It's just crashed. - That is possible. - Messing with data lines will crash your computer but doesn't necessarily mean that your RAM is dead. So you see, is it back? It's alive (ElectroBOOM cries and laughs) - I can't do that again. What's that 20 or 25? - 20.
- My fingers like (ElectroBOOM laughs) a little bit lost sensation. - Yeah after a while it gets a little bit numb. - Fine. I do wanna use the gun now. - Okay there you.
- I have a score to settle. (ElectroBOOM laughs) - It's ready now. - How do you know for sure? (ElectroBOOM screams) - Stop touching me. - I didn't even get you. - Well, I was quick. - Yeah.
- It's working. So that's one Hertz. Okay. Well that's why I couldn't get you 'cause it was just at 12. I was thinking I was gonna get you right away. Like
- Yeah you have to get much closer. - Like I got like this distance and I thought - Oh my God! Damn it. - All right.
- I deserve that probably. - You did a 100%. (ElectroBOOM laughs) Okay. Well that was more immediate. - Yeah.
- Computer crashed right away. But again might just be a crash. - You gotta be kidding.
- Restart it - That's a graceful ish crash. It's still alive somehow. - I think if we go from the side here you can get closer.
- You want that side? - Okay. All right. Does that look good?
- Yeah. - What?
- Nothing. Move it around. (upbeat music) For the love of God, die. No signal. Please check your input. Who's dead. The motherboard or the RAM. When the RAM is in you zap the data lines, it's also going directly to the rest of the motherboard, right? - All right. But the fact that the motherboard is giving us a beep code is a good sign. That means the motherboard has at least initialized and knows, Hey, there's some problem. That doesn't mean though, that the entire motherboard is working.
- Right. Yeah. - All right. This should be good. Okay.
- It's alive. - Yeah, I think so. - Kill the RAM, okay good. - I am impressed by the resiliency of everything (both laughs) we tried today. My finger is still a little numb. - I'm impressed by your resiliency. - I do my best. - Anything for science I guess? - Anything for the viewers. (ElectroBOOM laughs) Help lttstore.com. Come on. Help me out here, guys. Make it worth it. - Did you just see the pain? You have to buy his merch now. - Buy a hoodie. At this point I'm ready to kinda draw a conclusion here. Electrostatic discharge. Can it kill your sensitive electronic components? Abso-freaking-lutely. I mean, they wouldn't put warning labels on the things if there wasn't a chance that it was going to be destroyed. But on the other hand, in the real world is it necessarily a guarantee that if you forget your E-S-D strap one time that you're going to kill something by touching it? Probably not.
- Yeah, not that often. - But you're rolling that die every time you don't ground yourself correctly while you're working on your component. - If it dies, it's gonna be an expensive failure., right? - Exactly. So it comes down to what are you working on? Are you working on some old refurb thing where replacing the RAM is gonna be literally $2? Then you know what? I probably wouldn't inconvenience myself. If I'm working on the latest R-T-X 3090, that costs $1,500 and I can't even replace if I did kill it, I'ma be real, super careful from now on. That's my promise. (ElectroBOOM laughs) Just like I promised to my sponsors to a,
- Express V-P-N - Wait, what's going on here? This is my sponsor. This is my show. I have a sponsor to you know. - This is my sponsor. - Fine, I'll do mine at home. - Seasonic power supplies. High quality long
warranties, great efficiency and you know, hey, if you opened up the chassis and touched the internal components I'm sure it would zap you real good but that's not really a, that's not really a feature. Don't do that. That would legitimately probably kill you so. Go check out Seasonic at the link in the video discretion. I might've wimped out, but ElectroBOOM told me that he's actually planning a follow-up video on his channel, where he is going to continue to try to kill the stick with a finger. So make sure you're subscribed. We're gonna to have a link in the video description. So you don't miss that.
I guess I’ll keep not using an anti static bracelet. I just touch the case every 5 or 10 minutes.
They really had to shock the crap out of it to kill it. Also, they couldn’t kill it when zapping from his finger.
Dell teaches in its course that basically there are 2 types of ESD damage
1) immediate damage. Components fail to work and this is noticeable 2) latent damage. Component functionality is fully or partially retained. Damage is not noticeable until later on (can be months) before it worsens and problems appear.
The latter is difficult to diagnose
They should have done a memtest, just because it boots doesn't mean it's not damaged.
A little story: I work in IT in a manufacturing plant. One day I got a call from workshop that one of the computers lost its network connection. I went there, restarted the computer - everything was back to normal. 20 minutes later I got another call about the same problem. This time I opened network adapter status and it was showing that there was 20 gb sent and 30 gb received (in 20 mins) and the counters were going backwards. I looked at the computer case - there was a huge bag with plastic film and air running through its insides (a way to collect garbage from the manufacturing line) standing on the cables and near computer case. I started walking to that bag and my hair started to lean towards it. For some reason they decided that it is a good idea to move pc to that spot. We moved computer away from the bag and no such problem occured again.
Sorry for my english
I did not watch this, but I used to oversee a huge IT account for an Air Force base, so I always had a bunch of hardware that we were about to get rid of because it was being phased out. We spent half a day one time just shocking everything we could with our fingers after rubbing our feet across carpet and we managed to only kill a memory stick and that was it.
tl;dw probably not, but there's always a chance
I've heard that ESD is most likely to damage components and cause them to fail over time rather than cause a catastrophic failure. I haven't seen any hard evidence of this though.
Oh man, I turn into a human pikachu every winter with all the static I generate. Honestly never thought about precautions before
Whats a static? :o
*stays at 90% humidity area.
Manufacturers learned their lesson a LONG time ago (decades) when enough people exchanged ESD-damaged hardware. It hasn't been an issue in a long time. Those bracelets, gloves, and other gadgets are useless these days.