If you vacuum cleaner is weak, use a brush, use a soft hair one.
What ever you do say away from vacuum cleaners and inside of your pc
Huh, dude, seriously?
I'm vacuuming my motherboard, the cpu, and the graphics card every two months, and once every year in spring, I take the compressor out in the garden and blow everything proper with 8 atmospheres. Never had anything break.
Then again, people are telling me that you'll destroy DIMMs and other integrated circuits if you merely touch them with your bare hand, and you have to wear grounded wristbands and such (some fairy tale about static charges). Only special dance I've ever done is casually touching the PSU case with my elbow (not rarely accidentially rather than intentionally!), never had one component fail.
Then again, people are telling me that you'll destroy DIMMs and other integrated circuits if you merely touch them with your bare hand, and you have to wear grounded wristbands and such (some fairy tale about static charges). Only special dance I've ever done is casually touching the PSU case with my elbow (not rarely accidentially rather than intentionally!), never had one component fail.
I've always wondered about this. I've spent half my life building and repairing computers, have never owned an anti-static wristband, and have never zapped any hardware...
Then again, people are telling me that you'll destroy DIMMs and other integrated circuits if you merely touch them with your bare hand
It isn't that you will destroy, but that you could destroy, electrostatic sensitive components. Generally you don't build up enough static charge to do any damage, but it is a possibility, and it's always safer to take precautions. I used to work at an electronics plant where we built very expensive switch mode power rectifiers for use in cell towers in remote locations and also for medical use. Chance of failure had to be so low that you could be fired for not using anti-static equipment while working.
I was told by one of our electrical engineers once that ICs are less prone to damage once they're soldered into a board. I don't know if that's true however.
As someone who works as an electronic engineer, and has electronic hardware production experience...
Generally you don't build up enough static charge to do any damage
This is far from the truth. Humans typically build up to 300V by just moving their hand through the air. Much more when standing up, walking, etc.
Pulling off a wool jumper can charge a human up to 30'000V.
Where I work, we used to not have any kind of ESD protection in production and had a component failure rate of around 2% for the sensitive components. When introducing grounded floors, ESD bags, wrist bands, and of course ESD mantles and ESD shoes, failure rates drastically sunk (by factors of over 1000).
Older ICs and generally all FETs are highly sensitive to ESD because of high impedance between pins. Exceeding 200V will usually destroy them.
Newer ICs all have protection diodes and current limiting resistors on every pad to withstand ESD:
This has become standard procedure, especially in the field of computer components. That is why samoth is able to vacuum his stuff without destroying anything.
One of those things that you can get away with, but doesn't make it a good idea.
In most small cities or towns you can probably step off the sidewalk anywhere during the day and stroll to the other side without getting hit. However I'm still going to look both ways and make sure it is clear. (Especially on one way streets... People who only look in the direction the cars are suppose to be coming from have far more faith in humanity than I do.)
I have worked on lots of computers over the years, and have rarely used proper ESD protection. However I do precautions such as manually grounding out frequently, not wearing socks, not working in places I know are prone to charge build up, etc.
Personally I use a 'rocket blower' out of my photography kit. Little hand air pump. Not the greatest tool for blasting dust out, but as long as I stay on top of things it isn't bad.
Should have switched Mega Maid from suck to blow. I typically use an air compressor or even a leaf blower to clean computers out. Don't buy that canned crap. It's a waste of money and it is bad for the environment.
For compressed air, I bought a 6-pack from Amazon.com, and a single can lasts me through at least 3 PC cleans. At $28 (and free shipping) for 6 cans, that's ~$5 a can. Amazon tells me I bought the six-pack in January of 2012, and I clean out my PC about every two months and still have 2 1/2 cans.
This is my second six pack - the first six pack had a defective can sprayer that broke off - still a good deal.
Does the voltage even matter given that the electric charge is close to zero? Sure, waving your hands is comparable to raindrops in a thunderstorm moving, and we know what happens to things that are struk by lightning. But... that's like 20 or so orders of magnitude different in charge (and 5-6 orders in voltage).
Humans typically build up to 300V by just moving their hand through the air. [...] Pulling off a wool jumper can charge a human up to 30'000V.
300V is something that is easily lethal for a human, even more so 30.000V, given a big enough charge or power source that can sustain a current (like, a plug in the wall, a power line, or a thunderstorm). But otherwise, it's merely enough for a tickle. From experience, I can tell that I've never died from static discharge.
So my non-scientific guess would be that the charge you can reasonably have on your body by waving hands and such is only good to maintain a current a fraction a few femtoseconds (or something similarly small) under what's more or less a "short circuit" condition.
I Always vacuum clean my computers,
300 volt is a whole lot for moving tru air ( dint know that ).
I do Always touch the radiator first before handling components.
Also look to the weather if its static loaded ( like when its freezing ), in wet weather no problem.
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