Gadget show £500 PC
 

Anyone else see the Gadget show on five earlier?
They had to buy / build a PC for under £500 inc Monitor. Jason went down the build it route, bought stuff from Scan and built a Dual Core system with only 512Mb Ram and a 7600 GPU (I think) - somewhat light on Ram I would have thought.
What struck me most is the total lack of static protection he used when 'apparently' building his system. No mat, no strap, no nothing! :shocked:
Very lucky he didn't fry something in the process and totally the wrong message for any budding builders.

More details here.

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

Dam I need a job doing something like that. Id have used a x1800xt gfx as these are give away prices and used a 20 quid case. (although i didnt see it and dont knwo what he used) and P4D 805 an asrock board 512 meg ram nec dvd rw whatever screen and hdd combo i could afford after £500 quid easy I think

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

Lol - not far off what he used (D805, Asrock board). :)

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

lol cool :)

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

Been building PC's for about 14 years and I've never owned an anti static wrist strap, mat or anything else. I've made a habit of touching the radiator pipes before hand and never zapped anything Emperor style yet.

Next weeks tough lappys test does look fun :)

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

The bird looks quite fit.

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

but you can build up static just stood on carpet and you dont normally know you have damaged something it just doesnt work as well anymore.These are not mission critical in the house but all electronics in aviation is built in anti static enviroments>My dad was head of a department at the Dunlop before he retired last year and he worked on aviation electronical developement and he told me about precautions because lives were at stake.They wouldnt do this if just touching a rad was enough ;)

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

Suzi Perry, she is quite famous ;)

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

chaarrrrrrver

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

Yeah I know static can build up quickly but I think household kit is a lot more robust than we're led to believe. It's a bit more important at 60000 feet. :)

I too had a techie dad. Was your attic full of Practical Electronics mags and such like as well?

Actually, just reminded me that my first "PC" was a 286 board mounted over the 68000 processor in my old Atari ST with a big clucky switch on the back to switch between them.

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

I dunno its just electronics are electronics and chips are chips and susceptible to static across them anyway lol I never had a pc but we had modded atari kit from the first 400 to the xl and xe.He is a scientist and tbh im not but he is very clever dunno what went wrong with me lol lol

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

Ive never owned any antistatic stuff myself either and have yet to do any damage to any of my components. Though having said that a faulty PSU tried to do damage to me a couple of years back. Though im pretty sure an antistatic band wouldnt have protected me from that.
Though it is all about how you handle each component. I always handle CPUs by the edges and not by the pins like I see some people doing. I always handle any PCB (Mobo, GFX etc) by the edges rather than touching any of the components in the middle.
I also normally either wear shoes or build them barefoot, as it is supprising how fast static builds up when you're just wearing socks.

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

How do you know you havent damaged anything? just cuz it doesnt go puff in flames or up in smoke does not mean it isnt damaged.This is a common misconception and im surprised I keep hearing this people seem to expect visable damage or something and thats just not how it works.A cpu for example leaves amd/intel perfect its been tested time and time again and produced in anti static enviroments then it reaches the customer who doesnt handle it carefully but the machine works and seems fine.How does that customer know its working as well as it did when it left base??? they dont simple as also when the cpu eventually dies how do they know it would have died then if it had been looked after properly? again they dont static can cause damage you never know you have caused end of story anyone who disagrees is simply wrong :)

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

Well given the fact that almost every component I have ever owned asside from some IBM hard drives (60GXPs thats right the famous faulty ones) and an old seagate drive I havent had a component fail on me, they are all still running in various incarnations right now.
So considdering the oldest of these machines is an 8 year old IBM Cyrix MII 266 machine with a processor not known for its amazing build quality or longevity is one of those machines still running I'd say that is a pretty good testemony to my previous statement that I have never damaged a component by not observing antistatic precautions.

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

Ok then you must be right and everyone who actually works in proper enviroments and companies who spend millions on developement must all be wrong
Some of those componants may well have not worked at its full potential so its not testimony at all

---------- Post added at 09:52 ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 ----------

http://www.static-sol.com/library/ar...ESD_damage.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrostatic_discharge
http://www.ce-mag.com/99ARG/ESD%20AssIntro169.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/electrostatic-discharge
http://kb.palmone.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/W...m_External2001
http://www.nechapter-esda.org/ne_esd.html
http://unitekeapro.com/pages.php?id=18
http://www.cabot-corp.com/cws/busine...7?OpenDocument (please read this one)

do I need to find more? I am amazed people pay hundreds of pounds on componants and wont spend 2 quid on a wrist band its just crazy
A very frustrated zing mutters under his breath

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

was employed by ibm in the manufacture/debug of computer motherboards, industry takes static seriously, anti static overalls, anti static flooring,work benches grounded, anti static workbench mats and anti static wristbands and heel straps, seen videos of static damage and would advise anyone touching puter parts to be protected

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

Static damage doesn't always just zap things straight away. It can take a while to see the effects, as it can degrade the components etched into the IC's.

EDIT: You should listen to what Zingle says! I've been an electronics repair engineer for 11 years and can confirm he's correct about the static damage.

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

My friend says that his girlfriend sometimes puts a chain around his neck and attaches it to the metal bedpost. She must really worry about static electricity...

...although it must be difficult to insert the processor while in handcuffs...

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

well it would be fun trying lol lol

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must be the rubber suit you wear ;)

If static wasnt a concern manufacturers wouldnt go to extreme lengths and cost to protect against it

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

Ive had this discussion a few times on this forum and tbh im bewildered by the attitude "well it still works it must be ok and the anti static warnings are rubbish" still its upto the individual I shall carry on with my business practices and im sure they will theirs. I always try my best to offer the best I possibly can to a customer and will continue to because I love computers and get a buzz when clients enjoy the benefits of what ive sown :)

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

Couple of years back i was fitting a stm4 card "2.4 gig" in a working mux. I was in a rush so did not use my anti static cord and strap. The outcome was a fried 2.4 gig card and a mux that shut down.

Cost of this stupidity. Very large due to new card,reprograme of mux, Compensation to a large business customer.

So for those of you who have had all these years of experience and know better than everyone else i hope you remember this story when you finally and you will blow something because you did not do the right thing.

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

:tu: shame about the fry dude but it does prove the point somewhat :)

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

I worked for eight years in a major electronics company. Some of the job involved programming computer chips (EPROMs, EEPROMS ROM), these where programmed in an EPA (Electro-static discharge Protected Area).

All the chips came in ESD protected bags which were not allowed to be open unless I was in the EPA and wearing a ESD strap which was plugged in to a monitor, if it screamed at us I would immediatley pull my hand from the chips and adjust the strap until the alarm stopped. (these also monitered the bench aswell.

Many time did some engineer walk across the nylon carpet hold a chip in his hand, with no protection.

I was trained in this company by a company call Vermasion, I used to callibrate the static monitors.

Not all computer chip will be damaged by static, if a chip is damaged by static, it will either stop working imediatley, or the damage will be latent (IE the device will fail eventually), I saw photos of static damage it looked like a phot of a mountian range, (I'll try and find some photo's to upload)

I would always use a wrisp strap, and strongly recommend that you use one.

try this link

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3...aining/Photos/

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

theres some pics in my links of that dude :) but you missed out the reduced performance that could mean the chip still works but at a reduced efficiency and evidence of this included in my links lol

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

also download the ESD Control Handbook from the site, it shows the voltages generated by static

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

:tu: m8 :)

---------- Post added at 13:29 ---------- Previous post was at 13:29 ----------

This is one arguement the zingle cant really lose cuz basiacally theres is no evidence to counter this :) (unless of course its bull plop evidence ;))

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

Totally agree with zingle regards the static issue! Listen to him!

Also seperate note did anyone hear the guy who was building the PC last night on the gadget show say Ive been building PCs for years, then when he was building it he was finding it really rather hard and did not seem to know what he was doing?!
Also 512mb RAM! 1Gb would have made a HUGE difference!

Interesting but ultimately naff program! ;)

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

There seems to be a niche in the market for a decent IT-related show. I can't think of any that aren't or weren't cringeworthy.

ITV used to do have a show called The Net or something similar, which used to bring me to tears it was so dull and uninteresting. Gamesmaster with Dominic Diamond was almost bearable, but that was just for gamers... and kid gamers at that!

Something that covers more than just video games, without being patrionising or downright naff would be a welcome relief.

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

We were shown a resister at the Cable & Wireless college Which had been tested first to check its resistance, then a static discharge is applied and the resister is rechecked and always show a big difference in value. My point is if you change the value of a resister you can change a power supply rating very easily by changing that resisters value. Wonder what would happen if it changed that much it fried something ?

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

Never used them and never will, most of the evidence shown is from static discharge, you can feel a charge building long before you can even come close to the point of a discharge.
Industrial and commercial both have to take anti static precautions very seriously as it is a LEGAL requirement when manufacturing such products and not only could they be held liable for a class action case if a large batch of their products are found to be defective due to static damage but they would also be un-eligable for insurance as they are not taking deemed neccesary precations to prevent such damage.
Millitary is also a fairly obvious one as this isnt just a legal requirement, these devices can be responsible for human lives so all precautions must be taken to prevent such damage.
Now if your life really is dependant on your computer Zing and you build up that much static electricity you feel the need to handle every comonent with an ASW then thats fine and upto you.
As pointed out though by someone else I was correct, my components would have failed long ago if damaged and underperformed in the inbetween, not just underperformed indeffinatley.

Do you all handle hdds with an ASW? you know that is 100% not needed unless you find the overwhelming urge to touch the logic board? you do know there are no metal contacts along the edge of a PCB or CPU that could conduct the static charge aswel dont you?
Ofcourse this does mean handling the stuff you buy more carefully but I would hope you handle them carfully anyway otherwise I certainly wouldnt want to buy a machine one of you have built.

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

Personally I've built dozens of PCs and have never bothered with a wristband or other ****e and haven't done any damage to anything (yet) ;)

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

Never realised my comment would 'spark' so much debate. ;)
Obviously people are free to take the risk of handling components without ESD precautions if they want, but personally I wouldn't.
My point was that IMO 'most' system builders would use a strap and yet a show promoting self-build neither used or discussed ESD.

Re: Gadget show £500 PC
 

Grounding yourself to the metal case whilst the computer is plugged into the mains should be enough?

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Certainly better than nothing but some clothing (nylon, iirc) can generate static charge even by moving you body around.