The shocking truth (and lies) about ESD

A participant in Reddit’s forum devoted to networking asks: “Has anyone here ever destroyed anything via ESD (electronic static discharge)?”

Oh, yes, indeed they have, as a sampling of the anecdotes will reveal, though there were also skeptics and one fellow who told me via email “that most failures claimed to be ESD-related are probably covers for something else.”

First time for everything

I recently had a user plug an HDMI cable into a Dell E7440. He was touching the shielding and a nice big blue spark jumped from the cable to the laptop and cooked the motherboard. It was the first time in 12 years doing IT that I’ve ever seen something die from ESD.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here