Mantech Blog: Project 5

There have been a lot of people saying that static can destroy computer hardware. The question is, is it true that a simple static discharge can destroy computer hardware or not? It is hard to believe that a discharge of electricity for just a fraction of a second can destroy our computer, but believe it or not, it really can destroy computer hardware.

Before we talk about how it can destroy our hardware, lets first talk about what friction really is. Friction really happens on the atomic level, when one thing is rubbed to another thing, transfer of electrons happen. I think the most common example of static friction is when you rub a balloon on your head, you will notice that when you lift the balloon, some of your hair rises with it, and you can also head some “sparkly” sounds while doing it.

If you look at the illustration above, you can see that same charges repel and opposites attract, this is what happens to your hair, the balloon has a different charge with your hair so when you pull the balloon away from your head, your hair is “attracted” to the balloon. The type of charge ( + or - ) transferred will depend on the type of materials that are rubbed together, for example, if a person walks on a carpeted room, that person can contain a charge from 10,000 volts to 12,000 volts (static electricity). The more electrons that have transferred during the rubbing, the higher the charge, and this charge can be discharged (make an electron flow) by sticking it into an opposite charge or simply a ground (neutral). And this is what happens when you touch the components of a computer, the computer usually is the ground, and you are the one charged. When you touch your computer, there will be a flow of electrons, which will give a shock of electricity to you and the computer.

Now, how can it destroy hardware? Computer parts are made from basic electronic components, a Dynamic RAM is made from capacitors, each bit is “memorized” by using a capacitor for each bit, so for example, for one clock cycle, the data to be saved to an 8 bit ram is 10010101, C1, C4, C6, and C8 will be charged by a voltage to represent a 1, and all other capacitors will be grounded so that it will have a charge of 0v and it will represent a 0. If you look at capacitors, they have ratings like 1pF 5v, this means that it has a capacity of 1 picofarad, and can hold up to 5v. If you go over that rating, that component can be damaged, imagine if 1 bit of your ram (1 capacitor) is damaged, if you want to save 1111111 in your ram, it may save 10111111 because of a damaged capacitor and imagine what that can do to your computers calculations. Also, processors, and other parts of your computer uses transistors for switching, these transistors, like any other electronic components have ratings too wherein it will only work properly within that range given, any other value used may result into the malfunction or damage of that component. Imagine if 1 transistor gets shorted because of over-voltage and fails to switch, surely, your computer will have errors in its computations. If you’re familiar with your computer’s power supply output voltages, you will notice that it has the outputs 12v, 5v, and 3.3v. The 12v output is used by motors inside your computer, motors inside your CD-ROM, hard disk, cooling fans etc. The 3.3v, and 5v outputs are used by logic circuits in your computer, meaning, the logic circuits containing gates, flip flops etc in your computer only uses voltages<=5, and surely the ones who designed and made the hardware of your computers used components that are near these voltages (economical reasons). Let’s say they have used components with ratings 3x as much as the ones required, Imagine shocking it with 10,000v, it is still a lot more, and it will surely cause damage to those components.

How can we prevent it? Although not all places have the potential to produce static, we should still do some precautions to avoid damage to computer hardware due to static. Here are some ways to prevent static,

· The simplest way is to touch, your computer’s casing before touching the hardware inside it. This kills the potential or it equalizes the difference of charges between you and the computer.

· Use computer grounding, I’m sure that you have noticed that computers have 3 prongs, 2 flat, and one round one. The round one is the ground, it has a neutral voltage, like what was said above, static electricity discharges to objects with an opposite, or a neutral charge. Just make sure that the ground in your socket is really connected.

· Use a wrist strap, this has the same principle with the grounding of the computer, but instead of the computer being grounded (neutralized), it is you who will be neutralized so that your charge will be killed.