lisa, re I did everything correctly...and no, the computer/monitor wasnt plugged into the wall
I hate to tell you this, but contrary to some instruction manuals, the wrong thing to do is first unplug the computer. Why? Because this leaves your computer ungrounded. Therefore, as soon as you then touch the metal case of your computer, any static electricity in you will be absorbed into the deepest recesses of the electronics. That is exactly how I fried my motherboard a long time ago. Naturally you don't want to go probing around in your computer's innards with it plugged in though, but there is a happy medium: Leaving the plug into the wall, you remove the case cover. Then you firmly grasp the metal case with both hands. Any static electricity in you will then safely exit through the metal case and out the plug into the grounded outlet. It's when it has no place to go that the damaging static electricity begins to thrum around and into your computer's sensitive electronic components.
After you have safely drained your body of static electricity in this manner, then you unplug the computer, taking care not to shuffle around too much. Ideally you would want to be walking on a hard surface with rubber soled shoes. Walking around on carpeting wearing hard-soled leather shoes, for example, is what you would not want to be doing while touching your computer's sensitive innards.
I'm not an EE, but some of this is pretty easy to understand in an abstract way.
Way to go on your puts. |
