if you've ever built your own pc you've probably noticed that most of the
components compact in these shiny bags
these are called esd bags and they exist to prevent the sensitive electronics
inside from getting accidentally zapped by a static charge that built up on your
body when you were doing moonwalking on the carpet or putting on a brand new
tooth from lttstore.com but how dangerous is static electricity
components actually to find out we have arranged the
crossover event of the century and i'm not just talking about the crossover
between his eyebrows we have got the one
the only electro boom in the studio
hi oh my god what are we even doing right
now no no it's a little bit too loud let's
uh do you want to touch it sure oh not really no no no go ahead i i encourage
you first i gotta tell you about our sponsor
see sonic was all too eager to be
involved as soon as we said that i was gonna have this guy here and probably
going to get well hurt
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i'm the kind of person that doesn't even like to lick a 9-volt you know to see if
it's charged because it's like is it worse than that yeah man come on touch
it oh oh that's fine see see you're scared
for no reason well i'm not scared for no reason i've watched your video
well it's low power i can increase the power i saw your electric guitar
that's the music channel burner now bring it close you feel it not at all
probably tell me why that is
the reason is that instead of the arc going through a single point on your
skin it's going over a large surface in your hand so
it spreads out you don't feel it i can actually increase the power now a little
bit maybe feel it
no actually there you go ultimate power
let's try something let's do the same thing with that oh sure
and i increase the frequency again
now let me see if it jumps to me oh oh my god
yeah why why does it hurt when you do it so
it's just because it's a very small it's a point yeah it's more on a single nerve
rather than spreading over a big surface but then
this is not the same as the static discharge that we worry will kill our
our RAM stick while we're installing it is it no it's not uh how do we how do we
simulate esd that would be with a special gun
called the esd gun so this is it then yes that's okay that's how you break it
and all it does is simulate like a finger touching something yeah yeah so
it's basically for humans handling electronics simulating that
and then what else we got in here this is the gun
with the long cable and these parts we can censor that i
think i just saw a robot dildo and that's where it goes
before anyone gets upset by the way the electronics that we're going to be sacrificing today are from free geek a
local electronic salvager that says yes these are working but no these are not
valuable parts that anybody would want integrated into a salvage pc so
go ahead and kill it we'll take it right back and make sure that it gets recycled
properly do you want to try this one and see how it feels
um okay yeah that's fine it was like a duller pain
i don't know more shocking more shocking yes yes why
well it is dc and it is like the duration of the pulse is longer so it
could feel actually it could hurt more compared to the tesla coil that's why i
asked you before and you didn't answer me properly you just said yeah it
depends and then you pointed a gun at me i can put a higher voltage if you want
or are you okay with 12 kilowatts i don't know sure you tell me
okay i'll put 25 let me know how it feels 25 kilowatt discharge to live okay
feel the pain again ah okay go ahead ah okay no it's fine i can't make it lethal
unfortunately but here that's very helpful to know what kind of voltage
could i build up on my body while i'm just walking around my house before i
build my computer at home you usually pick up 8 to 12. if you build your
computer you just want to ground yourself with a proper strap right you
don't you don't want to have any charge on you because like rams
or internals of the computers components ics chips they are usually rated for two
kilovolts maximum that's it now i always
ground myself correctly when i'm working on our projects that's what he says
ow ah it shocked me ow you know let's
say hypothetically i've had situations where i've gone to pick up a RAM stick
and i have actually felt the ark but the RAM stick did turn out to still work how
could that be imagine all of us are standing on earth
right if a meteorite hits you on the head you die
but if the meteorite hits the earth the whole earth shakes a little bit everyone
on earth is fine right it's the same thing on the ground here when you hit
the ground the whole
board moves together right the voltage on the board
everything moves together but if you hit a certain weak spot
then so it's dead if you managed to not
kill a component with an esd discharge you got lucky yeah pretty much yes
now you want to kill it zap that way hold on a second
should i be holding it while you do that let's see what happens well hold on a
second okay fine
oh you shouldn't hold it you knew that was gonna happen exactly but you have to learn your
lesson the hard way so i had to do it is it helpful or does it hinder that i'm
touching it when you zap it no it actually makes it worse it makes it
worse because when i zap it it goes to your body so there is a path depending
on where you touch it could actually kill me it might already be dead
actually only one way to find out
when i discharged it at 25 kilowatts uh i think we killed it sir
is it dead it it appears to be dead as a doornail the play doesn't have a oh
sorry so the case does work as a ground now we know because i felt that not just
on my back but also in my finger that's why they say pain is nature's teacher
got my eye on you okay let's not kill them so quickly this time so to give
this a chance of surviving what should we do uh don't hold it in your hand oh okay uh
and are you gonna do the same voltage again it's 12 kilovolts now see all this area
behind it is ground so let's zap that ready uh yeah i'm ready see it doesn't
jump as much anymore yeah i see that it's only ddr2 but it's hard to watch
but now that you touched it you might have killed it oh damn it ah it's alive huh
yes good hey all right the system works Linus didn't
kill it you were involved no no no no no you don't put it on me so
just to be clear they do esd testing on a finished product not on the internal
component on the casing okay
wasn't me it was him so is there a way for me to simulate what we did the first
time but with my body instead of with the gun i have to keep charging you so
wait wait hold on we need to have a plan okay you don't even have the RAM stick on hand ready so i don't want to be i
don't want to be doing this any longer than we have to okay so so you tell me when it's time actually
no you can just move the stick to touch me when you think it's good if it
doesn't stop jumping let me know
stop jumping yeah stop jumping good now you're charged
that was a proper human simulation i guess we are booting but that clearly
took longer right with stranger behavior than before should we see what happens
if we hit it again sure okay a different pin
sure we want it to go off of what we hope is a data pin right right so then
you should you should touch this part yeah okay so i'll hold it like this okay
all right ready charge me sure is it is it good yeah
okay you're trying i'm fully charged fully charged and i'm gonna touch one of
these ouch oh is it running yeah okay
then unplug it let's try it one more time okay so tell me something if it
arcs anyway could we have it arc through a chip no not through the chip because
this plastic stuff is quite uh non-conductive it will block the esd
it'll probably go around it hitting something else got it already then well
let's just let's just hit it then yeah just let's just feel the pain how long
how long should we go i don't know man
this is five hertz yes all right and it's gonna hurts
yeah okay very good okay oh let's go ready wait wait oh my god is that what
you're going to do yes kate oh my god
if it's not dead it's quite a strong RAM
oh holy [ __ ] it is back maybe it going
through our body loses some of its power so it's much milder on the RAM what you
can do is do just leave the board on your hand and i just zap the board right
on the chips and see what happens like this oh or charge you and zap with
my finger let me know if it hurts more when i zap here
wait where are you zapping probably going to hurt more probably yeah i just
okay i'll zap you and was that forever
okay good fine ready oh my god
oh my god it better be dead now
damn it bloody hell it's posting wow this is some good RAM we can break it in
half forget it then that module is magic in the meantime let's try another module
so let's try to kill this one through us so that's this will be our last attempt
at that okay 12 kilowatts
charged how could you
where are you how could i i trusted you
you did no such thing
okay that works fine what we've learned so far is that the weakest discharge to
the module was when it was just sitting on the table because it's not grounded
to anything and it reaches equilibrium very quickly
then we have a human hold it and we get a much stronger discharge so that's
because of the capacitance of the human body right yeah you have a much body of
charge to transfer electricity but we can make it much stronger by grounding
the human body so the charge passes much more easily through it
um so that's what you so wait really this is your method okay so we've got a
ground to your wedding ring and then we're gonna charge you with this one and
then touch it with that one okay ready here we go oh my god
ready where should i touch oh my god
that was much more painful what the hell it's not dying we go
through so much pain for nothing who designed this stupid RAM well how
did we kill the first one did we just get lucky i think so
we have a new plan what's the new plan so we're gonna
connect it directly to ground so we won't feel pain the problem is that
because we are in pain we let go quickly we connect it to ground and just zap it
directly and hopefully it'll kill it ready
die
okay you think it's different i think it's dead i think it's dead is it coming up
hold on no no i think it's dead
just because we had to create such a contrived scenario in order to kill the
memory module doesn't necessarily mean that you just
shouldn't worry about electrostatic discharge
let's show you something different this more realistic scenario is not that
different from what electroboom just set up on the table
because the module is plugged into a computer that is plugged into the wall
it is grounded in a very similar manner now what we don't know is whether or not
our lead was actually connected to like a data pin and obviously here none of
the data pins would be grounded in that manner but this is still
sorry but this is still way more realistic and
not that different from what we just did so to test it we're going to charge me
up and i'm going to so i don't know give me five hertz and
then i'll reach in and take out the module how about one hertz
one here so okay you are weak that way on okay sure
okay yeah oh okay okay
okay oh screw it let's just go
dang it okay okay so the point of that exercise
was to simulate me working in a very careless environment building up charge
on my body while i'm working on the pc is that is that very reasonable that's
right yeah okay but as you also saw it's very hard to
get inside without touching anything else unless you're working on an open
test bench for example in which case this is totally realistic i really don't
want to do this again i really hope it's dead
so how do we kill it with a finger oh yeah we could have it running yeah okay
if the computer may crash it might not die though you might have to restart the
computer and it comes back up all right here we go you wanna ground yourself
first and i zap you with 25k and see how it feels
not really it's a good opportunity for a good opportunity for
a good opportunity okay well i actually okay can i have 15
let's do 20 first ready where should i zap i don't know man ready
okay you go straight for the super
this is where you're supposed to check the baby's milk okay make sure it's not
too hot he goes straight for the most sensitive spot on the heart that's the
sensor for that purpose i'm on to you
it wasn't super painful more shocking right
so okay give me 25 give me 25.
oh that one i could actually feel muscle contraction a little bit like that's
good that's more oh yeah like one more no not just yet okay so here's what
we're gonna do i'm gonna
ground it try to bring your hand as close as
possible to the data lines at the bottom maybe oh okay
okay well hold on hold on wait
i can't contain myself okay just a second
just a second just a second
i'm gonna charge your body and see what happens okay
that was that was powerful nice okay how do you feel now i don't know if i got
the RAM though you gotta be freaking kidding me
see that's why they put all these grounds
exposed right in the way of your touching so that it always jumps to
ground first before anything else good design
but it felt like it actually hurt more
when it dumped multiple times why would that be
well maybe because you were jumping directly to ground but i was jumping
directly to ground when i was holding the ground let's see this was on one
hair so maybe it was keeping it was charging you every time so you forgot to
change it was i supposed to change it well i was only supposed to zap it once
okay that explains why it hurts so much yeah but if i don't put it on one hair
it just jumps to you once it doesn't charge you anymore you lose charge right away
we could still directly discharge no wait wait
okay i want to kill it with a finger
after this you might have to go to a consultation electro boom
therapy exactly right do it okay 20
kilovolts
okay no no hit me again
oh my god
ow
it's alive no it's dead yeah
[ __ ] you well reset your computer maybe the RAM
is fine it's just crashed oh that is possible
messing with data lines will crash your computer but doesn't necessarily mean
that your RAM is dead so you we see is it back
it's alive
i can't do that again was that 20 or 25 20. oh
my finger's like a little bit
lost sensation yeah after a while it gets a little numb fine
i do want to use the gun now oh okay there i have the score to settle
it's ready now how do you know for sure no stop touching i didn't even get you
well i was quick yeah okay it's working so that's one
hertz okay well that's why i couldn't get you because it was way just at 12. i was
thinking i was going to get you right away like i got yeah you have to get much closer like i got like this
distance away and i thought it was good oh my god damn it
all right i deserved that problem you did 100 okay
oh okay well that was more immediate
yeah computer crashed right away but again might just be a crash you got to
be kidding me restarted that's a graceful ish crash
well it's still alive somehow i think if
you go from the side here you can walk that side okay all right does that look good yeah
what nothing move it around
for the love of god die no signal please check your input who's
that the motherboard or the RAM when the RAM is in you zap the data lines it's
also going directly to the rest of the motherboard right
but the fact that the motherboard is giving us a beep code is a good sign
that means the motherboard has at least initialized and knows hey there's some
problem that doesn't mean though that the entire
motherboard is working yeah all right
this should be good okay it's alive yeah i think so kill the RAM okay good
i am impressed by the resiliency of
everything we tried today
my finger is still a little numb i'm impressed by your resiliency i do my
best anything for science i guess anything for the viewers
ltcstore.com come on help me out here guys make it worth it yeah did you see
the pain you have to buy his merch now buy a hoodie at this point i'm ready to
kind of draw a conclusion here electrostatic discharge can it kill your
sensitive electronic components abso-frequently
i mean they wouldn't put warning labels on the things if there wasn't a chance
that it was going to be destroyed but on the other hand in the real world
is it necessarily a guarantee that if you forget your esd strap one time that
you're gonna kill something by touching it probably not yeah not that often but
you're rolling that die every time you don't ground yourself
correctly while you're working on your components and if it does it's going to be an expensive failure right exactly so
it comes down to what are you working on are you working on some old refurb thing
where replacing the RAM is going to be literally two dollars then you know what
i probably wouldn't inconvenience myself if i'm working on the latest rtx 3090
that cost 1500 and i can't even replace if i did kill it
i'm gonna be real super careful from now on that's my promise
just like i promised to my sponsors to uh
expressvpn what what's going on here this is my
sponsor this is my show i have a sponsor too you know this is my sponsor fine
i'll do mine at home see sonic power supplies high quality long warranties
great efficiency and uh you know hey if
you opened up the chassis and touched the internal components i'm sure it
would zap you real good but that's not really a that's not really a feature
don't do that that would legitimately probably kill you so
go check out csun and get the link in the video description
i might have wimped out but electro room told me that he's actually planning a
follow-up video on his channel where he is going to continue to try to kill the
stick with a finger so make sure you're subscribed we're going to have a link in
the video description so you don't miss that