Fried a motherboard with a static zap on a dry Tuesday

Last month I was swapping out a power supply in a customer's rig in Fresno, and the weather had been bone dry for like two weeks. I thought I grounded myself on the case, but I didn't realize the case was on a rubber mat, so I basically built up a charge without knowing. I touched the board's chipset heatsink and heard that tiny crack, then the whole machine just went dead on the next boot. I felt like an idiot because I've been doing this for over a decade and I know better, but I got cocky since it was a simple job. Had to eat the cost of a used replacement board, about $85, and tell the guy his old PSU was fine, it was my fault. I've since bought one of those cheap anti-static wrist straps that clips to a bare metal screw, took it out of the package that same day. Has anyone else had a static discharge incident that made you change your whole workspace setup? I'm curious if the dry climate folks have a different routine than humid areas.

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harperschmidt1mo ago

Funny how we only get religious about the grounding strap after we fry something expensive. I bet half the folks in dry states have a little graveyard of dead parts that taught them the same lesson the hard way.