Hi, first of all thanks to everyone on the forum for all your help.

I would like to know how important it is to demagnetize your tools, screws, etc. My tools were close to a magnet and have picked up some magnetism. I used a the tip of a soldering gun to release some of that magnetism.
I use a small magnet to pick up small parts inside a computer. Is this practice okay?
 

Bladez

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Nov 3, 2004
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The small amount of magnetism in the tools and parts really shouldn't do any damage to the internal components. Just don't lay it down on top of a floppy :)
 

Minerva

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A few people are probably going to go on and on about how important it is to do this, but I personally have had no problems with a magnetised screwdriver in all my pc's so far. Also, have you ever stripped a HDD? You should feel how strong that magnet is, I dunno the relevant measure of gauss, but I reckon that would be in the same leauge of 100hp/l :)
 

Human1

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Don't worry about it too much. Magnets are bad for computers because they induce current when they move, which can cause damage, but you'd need a pretty sizeable magnet to get any significant amount of current. The screws and such will lose their newfound magnetism quite quickly. Just don't stick your mangnetized things into the computer while it's running.
 

plankmeister

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Ever see the Myth Busters episode where they erased the data from the strip of a credit card? They found it to be surprisingly difficult. And the data on a hard-drive is substantially more resilient than the data on a credit card strip, so I'd think you won't have any problems :D
 

shamoo

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if you need to find a way to quickly demagnetize a screwdriver or tool you can drop it / hit it on a solid surface...
This works because it scattered the direction of the atoms so that there not all pointing in a uniform direction...
no uniform direction magnetizium goes away. hope that helps.