Static Electricity ... myth?

[locane]

Hi.

I've been working in IT related stuff for 15 years, and I have yet to find hard evidence to support the idea that unseen static electricity actually harms computer components.

Does anyone have a link to an empirical case study that was done to prove that systems put together using a static-reducing wrist band vs. systems put together without one actually have a measurable affect on the performance (or lack thereof) of the machine?

Everything I'm finding online is just "common knowledge", talking about how bad it is and spouting off made-up numbers (one site claimed there was an estimated $1,000,000,000 in static electricity damage every year) and not citing any scientific reference studies or actual experimentation that went in to testing it.


Thanks in advance.

 

[alexoiu]

Hi,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0026271403004050
or look for similar.

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

ESD damage, in and of itself, definitely isn't a myth and it definitely does exist, but, in my own experience, it's not a big deal and something that should be feared like it seems to be, either.

Not once in my life (~15 years of building my own systems) have I killed/hurt a component from ESD, and I never wore a wristband or took extreme precautions. I just wasn't an idiot with how I handled the components. That's seriously all it takes. A little common sense and knowledge.