Static shock from touching cmos

[twakalowski]

I know touching a motherboard is risky if you haven’t grounded yourself, as it could short something on the board. Recently, I was attempting to take out the cmos on my gigabyte ab350 when I was shocked by static. I thought I had grounded myself beforehand but I must have shuffle my feet or something too much.

How likely is it that this damaged the motherboard? It still works, but I’m afraid of seeing strange issues down the line. Can a static shock to the cmos or the pin that holds in place possibly hurt the motherboard?

 

[Repo79]

If it was going to go bad it would of now.

 

[Dugimodo]

Are you sure you didn't leave the power connected and just got a little shock? if your hands are a little sweaty you can sometimes feel 12V.

If it was a static discharge though you are probably ok but there is no way to know other than keep using it and see what happens.

Chips are nowhere near as sensitive as they were in the early days and static is less likely to cause damage than it once was. It's still good practice to ground yourself frequently and avoiding touching the circuitry as much as possible because it costs you nothing and the hardware is expensive, but odds are good you didn't hurt anything.

To be clear, it is totally possible to fry something with static and cost yourself a lot of money. It's just not all that easy to do and a lot of people get away with never taking precautions. Personally I think that's foolish, like never wearing a seatbelt because you've never been in a crash.

 

[twakalowski]

It was off but plugged in, but I’m almost certain it was static shock. I only touched the battery and it’s clip. Are they even connected to the motherboard in a way it could be damaged

 

[k1114]

Chips are nowhere near as sensitive as they were in the early days and static is less likely to cause damage than it once was. It's still good practice to ground yourself frequently and avoiding touching the circuitry as much as possible because it costs you nothing and the hardware is expensive, but odds are good you didn't hurt anything.

To be clear, it is totally possible to fry something with static and cost yourself a lot of money. It's just not all that easy to do and a lot of people get away with never taking precautions. Personally I think that's foolish, like never wearing a seatbelt because you've never been in a crash.

It's rather easy to kill with esd and electronics are more sensitive. They've got smaller processes on all electrical components, thinner traces from lower power needs, and small compact devices don't always insulate as they should for the sake of size. It may happen less as it's more common knowledge, modern practices, policy and there's built in protection but it's more likely to damage than before. We get threads about esd killings here often enough. You don't even have to feel it to have enough voltage to kill.

It was off but plugged in, but I’m almost certain it was static shock. I only touched the battery and it’s clip. Are they even connected to the motherboard in a way it could be damaged

If the pc works fine, you likely didn't hurt anything. The battery could have amplified the shock you felt with its own power.