Reply to post: @whoseyourdaddy

This just in: What? No, I can't believe it. The 2018 MacBook Air still a huge pain to have repaired

Peter Gathercole Silver badge

@whoseyourdaddy

It's funny.

30 years ago, I would have agreed with you about ESD damage.

But since then, although I have taken hundreds of laptops and other computers apart, many of which I used myself, I don't think that I can attribute any of the (relatively few) failures to ESD damage.

I do take minimal static precautions, like having something earthed close to me that I will touch periodically, and before I touch the processor, but I don't completely follow the rules, and I don't use an anti-static strap.

I know, you're going to quote cumulative static damage, which may be true, but I think that chip design, for all it's modern complexity, has meant that unless you really zap stuff, it's likely to survive with only moderate precautions.

And I think that this is true across the computing spectrum. In my last post, I was working with hardware engineers on supercomputers, and they were not that different, even when changing very complicated assemblies (but of course, there was plenty of grounding around when working on equipment that was still connected to the power infrastructure, as was the case with these systems.)

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon