 Ah! Ah! If you've ever built your own PC, you've probably noticed that most of the components come packed in these shiny bags. These are called ESD bags, and they exist to prevent the sensitive electronics inside from getting accidentally zapped by a static charge that built up on your body when you were doing moonwalking on the carpet or putting on a brand new tuque from lttstore.com. But how dangerous is static electricity components actually? To find out, we have arranged the crossover event of the century. And I'm not just talking about the crossover between his eyebrows. We have got the one, the only Electro Boom in the studio! Hi! Oh my God, what are we even doing right now? Oh no, it's a little bit too loud, let's... Do you wanna touch it? Sure. Ah, not really. Go ahead, I encourage you. First, I gotta tell you about our sponsor. SeaSonic was all too eager to be involved as soon as we said that I was gonna have this guy here and probably going to get, well, hurt. Go buy a SeaSonic power supply if you support this endeavor. I'm the kind of person that doesn't even like to lick a nine volt, you know, to see if it's charged. Cause it's like, is it worse than that? Yeah, man, come on, touch it. Oh, that's fine. See, see, you're scared for no reason. Well, I'm not scared for no reason. I've watched your videos. Well, it's low power. I can increase the power. I saw your electric guitar, man. Let's use a channel for now. Now bring it close, you feel it not at all, probably. Tell me why that is. The reason is that instead of the arc going through a single point on your skin, it's going over a large surface in your hand. So it spreads out, you don't feel it. I can actually increase the power now a little bit, maybe. Feel it? No, actually. There you go. Ultimate power! Let's try something. Let's do the same thing with that. Oh, sure. And I increase the frequency again. Now let me see if it jumps to me. Oh, oh my God. It's... Yeah. Why? Why does it hurt when you do it? So it's just because it's a very small point. It's a point, yeah, it's more on a single nerve rather than spreading over a big surface. But then this is not the same as the static discharge that we worry will kill our RAM stick while we're installing it, is it? No, it's not. How do we simulate ESD? That would be with a special gun called the ESD gun. So this is it then? Yes, that's the ESD gun. Okay, I'll try not to break it. And all it does is simulate like a finger touching something? Yeah, yeah. So it's basically for humans handling electronics, simulating that. And then what else we got in here? This is the gun with the long cable. And these parts, we can sensor that. I think I just saw a robot dildo. And that's where it goes. Before anyone gets upset by the way, the electronics that we're gonna be sacrificing today are from Freegeek, a local electronic salvager that says, yes, these are working, but no, these are not valuable parts that anybody would want integrated into a salvage PC. So go ahead and kill it. We'll take it right back and make sure that it gets recycled properly. Do you wanna try this one and see how it feels? Okay, yeah, that's fine. It was like a duller pain. I don't know. More shocking? More shocking, yes. Yes. Why? Well, it is DC and it is like the duration of the pulse is longer. So it could feel actually, it could hurt more compared to the Tesla coil. That's why I asked you before and you didn't answer me properly. You just said, yeah, it depends. And then you pointed a gun at me. I can put the higher voltage if you want, or are you okay with 12 kilovolts? I don't know. Sure, you tell me. Okay, I'll put 25. Let me know how it feels. 25 kilovolt discharge to last. Okay. How romantic can we do that one? Feel the pain again. Okay, go ahead. Okay, no, no, it's fine. I can't make it lethal, unfortunately, but yeah. That's very helpful to know. What kind of voltage could I build up on my body while I'm just walking around my house before I build my computer? At home, you usually pick up eight to 12. If you build your computer, you just wanna ground yourself with a proper strap, right? You don't want to have any charge on you because like RAMs or internals of the computers, components, ICs, chips, they are usually rated for two kilovolts maximum. That's it. Now I always ground myself correctly when I'm working on our projects. That's what he says. Ow, ah, it shocked me. Ow. Let's say hypothetically, I've had situations where I've gone to pick up a RAM stick and I have actually felt the arc, but the RAM stick did turn out to still work. How could that be? Imagine all of us are standing on earth, right? If a meteorite hits you on the head, you die. But if the meteorite hits the earth, the whole earth shakes a little bit. Everyone on earth is fine, right? It's the same thing on the ground here. When you hit the ground, the whole board moves together, right? The voltage on the board, everything moves together. But if you hit a certain weak spot, then it's dead. If you manage to not kill a component with an ESD discharge, you got lucky. Yeah, pretty much, yes. Now you wanna kill it, zap. Wait, hold on a second. Should I be holding it while you do that? Let's see what happens. All right, well, hold on a second. Okay, fine. Ah. Oh, you shouldn't hold it. You knew that was gonna happen. Exactly. But you have to learn your lesson the hard way. So I had to do it. Is it helpful or does it hinder that I'm touching it when you zap it? No, it actually makes it worse. It makes it worse. Because when I zap it, it goes to your body. So there is a path depending on where you touch. It could actually kill. It might already be dead, actually. Only one way to find out. Oh, and I discharged it at 25 kilovolts. I think we killed it, sir. Is it dead? It appears to be dead as a doornail. Supply doesn't have a, oh, dang. Sorry. So the case does work as a ground. Now we know because I felt that not just on my back, but also in my finger. That's why they say pain is nature's teacher. I got my eye on you. Okay, let's not kill them so quickly this time. So to give this a chance of surviving, what should we do? Don't hold it in your hand. Oh, okay. And are you gonna do the same voltage again? It's 12 kilovolts now. See all this area behind it is ground. So let's zap that. Ready? Yeah, I'm ready. See, it doesn't jump as much anymore. Yeah, I see that. It's only DDR2, but it's hard to watch. But now that you touched it, you might have killed it. Oh, damn it. Ah, it's alive, huh? Yes, good. Hey, all right. The system works. Linus didn't kill it. You were involved. No, no, no, no, no. You helped. Don't put it on me. So just to be clear, they do ESD testing on a finished product, not on the internal component. On the casing. Okay. It wasn't me, it was him. So is there a way for me to simulate what we did the first time, but with my body instead of with the gun? I have to keep charging you. So wait, wait, hold on. We need to have a plan, okay? You don't even have the RAM stick on hand ready. So I don't wanna be doing this any longer than we have to. Okay, so you tell me when it's time. Actually, no, you can just move the stick to touch me when you think it's good. If it doesn't stop jumping, let me know. Stop jumping? Yeah, stop jumping. Good, now you're charged. Ah, damn it! That was a proper human simulation, I guess. We are booting, but that clearly took longer with stranger behavior than before. Should we see what happens if we hit it again? Sure. Okay. A different pin? Sure. We want it to go off of what we hope is a data pin, right? Right. So then you should touch this part. Yeah. Okay, so I'll hold it like this. Okay. All right, charge me. Charge, is it good? Yeah. Okay, you're charged. I am fully charged. Fully charged, and I'm gonna touch one of these. Ouch! Oh, is it running? Yeah. Okay, then unplug it. Let's try it one more time. Okay, so tell me something. If it arcs anyway, could we have it arc through a chip? No, not through a chip, because this plastic stuff is quite non-conductive. It will block the ESD. It will probably go around it hitting something else. Got it. All righty then. Well, let's just hit it then. Yeah, let's just feel the pain. How long should we go? I don't know, man. This is five hertz, yes. All right. And it's gonna hertz. Yeah, okay. Ready? Okay, hold on. Don't let go. Ready? Wait, wait. Oh my God, is that what you're gonna do? Yes. Okay. Oh my God. If it's not dead, it's quite a strong RAM. Oh. Holy sh- It is back. Maybe it going through our body loses some of its power, so it's much milder on the RAM. What you can do is do is just leave the board on your hand and I just zap the board right on the chips and see what happens. Like this. Oh. Or charge you and zap with my finger. Let me know if it hurts more when I zap here. Wait, where are you zapping? Probably gonna hurt more. Probably, yeah. I just... Okay, I'll zap you and where? Just zap wherever. Okay, good. It's fine. Ready? Oh my God. Oh my God. It better be dead now. Damn it. Bloody hell, it's posting. Wow, this is some good RAM. We can break it in half. Forget it then. That module is magic. In the meantime, let's try another module. So let's try to kill this one through us. This will be our last attempt at that. Okay. 12 kilovolts. Charged. Ah! Like that. How could you? What do you mean, how could I? I trusted you. You did no such thing. Okay. That works fine. What we've learned so far is that the weakest discharge to the module was when it was just sitting on the table because it's not grounded to anything and it reaches equilibrium very quickly. Then we have a human hold it and we get a much stronger discharge. So that's because of the capacitance of the human body. Right, yeah. You have a much body of charge to transfer electricity. But we can make it much stronger by grounding the human body so the charge passes much more easily through it. So that's what you, so wait, really this is your method. Okay, so we've got a ground to your wedding ring and then- I'm gonna charge you with this one and then touch it with that one. Okay. Ready? Here we go. Oh my God. Ready? Oh my God, where should I touch? Ow! Oh my God. That was much more painful. What the hell? It's not dying. We go through so much pain for nothing. Who designed this stupid ram? Well, how did we kill the first one? Did we just get lucky? I think so. We have a new plan. What's the new plan? So we are gonna connect it directly to ground so we won't feel pain. The problem is that because we are in pain, we let go quickly. We connect it to ground and just zap it directly and hopefully it'll kill it. Ready? Die. Okay. You think it's dead? I think it's dead. I think it's dead. Is it coming up? Hold on. No, I think it's dead. Killed it! Just because we had to create such a contrived scenario in order to kill the memory module doesn't necessarily mean that you just shouldn't worry about electrostatic discharge. Let's show you something different. This more realistic scenario is not that different from what Electroboom just set up on the table. Because the module is plugged into a computer that is plugged into the wall, it is grounded in a very similar manner. Now, what we don't know is whether or not our lead was actually connected to like a data pin. And obviously here, none of the data pins would be grounded in that manner, but this is still... Sorry. But this is still way more realistic and not that different from what we just did. So to test it, we're going to charge me up and I'm going to... So, I don't know, give me five Hertz and then I'll reach in and take out the module. How about one Hertz? One Hertz, okay. You are weak that way, huh? Okay, sure. Okay, yeah, oh! Okay, all right. Okay. Okay, oh, screw it. Let's just go for it. Ah! Dang it. Okay, okay. So the point of that exercise was to simulate me working in a very careless environment, building up charge on my body while I'm working on the PC. Is that pretty reasonable? That's right, yeah. Okay. But as you also saw, it's very hard to get inside without touching anything else. Unless you're working on an open test bench, for example, in which case this is totally realistic. I really don't want to do this again. I really hope it's dead. Ah, f***. F***. So how do we kill it with a finger? Oh yeah, we could have it running. Yeah. Okay. The computer may crash. It might not die though. You might have to restart the computer and it comes back up. All right, here we go. You want to ground yourself first and I zap you with 25K and see how it feels? Not really. It's a good opportunity for you. A good opportunity for what? A good opportunity. Okay, let's see. Oh, I actually, okay, can I have 15? Let's do 20 first. Ready? Where should I zap? I don't know, man. Ready? Ah, okay. You go straight for the super, this is where you're supposed to check the baby's milk, okay? Make sure it's not too hot. He goes straight for the most sensitive spot on the arm. That's the sensor for that purpose. I'm onto you. It wasn't super painful, more shocking. Right, talking. So, okay, give me 25. Give me 25. Ah, well, that one, I could actually feel muscle contraction a little bit. Like that's, that's more. And it like, no, not just yet. Okay, so here's what we're going to do. I'm going to... Grounded. Try to bring your hand as close as possible to the data lines at the bottom, maybe. Okay. Okay, well, hold on. Hold on! Wait. I can't contain myself. Okay, just a second. Just a second. Just a second. I'm going to charge your body and see what happens. Okay, we're out of... F***! That was, that was powerful. Nice. Okay. How do you feel now? I don't know if I got the RAM though. You gotta be freaking kidding me. See, that's why they put all these grounds exposed right in the way of your touching so that it always jumps to ground first before anything else. Good design. But it felt like it actually hurt more when it jumped multiple times. Why would that be? Well, maybe because you were jumping directly to ground. But I was jumping directly to ground when I was holding the ground. Let's see, this was on one heart. So maybe it was keeping, it was charging you every time. So you forgot to change it. Was I supposed to change it? Well, I was only supposed to zap it once. Okay, that explains why it hurts so much. Yeah, but if I don't put it on one heart, it just jumps to you once, doesn't charge you anymore. You lose charge right away. You could still directly discharge. No, wait, wait. Okay, I wanna kill it with a finger. After this, you might have to go to a consultation. Electro boom therapy. Exactly. Do it. Okay, 20 kilovolts. Okay, no, no, hit me again. Oh my God. No! Rrr! Ah! No! Damn it! Ow! It's alive? No, it's dead. Yeah! F*** you! Well, reset your computer, maybe the RAM is fine. It's just crashed. Ah, that is possible. Messing with data lines will crash your computer. What doesn't necessarily mean that your RAM is dead, so we'll see. Is it back? It's alive. I can't do that again. Was that 20 or 25? 20. Oh, my fingers like a little bit lost sensation. Yeah. After a while it gets a little numb. Fine. I do want to use the gun now. Oh, okay. I have a score to settle. It's ready now. Well, how do you know for sure? Ah, me! Oh, stop touching me. I didn't even get you. Well, I was quick. Yeah. Okay, it's working. So that's one hertz. Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, that's why I couldn't get you because it was way at just at 12. I was thinking I was going to get you right away. Like I got- Yeah, you have to get much closer. Like I got like this distance away and I thought it was- Oh, my God! Damn it. All right. I deserve that probably. You did, 100%. Okay. Oh. Okay, well that was more immediate. Yeah. Computer crashed right away, but again, might just be a crash. You got to be kidding me. Restarted. That's a graceful-ish crash. No, it's still alive somehow. I think if you go from the side here, you can get closer. You want that side? Okay, all right. Does that look good? Yeah. What? Nothing. Move it around. Oh, for the love of God, die! No signal. Please check your input. Who's dead? The motherboard or the RAM? When the RAM is in, you zap the data lines. It's also going directly to the rest of the motherboard, right? But the fact that the motherboard is giving us a beep code is a good sign. That means the motherboard has at least initialized and knows, hey, there's some problem. That doesn't mean though, that the entire motherboard is working. Yeah. All right. This should be good. Okay. It's alive? Yep, I think so. Chilled around? Okay, good. I am impressed by the resiliency of everything we tried today. My finger is still a little numb. I'm impressed by your resiliency. I do my best. Anything for science, I guess. Anything for the viewers. LTTstore.com, come on. Help me out here, guys. Make it worth it. Did you see the pain? You have to buy his merch now. Buy a hoodie. At this point, I'm ready to kind of draw a conclusion here. Electrostatic discharge. Can it kill your sensitive electronic components? Abs-a-freaking-lutely. I mean, they wouldn't put warning labels on the things if there wasn't a chance that it was going to be destroyed. But on the other hand, in the real world, is it necessarily a guarantee that if you forget your ESD strap one time that you're gonna kill something by touching it? Probably not. Yeah, not that often. But you're rolling that die every time you don't ground yourself correctly while you're working on your components. And if it dies, it's gonna be an expensive failure, right? Exactly. So it comes down to what are you working on? Are you working on some old refurb thing where replacing the RAM is gonna be literally $2? Then you know what? I probably wouldn't inconvenience myself. If I'm working on the latest RTX 3090 that costs $1,500 and I can't even replace, if I did kill it, I'm gonna be real super careful from now on. That's my promise. Just like I promised to my sponsors to talk about- ExpressVPN. What's going on here? This is my sponsor. This is my show. I have a sponsor too, you know? This is my sponsor. Fine, I'll do mine at home. Seasonic power supplies, high quality, long warranties, great efficiency, and you know, hey, if you opened up the chassis and touched the internal components, I'm sure it would zap you real good, but that's not really a feature. Don't do that. That would legitimately probably kill you. Go check out Seasonic at the link in the video description. I might've wimped out, but Electrum told me that he's actually planning a follow-up video on his channel where he is going to continue to try to kill the stick with a finger. So make sure you're subscribed. We're going to have a link in the video description so you don't miss that.