How Fragile..

[AiiR]

..Is your average motherboard these days? I was pondering the other day on how easy/hard it is to accidentally kill a motherboard whilst handling it, and although the past few systems I've built have been fine, I've wondered how weak they really are or not.

Anyone care to enlighten me?

 

[dreigns]

well over the 14 years of pc building on have done I have found it isn't that easy to kill a motherboard I have had only two fail on me.
1st shorted out never did work out what happened maybe just bad board
2nd Bad Bios-Chip had to send it back a few time before giving up as the same problem happened many times.

I'm self taught and I don't go easy on the boards if I have a problem getting a heatsink on or mem in I just give it a good push.
Also i don't worry about staic which a lot of people do

Hope it helps

 

[PhillyDee]

Static can kill months or even years. It can reduce performance, and decrease life. That said, they are not as static senesitive as they used to be. Although I still take basic precautions when working on my own stuff.

I had a DOA Asus board, and once chipped a cap off another board. Trying to solder it back on with a soldering iron with a panel pin in it failed.