Sensitivity of the chip.

[Combusted]

I'm using a Thermaltake Shark, and i got an 8800GTX the other week, It's awesome, however, when i tried to put the card in, it wouldn't fit directly in.
I thought i'd waste 200 quid and immediately **** a brick.

I had to angle it to the side, then turn it round under the frame that goes over the hard drives. It scraped along the frame, making a nails on blackboard sound, and it slipped and fell outta my hand onto the motherboard. Anyway, after much asshattery, i finally got it in.
And it worked fine.
And i enjoy it.
(No reference to sex here at all.)

Anyway, my point is,
So many PC parts give explicit handling caution, and DON'T TOUCH ANY PART EXCEPT THE EDGES.
Probably true for the CPU, but about everything else you can get away with it.

So why do they tell everyone to take so much care...? all the parts seem more sturdy than anyone thinks.

 

[Skyboat]

Just to cover their own backs against stupidity/customers, nothing else

 

[jambus]

In this day and age where people are sueing coffee shops because the coffee was "hot" and burned them when they stupidly poured it over themselves, it's no surprise really that they put warning stickers like that on a product. It's just to cover any liability holes that might arise if you were to, as you did, drop i, but also break it, so they don't have to pay out because of butterfingers.

 

[thegoonden]

Holding by the edges is always good advice. A sweaty fingerprint on the tags on the back of a chip socket could be very nasty.

Apart from that, most bits are built like the brick proverbial.

 

[z0mbi3]

So why do they tell everyone to take so much care...? all the parts seem more sturdy than anyone thinks.

They tell you that because it's possible that you could discharge static electricity from yourself into whatever component you're touching. This doesn't happen often but it's a very real possibility that could result in the premature death of components.

Another reason is as stated previously, your grease / sweat could short a circuit.

 

[platinum87]

you can touch it all you want, if you dont sweat or have any static build up in you, (assuming you dont bend or break any component. i think static is the main problem why things break

 

[platinum87]

double post, sorry

 

[David91]

yeah basically its to stop any customer dunking it in water then demanding a replacement after it doesn't work.

I've been pretty lucky with my PC bits, although i did drop my 8800GTS off a table onto the carpet, luckily it landed on its heat-sink and it worked perfectly afterwords