Thanks for the correction, maybe what I should have made plainer was that the user might have to wait 10 mins or so for the caps in the PSU to completely discharge AFTER they switched the hard switch (usually a rocker type situated by the mains supply lead input on the back of the PSU) off, failing that, the switched wall outlet, thus isolating ALL power to the system internals whilst leaving the earth ground connected through the mains cable to whatever earthing hookup is configured at the distro board at the entry to the property.

Of course, if you want to make doubly sure that the mobo isn't getting any juice, you could first disconnect the ATX connector(s) from the mainboard before starting work! Then maybe you'd like to explore the possibility of removing the BIOS battery to completely isolate the board from any possible source of power!!

Other than that, I stick to my guns. I've gutted and put together many a PC at my local referbishing club this way without problems, I've also built my own boxes since the days of the 486DX2 without any problems in this fashion. You could go out and buy an anti-stat strap for a couple of quid. Indeed, I do have one which I use on the more lengthy tasks, but I still ground it by attaching the crocodile clip to a grounding dag on the chassis somewhere. Seems to be the most easily accessable grounding point.

Anyhow... The essence of my original post remains the same... Removing the heatsink assembly from the CPU opens up a whole new can o' worms that can be simply avoided by removing the fan from the top and working on the heatsink in situ as long as the machine is powered down.

Yes, that's much better! ;) I, too, have always preferred to build my own systems and have been doing so for quite a while. The DX2 was an amazing technology in it's time, however I still remember the release of the original IBM 5150 with no hard drive and dual 5.25" 180KB or 360KB diskettes, 64KB of RAM and monochrome monitors! LOL I love technology! They're all in my museum of x86 compatible computers in my home now. 8-)

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Another thing on the subject of grounding... If you have your PC connected through a UPS, then you'll need to plug it straight through to the wall temporarily if you haven't got a hard (rocker switch) on the rear of the box as the UPS will still be live!

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