Component Safety

By now you should know how to keep yourself, your family, and your pets from being electrocuted, prevent your hair getting caught in the fans in your PC, and eliminate the risks of strangulation from neckties and scarves. But it’s not just your safety that you have to be worried about—you also have to care for the safety of the components that you are going to be handling and that are going to become integral parts of your PC.

Dangers You Can See
Here are some general common-sense rules that you can follow to avoid component troubles

• Don’t drop components. This is the number one cause of component damage.
• Don’t bend or flex components. No matter how sturdy a circuit board looks, it takes very little pressure to crack it or pop off an important component.
• Don’t put components down on top of one another or on metal surfaces.
• Keep components clean and dry.

 The easiest way to accomplish all of the above is to store components in their original packaging until needed. This packaging is designed to protect the components on their trip from the factory where they were made to the store selling them, and it’s usually so good that it can protect the contents from the biggest test of all—snail mail delivery!

TIP

There is a very good chance that you will be buying at least some of the parts for your PC via mail order. Mail order is by far the cheapest way to buy components unless you are really lucky and live nearby to a very good supplier. However, component damage in transit is a real problem. Check all items you receive carefully. What you are looking for are components that arrive well packaged and in an undamaged state. Look for signs of damage, both at the packing stage (improperly packaged items, items packed loose) and for damage in transit (ripped, torn, or crushed packaging, items repackaged by the carrier or foot/tire prints on the package—yes, we’ve seen it all!). If anything looks damaged then either refuse to sign for it, or, if you have to sign for it write
“NOT EXAMINED” clearly next to your name/signature and get in touch with the seller.
If, during the build, you think that you may have damaged a component through dropping it or handling it badly, then make a note of this. Damage caused can be difficult, if not impossible to spot, so if you have problems later on, having information on components that might have been damaged can save you a lot of time and energy in tracking down the fault.