I just bought tons of ESD/Static Shield bags, they aren't that expensive on eBay. Individual cards in each one, then pile up in big, stackable plastic boxes.

kolderman wrote on 2020-03-12, 01:20:

I just bought tons of ESD/Static Shield bags, they aren't that expensive on eBay. Individual cards in each one, then pile up in big, stackable plastic boxes.

Yeah I just placed an order for true static shield bags in a slightly smaller size than my pink ones. Between the two not even thomas edison himself could hope damage my precious video cards.

EDIT: Also damn I own a shit ton of video cards. The count is at 32 and I don't even think I'm half way through.

ESD safe bags, ESD safe foam. Layer in totes. Don't stand boards or oddly stack them on each other since they can warp over time, breaking solder joints, especially BGA mounting.

And no, modern hardware is more sensitive to ESD since it utilizes a much smaller nanometer manufacturing scale. There are shunts and ESD protection in modern boards, however those are meant to protect if you're already taking proper precautions with a slow drain grounded wrist strap and mat. The shunts are usually only rated for a few thousand volts.. most of the time it is only around 1000V though.

wiretap wrote on 2020-03-12, 01:35:

ESD safe bags, ESD safe foam. Layer in totes. Don't stand boards or oddly stack them on each other since they can warp over time, breaking solder joints, especially BGA mounting.

And no, modern hardware is more sensitive to ESD since it utilizes a much smaller nanometer manufacturing scale. There are shunts and ESD protection in modern boards, however those are meant to protect if you're already taking proper precautions with a slow drain grounded wrist strap and mat. The shunts are usually only rated for a few thousand volts.. most of the time it is only around 1000V though.

Why the redundancy in the foam? In theory shouldn't the bag (being a true metallic ESD bag) be the ultimate shield? Or is that for physical protection?

You seem to have a solid grasp on this: On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate a ESD Bag, inside a pink antistatic bag, inside a plastic tote as a storage scheme for GPUs?

Honestly, i just keep all my motherboards in large sturdy ziplock bags, GPUs/soundcards etc in smaller ones. I only really keep ESD bags around if im gonna be selling something.

Once their bagged up, off to the storage bin it goes where they remain safe. Haven't lost anything to ESD in storage in like...ever i think.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2020-03-12, 01:50:

wiretap wrote on 2020-03-12, 01:35:

ESD safe bags, ESD safe foam. Layer in totes. Don't stand boards or oddly stack them on each other since they can warp over time, breaking solder joints, especially BGA mounting.

And no, modern hardware is more sensitive to ESD since it utilizes a much smaller nanometer manufacturing scale. There are shunts and ESD protection in modern boards, however those are meant to protect if you're already taking proper precautions with a slow drain grounded wrist strap and mat. The shunts are usually only rated for a few thousand volts.. most of the time it is only around 1000V though.

Why the redundancy in the foam? In theory shouldn't the bag (being a true metallic ESD bag) be the ultimate shield? Or is that for physical protection?

You seem to have a solid grasp on this: On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate a ESD Bag, inside a pink antistatic bag, inside a plastic tote as a storage scheme for GPUs?

I was just stating how I store things. You don't necessarily need the ESD safe foam for storage. I just use it to layer for protection against warping the boards. You don't just want to directly stack things on top of each other (i.e. boards in just bags only) since it will cause uneven pressure points and weight distribution.

For a short story -- at work we had 3 proprietary GE neutron monitoring boards (~$100k each) in our Level A storage that were stored there for about 15 years.. they were improperly stacked on top of each other in the shipping box without sufficient padding to evenly distribute the weight and we noticed a slight warp on the bottom two boards. They did not work in our test lab so we sent them off for failure analysis ($40k for each via NTS Labs), and the electron microscope scans and x-ray of the boards showed cracked BGA solder joints due to the boards warping from improper storage. It was an expensive mistake by our supply chain. $280k lost, plus the cost of ordering 2 new boards at >$100k each. Of course consumer grade boards are much cheaper, but it just illustrates that spending a few dollars on proper storage will help mitigate failure when you pull it out of storage in the future.

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-03-12, 02:51:

Honestly, i just keep all my motherboards in large sturdy ziplock bags, GPUs/soundcards etc in smaller ones. I only really keep ESD bags around if im gonna be selling something.

Once their bagged up, off to the storage bin it goes where they remain safe. Haven't lost anything to ESD in storage in like...ever i think.

Improper storage, terrible advice. Ziplock bags are high source of ESD.. as they can generate anywhere from 1000V to 20000V just from being picked up and opened, depending on the humidity level. Also, ESD usually doesn't flat out kill something. Most of the time it just causes degradation which leads to premature failure in the future versus if it had been properly handled and stored. But I guess that's nice that you give a potential buyer the false impression of proper handling with the ESD bag upon sale.

wiretap wrote on 2020-03-12, 03:29:

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-03-12, 02:51:

Honestly, i just keep all my motherboards in large sturdy ziplock bags, GPUs/soundcards etc in smaller ones. I only really keep ESD bags around if im gonna be selling something.

Once their bagged up, off to the storage bin it goes where they remain safe. Haven't lost anything to ESD in storage in like...ever i think.

Improper storage, terrible advice. Ziplock bags are high source of ESD.. as they can generate anywhere from 1000V to 20000V just from being picked up and opened, depending on the humidity level. Also, ESD usually doesn't flat out kill something. Most of the time it just causes degradation which leads to premature failure in the future versus if it had been properly handled and stored. But I guess that's nice that you give a potential buyer the false impression of proper handling with the ESD bag upon sale.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When im at home, i just don't really thingk about ESD all that much tbh. I don't build on the carpet, i use anti-static mats. I keep my computer spaces clean and tidy. I guess ESD storage just doesn't really hit me.

Now if and item is gonna be out n' about, sitting in a cold warehouse in a box somewhere, in heck knows what kind of conditions, thats a different story in my mind, but usually its modern parts im selling and in that case i keep the boxes, bags, and what have you around anway.

wiretap wrote:

For a short story -- at work we had 3 proprietary GE neutron monitoring boards (~$100k each) in our Level A storage that were stored there for about 15 years.. they were improperly stacked on top of each other in the shipping box without sufficie

Weight of each board?

I do this : Re: Buying new boxes to store motherboards individually

I haven't bought ESD safe bags, but at least each boards are stored individually and protected by their boxes. (Does cardboard generate a lot of ESD ?)

If you want to stop a motherboard and you'd like to store it in a shelf, you should stop the DALLAS RTC first.
Only the CMOS still is powered. But it consumes MUCH less energy than running the RTC.
Do not forget that the RTC automatically continues work when getting powered again.

Conserving Dallas RTC chips

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-03-12, 05:48:

wiretap wrote:

For a short story -- at work we had 3 proprietary GE neutron monitoring boards (~$100k each) in our Level A storage that were stored there for about 15 years.. they were improperly stacked on top of each other in the shipping box without sufficie

Weight of each board?

Roughly the size of a Gravis Ultrasound, and probably the same weight.

Hm, I don't buy it. Just three boards of that size and weight stacked together won't cut for such damage. Even if for 15 years, typical PCB aren't that fragile. Probably something else was on top of them.

I'd agree with the ESD bags. I ended up getting 600 from Ebay and this sure made life a lot easier 😁
I can definitely recommend it.

I did skimp a bit on the packaging in some cases (due to having little capacity to store every little bit very neatly), but I have separated boards stored together by sheets of cardboard (mostly the lesser stuff, of course). Some boards I stored sideways in a larger box, also individually packed in ESD bags and separated by a sheet of cardboard. STill wouldn't recommend to move such a packaged box around though, but I reckon for static storage it may suffice.

Older graphics cards (say, S3 virge etc) can be stored together in a larger box, especially if they don't have a (large) heatsink and are relatively light. Always try to put each individual board in its own ESD bag though. If you must, you could opt to put several smaller cards into a larger bag if you happen to not have more suitable ESD bags around.

Do not store them in ordinary plastic bags or the smaller bread bags and also do not use any form of tape as these create massive amounts of ESD. When handling the equipment, Always discharge yourself and don't forget to forego certain clothing like for instance woolen socks.

If you store a motherboard with a CPU already installed in it (probably a significant number of people here will occasionaly do this to some extent), I can advice to not have the CPU HSF installed if the CPU HSF is large enough to warrant the board to need a backplate (like s939 boards or newer). These HSFs can be so heavy that, when stored away, they can also warp the board on its own even if you do store the boards correctly otherwise.
The board I had stored this way was warped kinda like an s-shape -_-. Can't remember if it still worked though, it wasn't one of the more significant boards anyway, thankfully
But anyway, don't store the boards with large CPU HSFs installed as these may warp the board.

I probably forgot some stuff, I will edit this replay later perhaps 😜

I typically store boards in anti-static bags, then stacked vertically and reasonably tightly into plastic storage boxes.

I might go back and take the rest of the coolers of the CPUs for the few motherboards I've stored with coolers. But otherwise, I've seen no problems with this storage method.

Static bags do offer a measure of physical protection as well as anti-static protection.

canthearu wrote on 2020-03-12, 12:40:

I typically store boards in anti-static bags, then stacked vertically and reasonably tightly into plastic storage boxes.

I might go back and take the rest of the coolers of the CPUs for the few motherboards I've stored with coolers. But otherwise, I've seen no problems with this storage method.

Static bags do offer a measure of physical protection as well as anti-static protection.

I at one time got loads of first gen Asus sA boards (KT133 and KT133A chipsetted ones, iirc) and as these have relatively limited value to me, I found it fine to store these sideways in the big box (individual ESD bag and sheets of cardboard in between). I think this should be fine provided the box isn't moved around too much. I doubt it's ideal to actually move a bunch of boards to a different house packaged like this though, unless the box is handled like it contains very delicate chinese porcelain or something 😜
Try to not store boards in any kind of situation where the boards are stressed by force (be it gravity, large installed HSF, bend to fit a container or stacked on top of each other, etc).
Also don't store boards along with many loose items in the same box together (like loose CPUs, harddrives, optical drives) unless the boxes won't need to be moved except for maybe inside the same house for just a few meters or so and I consider this not to be ideal in any situation.

The physical protection provided by ESD bags is fairly limited though, even though it does help a bit in cases where parts are stored alongside anything else (like a motherboard's i/o shield for instance).

Also, keep the cats out 😜 (I still love cats though <3 😜 )

And last but not least, ESD also is dependent on local weather situations. For instance here in The Netherlands the weather is fairly favorable to working with PC hardware as temps are relatively stable (though this last 'winter' we didn't even have any snow except for maybe just a single morning or so) and the warmer and non-superdry it is, the more ESD will tend to be somewhat less of a problem (so you might end up being able to get away with mistakes more easily perhaps).

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-03-12, 03:41:

wiretap wrote on 2020-03-12, 03:29:

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-03-12, 02:51:

Honestly, i just keep all my motherboards in large sturdy ziplock bags, GPUs/soundcards etc in smaller ones. I only really keep ESD bags around if im gonna be selling something.

Once their bagged up, off to the storage bin it goes where they remain safe. Haven't lost anything to ESD in storage in like...ever i think.

Improper storage, terrible advice. Ziplock bags are high source of ESD.. as they can generate anywhere from 1000V to 20000V just from being picked up and opened, depending on the humidity level. Also, ESD usually doesn't flat out kill something. Most of the time it just causes degradation which leads to premature failure in the future versus if it had been properly handled and stored. But I guess that's nice that you give a potential buyer the false impression of proper handling with the ESD bag upon sale.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When im at home, i just don't really thingk about ESD all that much tbh. I don't build on the carpet, i use anti-static mats. I keep my computer spaces clean and tidy. I guess ESD storage just doesn't really hit me.

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-03-10, 08:39:

Have i lost a few good days of gaming dealing with weird manifestations, only for it to be dead ram or cache.
I actually endedup throwng out a bunch of "dead" ram recently, out of my socket 7 build. Only to find out it was actually dead on-board l2 cache that was causing memory problems.

Kinda seems to me that it is actually hitting you 😜

Tetrium wrote on 2020-03-12, 13:39:

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-03-12, 03:41:

wiretap wrote on 2020-03-12, 03:29:

Improper storage, terrible advice. Ziplock bags are high source of ESD.. as they can generate anywhere from 1000V to 20000V just from being picked up and opened, depending on the humidity level. Also, ESD usually doesn't flat out kill something. Most of the time it just causes degradation which leads to premature failure in the future versus if it had been properly handled and stored. But I guess that's nice that you give a potential buyer the false impression of proper handling with the ESD bag upon sale.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When im at home, i just don't really thingk about ESD all that much tbh. I don't build on the carpet, i use anti-static mats. I keep my computer spaces clean and tidy. I guess ESD storage just doesn't really hit me.

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-03-10, 08:39:

Have i lost a few good days of gaming dealing with weird manifestations, only for it to be dead ram or cache.
I actually endedup throwng out a bunch of "dead" ram recently, out of my socket 7 build. Only to find out it was actually dead on-board l2 cache that was causing memory problems.

Kinda seems to me that it is actually hitting you 😜

Hahaha, your probably right! X)

I admit that i could be doing a much better job of taking care storing my electronics! Sometimes i just get a bit lazy with it and forget 🤣
I Really need to go through my storage bins and re-package/sort out all my parts.

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-03-12, 13:48:

Hahaha, your probably right! X) […]
Show full quote

Tetrium wrote on 2020-03-12, 13:39:

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-03-12, 03:41:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When im at home, i just don't really thingk about ESD all that much tbh. I don't build on the carpet, i use anti-static mats. I keep my computer spaces clean and tidy. I guess ESD storage just doesn't really hit me.

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-03-10, 08:39:

Have i lost a few good days of gaming dealing with weird manifestations, only for it to be dead ram or cache.
I actually endedup throwng out a bunch of "dead" ram recently, out of my socket 7 build. Only to find out it was actually dead on-board l2 cache that was causing memory problems.

Kinda seems to me that it is actually hitting you 😜

Hahaha, your probably right! X)

I admit that i could be doing a much better job of taking care storing my electronics! Sometimes i just get a bit lazy with it and forget 🤣
I Really need to go through my storage bins and re-package/sort out all my parts.

Since I'll be busy with my attic the next few weeks (a lot of my stuff is packed up atm) I'm gonna be doing the same now that I am at it anyway 😜
So this thread was really well timed afaic 😜