Monitor/screen that blanks due to static electricity in my chair

Static discharge can range from an annoying inconvenience such as feeling a mild shock touching a metal surface to a costly problem such as destroying sensitive components or equipment.

Mitigating static buildup is a tedious and sometimes complicated process. All of the following and more can contribute to excess static:

  • Dry air (lack of humidity)
  • Fabrics and materials (your chair, trousers, shoe soles, carpeting, desk surface)
  • Friction from moving parts (if you work in a factory, static can arise from all sorts of moving items including conveyor belts, piping, powder dispensing, plastic film, etc.)
  • Lack of grounded structures/wiring/connections
  • And more...

Mitigation steps:

  • Test different materials for trousers and shoes (try leather soled shoes). Chair and carpet are also factors but likely more inconvenient and costly to change.
  • Purchase an ESD mat for your desk. They dissipate electrostatic charge and you could make it a habit to be in contact with it as you get up.
  • Increase the humidity of your workspace. 35-40% RH should be sufficient, but this may not be possible due to your location, employer, etc.
  • Touch a metal/conductive portion of your desk (such as the frame under the top surface) as you get up. (If this doesn't help, your desk is isolated and could be grounded with a connection from the metal frame to ground -- it should already be grounded if it is a mechanized standing desk).
  • There are various anti-static products such as clothes dryer sheets, water misters, etc. which may work but be inconvenient to use, refill and maintain.
  • An employer of mine required everyone to wear ESD shoes or heel straps when entering a particular production area. You could potentially try inexpensive heel straps, but the effectiveness will depend on the type of flooring and construction of your work area.

The monitors you are using may be unusually sensitive to static discharge, potentially due to poor cable shielding, improper or insufficient grounding, or component/circuit/PCB that isn't chosen or designed well to reject interference from such discharges (read: cheap monitors). You could try changing signal and power cables to ones that include shielding or ferrite cores to help reduce their exposure to ESD, but in my experience it has rarely helped as much as reducing static directly.


You might want to check (or rather have an electrician) check the grounding situation of your AC mains outlet and see if it is really connected to ground. The computer and monitor should be connected to the same ground. The monitor itself should have a UL mark or similar ETL (like TUV ect) to make sure it's been tested against ESD. Make sure the monitor cable is plugged in correctly and the shield of the monitor cable is making contact with the chassis of montor and computer