Dumbest thing you've ever done

[daytrader7]

When I lived in Japan I had a case that had each little line from the usb seperate instead of the foolproof connector with the one pin hole filled. Well needless to say I loaded up melty blood ( a popular 2-d fighter and the time) plugged in my trusty logitech controller and suddenly smoke was everywhere. I looked in my case and saw the phenolic or whatever motherboard glowing cherry red about the size of a quarter around the usb header. It burnt a pinhole completely through my m/b but amazingly enough didn't do anything but destroy that one usb header.That m/b pushed an overclocked barton for about another year and a half after that with no problems whatsoever.

 

[Juno]

Originally posted by: Cheezeit

Originally posted by: Juno
i was a complete idiot for putting the memory stick upside down.

It doesn't even fit like that, the slot has a notch in the middle. Did you actually force it in? :Q

i was really stupid because i installed it in the dark. when i turned it on, the memory stick went on fire.

but i was lucky to revive the rest of parts except the memory ram and motherboard. however that rig went RIP, i moved on to am2.

 

[A5]

Back before PSUs auto-switched the incoming voltage, I thought that my old Duron system had died, but it turned out that the only thing that was wrong was that the PSU incoming voltage was set to 220V.

 

[Oyeve]

Back in the mid 80s, I had just spent 800 bucks on 515mb that was in about 16 SIPP chips, I installed all of the chips on my Intel Above Board (remember those? LiMSIM?) And after about an hour of installing the sipps, I turned on the pc and POOF! Smoked all the sipps because I put them in backwards. Us old timers will know what I mean.

 

[Smartazz]

I just made a ridiculus mistake today. I installed a second hard drive and I saw a plug lying around and I thought that it was a fan power plug. So I tugged and took the audio cable right out of my case on accident, so now when I boot up my computer it won't beep, so if there really is something wrong, I can't tell anymore lol.

 

[stevty2889]

Tried my brand new top of the line at the time 3.06ghz P4 with HT on a motherboard that only supported 400mhz FSB, but figured since it had no trouble overclocking to 533mhz FSB it just might work..it did long enough to boot in to windows..then both the motherboard and the power supply lost their magic smoke..

 

[airhd823]

One time I put high explosive C4 charges near my computer, and accidently lit them. Thankfully, only my cat was harmed, although digging the hole kinda sucked.

 

[zagood]

It's not supposed to be the "dumbest thing you ever posted."

-z

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Let's just say that I speak from experience when I say that high-voltage electrical discharge - for example, from PSU capacitors - hurts like a bitch.

- M4H

 

[Texun]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
Let's just say that I speak from experience when I say that high-voltage electrical discharge - for example, from PSU capacitors - hurts like a bitch.

- M4H

Oh man.... charged capacitors have a way of generating a sense of immediate alertness. I've been hit more than once. :Q

 

[Texun]

Originally posted by: Oyeve
Back in the mid 80s, I had just spent 800 bucks on 515mb that was in about 16 SIPP chips, I installed all of the chips on my Intel Above Board (remember those? LiMSIM?) And after about an hour of installing the sipps, I turned on the pc and POOF! Smoked all the sipps because I put them in backwards. Us old timers will know what I mean.

You reminded me of another dumb mistake from my early years... I bought used RAM to "upgrade" my 286 and couldn't figure out how to install them. That's when I learned about SIPPS and SIMMS.

As I read through the posts I am reminded that I made more stupid mistakes than I thought.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: airhd823
One time I put high explosive C4 charges near my computer, and accidently lit them. Thankfully, only my cat was harmed, although digging the hole kinda sucked.

Fantastic post, and you also evidently don't know that C4 explosive does not go off if you set fire to it. It will just burn with a strong flame for a long time. It doesn't even go off if you shoot or hit it, you need a detonator. American troops in vietnam used to use little lumps of C4 to cook over to make a fire.

 

[bluemax]

Originally posted by: Oyeve
Back in the mid 80s, I had just spent 800 bucks on 515mb that was in about 16 SIPP chips, I installed all of the chips on my Intel Above Board (remember those? LiMSIM?) And after about an hour of installing the sipps, I turned on the pc and POOF! Smoked all the sipps because I put them in backwards. Us old timers will know what I mean.

My first 386 used SIPPs instead of SIMMs... yecch.

The guy installing RAM in my Tandy 1000SX (XT-class) put one of the chips upside-down. Fortunately, no damage. Just flip & worked.

 

[sjandrewbsme]

When I was a kid, my dad got a fancy new work computer. I remember how it was FAST - a pentium 90 with a CDROM!

I was young and curious, so I started looking for and executing various executable files to see what they would do. I did this for any number of files - like maybe 50.

Then I got to a file called "diskprep.bat". This was a batch file that launched a low level format of the main drive. All of my dad's work = gone.

That sucked.

More related to the topic - I would say that the dumbest thing I've done was to get in a rush and connect the 4-pin power connector to my live drive front bay with the pins 1-pin off. This caused a dead short and nuked my power supply.

 

[mechBgon]

Dumbest thing you've ever done
while building and working on PC's

Forgetting to take the pizza out of the oven?


...or maybe the time I forced a 20-pin ATX cable into the socket 180° backwards. Burned pizza... or backwards ATX cable... hmmm.

That is/was a great guide, but the hardware in there is a bit dated. Lots of things have changed since the Socket A days.

If you didn't notice, I do cover a couple other socket types too ATX is still ATX, for the most part. I need to update the SATA page to address the new boards with AHCI modes, and the resources page needs an overhaul, but most of my efforts have gone into Windows security lately.

(suggestions welcome BTW, as long as they don't involve me buying a cutting-edge rig just to demonstrate how it goes together... /me is not wealthy )

 

[Looney]

I kid you not, but i had a coworker who used the CD drive as his cup holder. One day he accidentally brushed up against it and the CD bay was going in, spilling coffee into the floppy drive above it.

 

[bluemax]

Originally posted by: sjandrewbsme
When I was a kid, my dad got a fancy new work computer. I remember how it was FAST - a pentium 90 with a CDROM!

I was young and curious, so I started looking for and executing various executable files to see what they would do. I did this for any number of files - like maybe 50.

Then I got to a file called "diskprep.bat". This was a batch file that launched a low level format of the main drive. All of my dad's work = gone.

That sucked.

More related to the topic - I would say that the dumbest thing I've done was to get in a rush and connect the 4-pin power connector to my live drive front bay with the pins 1-pin off. This caused a dead short and nuked my power supply.

I'd take a nuked power supply over lost data any day!

 

[Mark R]

I accidentally put a CPU into its socket backwards (it was a 486, and the pins weren't arranged to prevent this).

The CPU got unbelievably hot, and there was an alarming burning smell before I realised there was a problem. When I went to reseat the CPU I found it had melted into the socket.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
If you didn't notice, I do cover a couple other socket types too ATX is still ATX, for the most part. I need to update the SATA page to address the new boards with AHCI modes, and the resources page needs an overhaul, but most of my efforts have gone into Windows security lately.

(suggestions welcome BTW, as long as they don't involve me buying a cutting-edge rig just to demonstrate how it goes together... /me is not wealthy )

Hah, looks like I didn't notice. Oops.

And yes, self-education via hardware purchases can be uh . . . expensive. That's sort of how I tricked myself into building my latest rig. It was educational, though.

 

[Slammy1]

I had the advantage of learning building from a friend who built PCs for a living, so I've never lost anything from static or forcing Connector A into Slot B. I guess I've never done anything to fry hardware immediately, but on my first o/c experience with a P2 system I did not realize that the PCI/AGP bus was affected as well and was wondering why I'd get those funny errors (I'm sure it contributed to the eventual demise of a couple of PCI cards, but a friend has the video card in a system and it's still running 9 years later). Now I've killed my software install many times, it used to be the thing to do -- install new software to improve some performance, PC no longer boots, spend several hours running down why. The worst was when I tried to dynamically change the cluster size of my RAID array (using Partition Magic) and didn't do a proper backup first. Lost the array and a few months worth of email and various documents and files. But it's like I always say; you learn more from the things you do wrong than the things you do right.

 

[jgar]

used a magnetic screwdriver. No problems though. Just didn't think it was a good idea.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Originally posted by: jgar
used a magnetic screwdriver. No problems though. Just didn't think it was a good idea.

Using a magnetic is fine. Just don't touch any components. I used a screwdriver, and a a thing that made my screwdirver temproraily magnetic. It worked fine.

Stupidest thing I've done. When I was 11, I bought parts at a site (something motherboard) and got them for like 200 dollars over what they should've been. I got 1,100 worth of parts tha should have cost 900.This is the first stupidest thing I've done)

I get the parts 3 weeks later. I put together everything. It was beautiul. I turn the computer on... turns on for a second...nothing. Me being the little naive kid, start panicking. I disconnect my hour of work, take everything apart, and put it back together. Still nothing

By this point I'm really panicking. I start doing everything I know, clearing CMOS, reseating PS, everything. I eventually took the mobo and got it replaced at a local store. The guys told me to use dividers to seperate the Mobo from my case because it had short circuted the Mobo and fried it pretty badly.

Me being stupid, declined to ask what a divider was. I went home, reattached my mobo to the case... turned it on...it short circuted again. The guys at the store were laughing at me, when I came back with a destroyed Mobo 30 minuets after I left.

I eventually got it working though.







I get back home, re

 

[RebateMonger]

This actually is a "user-error".....

In 1985, I showed my niece how to use word processing software on my Franklin 1000 (Apple II clone). She spent the whole afternoon laboriously typing a letter to her parents. When it was time to print the letter, I hit the key combination that activated the printer interface card. Something like Ctrl-3. But I hit the wrong key....and intiated a reboot of the PC instead of printing the letter. The whole letter was gone forever.

I apologized and the niece just said, "It's OK, Uncle.", and she took out a piece of paper and a pencil and started re-writing the letter by hand.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

I don't know how many times I've put together a brand new system from scratch, crossed my fingers as I pressed the power on button, & then panicked when nothing happened... Only to find out I hadn't plugged it in.

 

[JackRipper]

Originally posted by: Bob Anderson
When I did my first build in November 2005 I dutifully attached an anti-static strap to my wrist and grounded it to the metal case chassis, only to realize after the build was completed that because the PSU wasn't plugged into an AC socket, I wasn't grounded!

It was a very good thing it was a humid day, I have hardwood floors, and I regularly touched the kitchen sink tap.

-Bob

u us anti-static straps? lolz..