Dumbest thing you've ever done

[Texun]

Originally posted by: RanDum72
Another stupid thing I used to do: stripping wire with my teeth. My friend had this fancy Pentium MMX PC with a humongous 64mb RAM attached to his "home music studio". He wanted to add some more audio power so we got this Crown 500w/channel amp to hook up to a couple of JBL's and a Cerwin Vega sub held together by a passive cross-over. Because the amp is rack mounted inside a closet, I attached 12g speaker first to the amp, then ran the wires outside. Somewhere along the way, I turned on the amp just to see if it works and never turned it off. Guess what happens when you strip a wire thats attached to a high current amp with your teeth? I burned my lower lip and had tingling sensations in my teeth for weeks.

Damn that was funny..... funny to read anyway. :beer:

 

[BakaTsuchiro]

pulling out a 4 pin connector out of a video card when it was on... made a big spark......

 

[Texun]

I guess reading all of these goofs didn't help me avoid my latest dumb mistake. This is a new one for me.

I had a perfectly working 754 system that I use as a back up media box\server. Last night while checking for updates I noticed the BIOS was not the latest, and although it was working perfectly fine I was bored and decided to give it an update. I've done this 100 times before and never had a problem so why should I be worried? The flash made it to 50% and puked. I tried reinstalling the old BIOS that I had saved but it failed. Now I have a perfect door stop.

There is no BIOS recovery in this board, and hours of Googling and resetting the chip produced nothing. I could buy a new BIOS but that's a gamble, so for $20 more I pulled a new Abit off Ebay and will be replacing it next weekend. Man this sucks. That Gigabyte was a great board.

I guess this is what I get for laughing at RanDum72's last post.

Rule #1 - if it's not broke don't fix it.

 

[Rottie]

Thank Lord I never done DUMBEST thing I ever done with my PC!

 

[Davegod]

My first build. I knew nothing about computers and had never used internet - like 99% of the population back then. I'd just opened up the DX-2 50mhz family IBM and figured "why not".

I bought the P200mmx parts, the first lot of parts that is, from a mail order company. I had realised I would need a new motherboard, memory and harddrive - or at least I ordered those anyway.

The mail order company was genius. The CPU & HSF came pre-installed in the mobo. Good job really, the old machine (i.e. my sole reference) just had a plain tiny little heatsink clipped on dry.

Right away it was all f'd up. This stuff was all different in unimagined ways. For example, I hadnt realised I'd need a new case, got one from a local store. I did use the manuals but they've come a long, long way since what 1995? After much head-scratching, and phone calls to a friend's dad, it was together - or at least it looked right.

Picture me gaping at the back of the box with a monitor cable in hand, looking most confused. WTF? Cue trip to local computer store for a "video card".

It all looked good. Turned on, all still seemed good. Wasn't really doing much though. Turns out the IBM setup wouldnt do and I'll have to learn reinstalling an OS. DOS and Windows 3.1 weren't fun, but it worked. Worked better with Windows 95.

As I recall it took me at least a week and required about twice as much stuff as I'd initially purchased. But, I did it, it worked and it worked good - better than I could buy in the shops and for half the money. And it was all me. I learned more than 5 years of computing classes at high school, which I subsequently aced with no effort whatsoever. More importantly I learned to believe "where there's a will, there's a way".

Why such "will"? Quake. thanks id.



Sometime later I bought a dial-up modem. Damn thing wouldnt work. Sent the whole pc to my friendly local computer shop who said it worked right away, nice job there son they're tricky beasts. When I got it back I plugged the phone line, without looking, into the correct socket and was surprised when it worked right away.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Hmm... Update on stupid things.

I forgot to Defrag my drive and accidentally screwed up installing Ubuntu, totally killing my Windows XP... Had to use my System Rescue CD (love that thing) to delete all the partitions and reinstall everything... good thing everything was backed up on my flash drive...

 

[angry hampster]

I was doing my first computer build (my current machine) back in October of this year. I didn't realize that you need to use standoffs for the motherboard. I didn't realize I needed them until about a month of usage. Somehow everything worked just fine, but I could've easily fried some expensive parts.

 

[nerp]

Anyone remember the guy out there who thought water cooling actually entailed putting water INSIDE the case like it's a fishtank? He sealed all the holes and stuff and poured water into it and then was furious when he fried the whole thing. There was some classic forum thread about it way back and I often think of it and smile.

 

[KIAman]

1) Insert DDR memory backwards, put enough force to clip it in place. Broken ram and mb

2) Attempting to take off ramsinks to determine type of IC only to pull entire bank of ICs right off the PCB.

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: angry hampster
I was doing my first computer build (my current machine) back in October of this year. I didn't realize that you need to use standoffs for the motherboard. I didn't realize I needed them until about a month of usage. Somehow everything worked just fine, but I could've easily fried some expensive parts.

I seriously doubt that everything worked fine. Multiple electrical contacts would be touching the metal and shorting out.... Unless the case had some slightly raised points where the screws went in.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

wait... I just used screws from sears to put my mobo in... Are you kidding? I have a GA-P35-DS3L, which didn't come with standoffs... It does have special raised slots for the screws with no circuitry near them...

 

[Goldfish4209]

1. forgot that thumb screw was metal and put set it on the graphics card while it was running RIGHT ON TOP of the GPU. There was a spark, the screen went black, and I though "oh crap". Luckily, I rebooted and no damage was done.

2. Attempted to run new rig with old antiquated DDR2 533 while waiting for DDR-800. Mobo didn't support 533, so I waited for 2 days thinking I had fried 1.7K of hardware.

3. Ah yes, checking if the fans that came with the case were adequate and slashing a 1 inch gash across my thumb...

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Hah! I can beat that! I got 3 gashes!

 

[AVP]

So I was installing my new hard drive, not more than a few weeks ago. Was messing with the wiring at the bottom of my case to make easier access to the lower drive bay, so I pulled out the other sata connector, did my thing and tried to plug it back in. I wasn't really looking at what I was doing too well, did not have a flaslight on me. Well after a few minutes of struggling. I look closely at the cable and, OOPS, the connector had ripped right off of my mobo and was still connected to the cable.

 

[RanDum72]

Originally posted by: BlueAcolyte
Hah! I can beat that! I got 3 gashes!

Remember the days of the jet-engine Delta fans? the ones that can overload the mobo fan header? I had those freakin loud delta's from the 60mm (attached to a Swiftech built-like-a-brick HS, socket 462) all the way to 90mm ones ( I stopped there, thinking it doesn't make sense anymore). And yes, I did bleed for those fans, but only once.

 

[trOver]

Originally posted by: tenshodo13
<blockquote>quote:
Originally posted by: jgar
used a magnetic screwdriver. No problems though. Just didn't think it was a good idea.</blockquote>

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

Don't sweat it, I did the same thing....

only once though

 

[stickybytes]

My worst pc moment happened in the worst of all environments, at the workplace unfortunately. Working as a student technician over the summer, I was sent to replace a hard drive on a doctor's pc. I was still nervous since it was among my first days on the job and in haste, I ended up plugging in the ide cable upside down, breaking a pin on the original hard drive. Needless to say, my superiors were not happy and it didn't help that that hard drive only had about every student record in the department ... I certainly have to count my blessings for not getting fired for this incident.

 

[potato28]

Well....

1) Trying to plug in a PSU connector to the motherboard, starting it up and it isn't working. So I decide to hold it. *ZAP* Wire had a break in it and I got a nice little tip for my kindness.

2) Shocked a HDD by plugging it in while the PC was running. What a great way to waste a HDD and a nice motherboard.

3) Somehow I managed to mutilate a motherboard and installed some DDR backwards... Same motherboard that was later fried by the HDD

4) I cut my fingers on this one heatsink 5 times because I couldn't find the release switch, and it was on the opposite side I was looking on...

I think thats it, theres probably more...

 

[TemjinGold]

1) I was like 12 at the time. Had one of those 386/486 mobos (soldered 386 cpu with an upgrade socket for a 486 cpu next to it.) Ordered a 486 dx2-66 and plugged it into the socket. It worked! Then I thought, if I could just get the old 386 cpu out, I could sell it instead of it just being useless there. Got to work with a flathead screwdriver. That day I learned that soldered cpus aren't supposed to come out...

2) So I wrecked that mobo. Got parents to order me a new mobo. This one had an actual ZIF socket with a handle (old mobo's 486 socket had no handles or anything, cpu was just pushed in.) Thinking the handle was decoration, I pushed the cpu in like I did w/ the old board and fired it up. That day I learned the function of that metal handle.

End result? 1 dead mobo, 1 useless pried 386 cpu, 1 dead 486 cpu, and one new store brand pc. It would be more than 5 years (when I built one to take to college) before my parents trusted me enough to let me build another system.

Edit: Forgot to clarify: 486 cpu died because I broke the pins pushing it into the ZIF socket w/o lifting the handle. Mobo died because (almost forgot this!) the stupid 20-pin ATX power cable would plug in either way (and of course I plugged it in the wrong way)...

 

[mizzou]

I don't even think I did anything wrong, but my computer refused to power.

I removed the case to watch fans, power lights, etc. just to see what was receiving power and what wasn't.

Pressed power and then my 6600GT AGP burst into flames. One transister popped and literally fired off into a 1 1/2 inch bright flame.

Knowing how easy it is to put out electrical fires (sarcasm =) ), I somehow blew it out with my lungs and then it sparked up again like a trick flame.

Anyway, I was somehow able to get the manufacturer to replace it with a PCI-Express card because I made a huge deal about how that card could have burned my house down.

I found out later on that the AGP XFX 6600GT's were ticking time bombs.

 

[Amaroque]

Originally posted by: nerp
Anyone remember the guy out there who thought water cooling actually entailed putting water INSIDE the case like it's a fishtank? He sealed all the holes and stuff and poured water into it and then was furious when he fried the whole thing. There was some classic forum thread about it way back and I often think of it and smile.

Thats halirous!

 

[DissonanceSky]

While I'm working on my latest (and no doubt dumb) error; I'll add with my dumbest one.

While this didn't happen during the build process, it was something that has enough to do with the installation that I thought it was worth the chuckle.

For whatever reason it didn't register that a liquid cooling system was NOT an air-tight system. So a month or so after finishing my computer I come back from class and notice my computer is off, and shortly after it not turning on that my reservoir is less than 1/8 full.....

That cost me a MB and VC

 

[angry hampster]

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: angry hampster
I was doing my first computer build (my current machine) back in October of this year. I didn't realize that you need to use standoffs for the motherboard. I didn't realize I needed them until about a month of usage. Somehow everything worked just fine, but I could've easily fried some expensive parts.

I seriously doubt that everything worked fine. Multiple electrical contacts would be touching the metal and shorting out.... Unless the case had some slightly raised points where the screws went in.

The only problem I ever had with it was that my onboard audio never worked quite right. It would work fine through the front case jack, but the rear jack was dead.