What's the dumbest thing you've done as an experienced computer user?

[sharkeeper]

I burned ATi Catalyst 5.4 driver to a DVD-R. 25MB out of 4,700.

 

[Bootprint]

Plugged in the power to an HD upside down while the power was on.
It wasn't happy about seeing - on the + side, magic smoke came out of one of the chips.

 

[Juno]

Overclocked my pentinum 133mhz to 166mhz then motherboard got fried. Bought AMD k6-2 350mhz, learned a lesson not to overclock cpu processors.

Also, I deleted Windows folder because I thought I didn't need that kind of space. (Windows folder was the largest folder in the entire hard drive.)

 

[Crusty]

Deleted a partition that I shouldn't have :Q

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: jewno
Overclocked my pentinum 133mhz to 166mhz then motherboard got fried. Bought AMD k6-2 350mhz, learned a lesson not to overclock cpu processors.

wow, that chip must have hated you. That's really not a huge OC...

 

[MrYAK]

took the HSF off the CPU, when i went to take the CPU out, it wasnt there, then i looked at the bottom of the HSF.....oh.....there it is .......fvck

 

[redly]

i was working on a friends PC. one of those motherboards with bad electoytic caps. flawlessly replaced the caps without fvcking up any traces or overheating anything.

went to test it and forgot to plug in the HSF fan power. Oh, yeah, it was a 950 T-bird CPU

funny thing was, the replacement CPU cost me less than the Caps did (well, technically my old employer bought the caps )

 

[JetBlack69]

Executed a virus. Whoops. No damage done, but took a few minutes to clean it.

 

[vtqanh]

Originally posted by: jewno
Overclocked my pentinum 133mhz to 166mhz then motherboard got fried. Bought AMD k6-2 350mhz, learned a lesson not to overclock cpu processors.

Also, I deleted Windows folder because I thought I didn't need that kind of space. (Windows folder was the largest folder in the entire hard drive.)

The title was "What's the dumbest thing you've done as an experienced computer user."

 

[chuckywang]

I fvcked the USB port.

 

[So]

Originally posted by: sharkeeper
I burned ATi Catalyst 5.4 driver to a DVD-R. 25MB out of 4,700.

Weak.

How bout using my power supply's +5V floppy line to power a walkie talkie, then shorting the supply and crashing the computer (which was running during the whole operation). Everything was fine, but :shocked:.

 

[venk]

Spilled a 24 oz glass of water into my open computer while it was running.

It ran ok for a little while.

 

[So]

Originally posted by: venk
Spilled a 24 oz glass of water into my open computer while it was running.

It ran ok for a little while.

A VERY little while?

 

[AntisociaL]

Id say mine is forgetting to plug the heatsink fan in after a build,turn it on and think wow kind of quiet....OH CRAP,then do the mad dash reach for the switch on back of the psu.

 

[ArjSiv]

Mine:

I installed a new wireless card, I decided not to put the screw in figuring that something would go wrong with my luck as ususal and I'd have to start trying different PCI slots.

I boot my computer up, everything's fine so I decide to put the screw in. Being the clumsy oaf I am, I drop the screw and it starts rolling around on my sound card and motherboard. All of a sudden my computer shuts off.

Power button... nothing. Tried resetting via power bar... nothing. Then finally I left the power off for a few minutes and then turned it on again, it worked, apparently my motherboard had some capacitance left in it so it just needed a reset.

My computer turns on.. everything seems fine.. but Linux wont recognize my sound card... i boot into Windows... nothing.

Tried all sorts of stuff, I blew my sound card that day

Another stupid thing I did: with my old PC, I noticed my PC was really dusty so I decided to get rid of the dust a bit. Instead of using the conventional means of getting rid of the dust, I decided to use the nossle on my vaccum cleaner.

So... I started sucking up the dust all around my PC... and it was getting pretty tidy, I was impressed with myself for thinking of such a great idea! Me being clumsy again... I slipped a bit and the nossle hit some of the capacitors on the motherboard loose and sucked them up.... DOH

Luckily I had just bought the motherboard and the guy at the computer store I bought it from was a real jerk and an idiot so I just exchanged it

 

[amdskip]

I was hooking up a cold cathod a couple years back and aparently shorted out a couple wires which in turn fried my new 60gb Seagate hard drive.

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

The stupidest thing I've ever done?

Back in the Windows 3.1 days, I put every single .exe on my 119MB Hard drive into an "EXE" folder. I put every single .dll into a "DLL" folder. I put every single file type in it's own little folder.

Needless to say, the computer gave me the finger when I tried to boot it next time. I was around 5 at the time.

Stupidest thing I've done recently? Plugged in the floppy power cable upside down. Fried the drive. Smelled for days.

 

[Schadenfreude]

I deleted a porn file I liked.

 

[msi1337]

I wish this was a thread about what I have seen in my years of being a pc tech!

anyways...the worst I did was when I just learned how to install an Athlon socket a processor I forgot to remove the plastic under the heatsink and it melted to the board... the same day (as if my boss wasnt mad enough) I dropped a seagate hard drive on the ground and watched it bounce a good 2 feet in the air (yes hard drives really do bounce)... after I picked it up it sounded like a jar of nails!

thankfully that was years ago, and I know better now!

 

[spanky]

Originally posted by: Jehovah
I deleted a porn file I liked.

bleh... if u were "experienced" you would have gotten it back.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

nothing, I fix the dumb things experienced computer users do.

 

[dug777]

i touched the bottom of my 160GB WD to see how hot it was with wet hands

it stopped VERY quickly

 

[kt]

Originally posted by: AntisociaL
Id say mine is forgetting to plug the heatsink fan in after a build,turn it on and think wow kind of quiet....OH CRAP,then do the mad dash reach for the switch on back of the psu.

I think I got you beat there. Did the same thing except I finished installing an entire OS and wondered why it's running so damn slow with a clean OS. I am shocked that the CPU is still running after that and still is until this day. It's an AMD Athlon 1.2GHz.

 

[OverVolt]

Tried to boot a computer with a busted PSU FOUR TIMES thus shocking the living hell out of it.

me: 'hmm it didnt boot, let me try AGAIN :evil:'

I kept trying thinking it was something minor until the PSU literally blew up.

 

[eelw]

Was transporting a HD without any anti-static bag in my backpack. When emptying said backpack, found one of the surface mounted components from the HD lying loose. Luckily, it was only like a 6GB drive.