Your technology confessions: What have you never told anyone?

[SparkyJJO]

Did it do anything bad? I'm assuming going from 120v setting to 240v setting? All the voltages would be halved so the system would probably just lock up. Did it actually kill it?

Once a coworker did the opposite. Went to plug a PC into a server rack PDU, did not realize that PDU was 240v, but the switch was set to 120. It killed the system. POOF! Just like that. :biggrin:

I flipped the switch to 240v once to see what would happen, figuring it wouldn't blow up or anything. Oddly enough, it ran normally Opened it up and the wires weren't connected so if someone tried plugging it in to 240v and flipping the switch it still would have blown up

 

[Ns1]

I broke my nose playing a NES game. I died and threw myself back on the bed and my knee came up and broke my nose.

I've paid money for extra moves on candy crush.

Wow.

 

[moonwalker]

I have ran my laptop in Safe Mode with Networking, everyday for the last 2 months.
Something is causing it to freeze up and I am too lazy to figure out what is causing it.
(it works fine in Safe Mode)

I might just buy a new laptop instead of reinstalling Windows.

the same thing happened to me because of viruses.

 

[Destiny]

I gave away 11 perfectly working CRT monitors (sizes ranging from 15inch to 20inches) to the electronic recycling company... they were taking up too much space in the garage...

 

[Carson Dyle]

I have thrown away perfectly good PC parts just because I didn't want to mess with selling them online.

Same here. If I can't give something away to a friend, it gets recycled. Only a few things are worth the time and trouble of selling and shipping. I'm constantly amazed at the FS listings with pages full of stuff like "USB cable, $4 shipped".

 

[William Gaatjes]

I once got a 486DX2-66MHz CPU + MB + graphic card from another electronic enthusiast. But in those days, it was vesa local bus instead of pci-e or agp for the graphic card. Those vesa local bus slots were long, up to almost the width of the MB. I tested the whole setup out of the box and it worked. I screwed the setup into a case but the backside was warped and thus the MB also got a bit warped. I did not see that the vesa local bus connector was creating a short circuit because the MB was warped like a banana. When i turned on the power, the MB went "poof" with a lot of crackling and sizzeling. I yelled out asking : "why me" . I never had the hart to tell that i blew up the MB. When i saw him, i told it all just worked fine while not looking the person straight in the eyes.

And i have an issue with throwing away pc stuff. I have a lot of spare parts left that i also gave to my brother but he gave it back a while ago. Now i have to test it all to see if it still functions before i can give it away again.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Did it do anything bad? I'm assuming going from 120v setting to 240v setting? All the voltages would be halved so the system would probably just lock up. Did it actually kill it?

I don't know about going from the 120 V to 240 V setting while plugged into a 120 V source, but I can verify being plugged into a 240 V source on the 120 V setting causes a very, very loud pop.

I was leading a project at our office in South Korea a few years ago, and I plugged in a PC but forgot to flip the switch from 120 V to 240 V. It sounded like a gunshot and everyone ran into the office asking what happened.

 

[biostud]

I have told this before but:

Paid to have my floppy disk drive fixed. I had just reversed the cable.

Fried my Intel 320 160gb SSD, because I put the sata power cable into the 12V CPU power outlet on my new PSU.

 

[lxskllr]

I forgot one. I had flipped the internal connector for the front USB ports on a case, and fried a couple mp3 players and a camera before I realized the problem. The strange thing was USB drives worked fine in the ports. I'm not sure how that could be. Some time when I'm bored I may look in to it.

 

[gorcorps]

I've had really good customer service from Best Buy when I needed it, and actually consider them one of my top stores for customer service. It's such a stark contrast from what other people have claimed to experiecne that it's my belief that these people acted like assholes and got what they deserved.

 

[gorcorps]

I am addicted to technology.

I fully expect to buy a new gaming laptop in the upcoming weeks, complete with latest & greatest CPU/GPU, SSD, ect, as I do almost every year. Probably spend north of $2000 and will never use it for anything other than web browsing and an errant photo touch up here and there. I'll also get the PS4 and XB1 soon enough, knowing full well that if I get 4 or 5 games over the life of them, it will probably be a lot.

I was poor as a kid and never had the cool stuff, now that I am an adult and can afford it, I 'need' it even though I will most likely never use it as intended.

Every year? Do you give away the "old" one to family/friends, or sell it? Or worse... just leave it lying around doing nothing for nobody

 

[Perknose]

A friend got a new computer with a touch screen and Win 8, and wants me to teach him how to use it. I don't want any parts of the "Win 8" parts of Win 8, so I literally have near zero experience with it.

I loathe texting speak. Here is the beginning of a google chat with a long time friend in LA who's my effing age -- i.e., officially old -- but wants to be ironically hip:

Steve Anter
r u willing to endure my abbreviations?9:34 PM
corr: ndur9:34 PM

Perknose
I actually don't want to communicate this way9:37 PM
Sorry.9:37 PM
We could talk on the phone9:37 PM
Or type like full fledged adults9:37 PM

Steve Anter
ok. i'll try. do i have to use caps? bukowski never used caps in his prose9:38 PM

Perknose
NOPE9:38 PM
AS LONG AS I CAN TYPE IN ALL CAPS9:38 PM
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?9:39 PM

 

[Perknose]

I gave away 11 perfectly working CRT monitors (sizes ranging from 15inch to 20inches) to the electronic recycling company... they were taking up too much space in the garage...

I put 9 of them, all working last I knew and ranging from 17 - 21 inches (including some once really expensive, high resolution and elephant heavy pro graphic models) out at the end of my driveway in two waves and both waves were gone before the day ended.

 

[BertolomeoDiaz]

just broke off four pins off of my fx 8350 15 minutes ago, when i tried to get it out of the socket for change of mobo
it was stuck, so i used a knife to lift the edge, i think i cut them off
or they were broken all along, sitting loose in the socket, that´s where i saw a brassy shine, or i wouldn´t have noticed
that might explain the instability i was experiencing even at stock clocks (prime 95 always reporting error within 2-3 seconds, no matter what, tried increased voltage)

could it even have been running with 4 pins broken off?

now i have a nice new mobo and a new, never used r9 290 and my cpu is done for,
and i´ll have to get a new fx8320 or something like that, as i have just invested in the mobo
it´s a vicious circle of spending on hardware all over again

does anyone think next gen fx will be for am3+ ?
then i might settle for fx 6300 for now and get the new thing as soon as it´s out there

happy new year

will try soldering, but i am sceptical

 

[lxskllr]

I loathe texting speak. Here is the beginning of a google chat with a long time friend in LA who's my effing age -- i.e., officially old -- but wants to be ironically hip:

There's no excuse for that shit. There's a few convenient abbreviations imo(<-), but you should type like you're a native speaker. I drilled it into my daughter's head, and her friends think she's a grammar nazi :^D

One that confused me longer than it should have was neway. I'd see it online occasionally.

neway? WTF is "neeway"?!

I'd see it again a couple months later, and it still wouldn't click. Then one time...

Hmm... neway... neway... !@$# ARE YOU FUCKIN" KIDDING ME??!! anyway??!! You worthless piece of shit! You type like a retard to save one fuckin' character, and look like a moron in the process!

That's the low hanging fruit for deciding someone doesn't have anything(nething :^P) valuable to say :^D

 

[highland145]

snip

niway

 

[dbk]

There's no excuse for that shit. There's a few convenient abbreviations imo(<-), but you should type like you're a native speaker. I drilled it into my daughter's head, and her friends think she's a grammar nazi :^D

One that confused me longer than it should have was neway. I'd see it online occasionally.

neway? WTF is "neeway"?!

I'd see it again a couple months later, and it still wouldn't click. Then one time...

Hmm... neway... neway... !@$# ARE YOU FUCKIN" KIDDING ME??!! anyway??!! You worthless piece of shit! You type like a retard to save one fuckin' character, and look like a moron in the process!

That's the low hanging fruit for deciding someone doesn't have anything(nething :^P) valuable to say :^D

Reminds me of this gem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nIUcRJX9-o

 

[Kaido]

Reminds me of this gem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nIUcRJX9-o

Haha, that's a classic. We quoted "idk, my bff Jill?" for months afterwards

 

[homebrew2ny]

Every year? Do you give away the "old" one to family/friends, or sell it? Or worse... just leave it lying around doing nothing for nobody

Every year, yes. I am usually able to find a family member, friend, or someone local in my community wanting/needing a laptop. In fact I just gave my ASUS G75 to a local family that was in need. They are good people but are struggling like many, and having 3 teenage kids and only 1 ancient PC was starving them of inspiration and creativity. Likewise, my son, parents, sisters & their respective families have all reaped the benefits over the years as well.

Mind you this incorporates not only laptops but tablets, ipads, & gaming systems as well. If I did not have good places to 'donate' them too I probably would not be so interested in replacing yearly, but then again my addiction is strong...

 

[pete6032]

The wireless internet in our house is absolutely slow and unreliable and none of my roommates understand how wifi works. I've connected another router and am using it as a bridge so my connection is blazing fast. No one knows that I know how to fix the "slow internet" and I don't intend on telling them because I'd rather have all the bandwith to myself.

 

[Red Squirrel]

A friend got a new computer with a touch screen and Win 8, and wants me to teach him how to use it. I don't want any parts of the "Win 8" parts of Win 8, so I literally have near zero experience with it.

I loathe texting speak. Here is the beginning of a google chat with a long time friend in LA who's my effing age -- i.e., officially old -- but wants to be ironically hip:

I can tollerate text speak to some extent, but sometimes people come up with ridiculously long abbreviations, in fact think I've seen people do that even here. Something like WWYDWYOHW. WTF is that suppose to mean? lol I think if an abbreviation is longer than 4-5 characters it's no longer an abbreviation and perhaps find a different way to convey the message, such as actually typing out the whole sentence. :biggrin:

 

[Leros]

I RMA'd a graphics card twice because I thought it wasn't working with my dual monitors as the BIOS wasn't displaying on both screens. I never even tried to install drivers. There was nothing wrong with the cards, that's just how it worked. Once I installed the drivers, everything worked fine. In my defense, the 5-10 other computers I've run dual monitors on showed the BIOS on both screens. I think I had always used ATI cards in the past (even at work) and this was my first NVidia card.

 

[HeXen]

Sell your stuff here next time. Many of us will pay you for what you are throwing away. You will get much more than jackshit and there is really very little hassle. Your local UPS store or the like will even package it for you. Money in your pocket for making a post, answering pms and dropping it off with shipping info you printed out.


As to the topic: I have bought into the Apple hate and I have never even tried one of their products. Most uncharacteristic of me; I cannot even begin to explain it. I have this inexplicable, almost instinctive loathing of, all things Apple. :|

Their stuff is just nice to use. Their trackpad is like fingering a vagina, no shit.

FYI -- Pidgin with an AOL account (and probably software and accounts) supports texting. I text my brothers and friends from my PC all the time.

AOL? Sounds like someone needs to step into the confessional.

There's no excuse for that shit. There's a few convenient abbreviations imo(<-), but you should type like you're a native speaker. I drilled it into my daughter's head, and her friends think she's a grammar nazi :^D

One that confused me longer than it should have was neway. I'd see it online occasionally.

neway? WTF is "neeway"?!

I'd see it again a couple months later, and it still wouldn't click. Then one time...

Hmm... neway... neway... !@$# ARE YOU FUCKIN" KIDDING ME??!! anyway??!! You worthless piece of shit! You type like a retard to save one fuckin' character, and look like a moron in the process!

That's the low hanging fruit for deciding someone doesn't have anything(nething :^P) valuable to say :^D

I keep forgetting what some abbreviations and meme's mean. Like nsfw, rtfm or neff which the latter seems restricted to this forum? and stuff like that, I have to look them up every time i need to know what it means.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

rtfm has probably been said or written by every single IT support ever. Except maybe my dad.

 

[Zorander]

It's not me but it's worth mentioning:

A work staff lodged an IT support ticket, saying that her Excel install had disappeared.

Upon investigation, it was found that she had simply minimised her Excel window.