Worst PC Build Screw Ups - Page 2
Forum Overclocking : General Discussions - Worst PC Build Screw Ups
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Great thread man. Haven't enjoyed one as much as this in about a couple of months. I also did a couple of really stupid things in my lifetime.
The first thing wasn't all that stupid but it was my first encounter with smoke. Me and a friend got a huge box (a fridge box or something) full up with old pc spares (mostly 486/P1 type spares). We wanted to try and build a rig or 6 to learn all about pc as we didn't know much at the time. First we tested all the PSU's. We didn't know of the setting at the back to adjust the power. Plugged in one after the other and to our amazement the first 6 or so worked fine still. Then the gunshots started firing. We blew about 4 on the day. Biggest fright of my life at the time. 8O 8O 8O
The second really silly thing was with my Duron 1200+. My dad had gotten some nifty hdd trays that you just pull out the front of the case because he had to swap lots due to the limited size of drives back then. I borrowed a drive from a friend to copy some music or something. My uncle told me they were hot swappable and with the pc on i just pulled out my drive and stuck in my friend's and put it back in. It wasn't detected so I shut down the pc with the new drive still inside. In doing so it wrote my FAT over his and his drive now showed all my files and that is was 40GB and not 20 even though I couldn't access any of it. He was kinda pi$$ed at me... 
The other time was a year or 2 ago when I offered to help my friend mod his case. Positive that I could do it (seems easier than it is) from all the rigs I've seen on overclockersclub and similar sites I started. Changed all the molex connectors to blue, sleeved the cables, hid the wires and put in his new lights. When we started up the rig, the LEDs on the fans would flash (like in a club) as the power wouldn't stay on. Smoke came from the hdd and we noticed that I had swapped some of the wires around while changing the molex connectors.
I once blew a brand new psu as well from not reading the required power for the mobo. It was a 250W and the mobo wanted 300W minimum.
hmm..first great forum dudes...nice work......
lets see ...... worst pc //accident// ever.............hmmm...few psu blown apart.....same burned hdds......screwed bios-es ..........mostly stupid accidents indeed...
ahh..i got it .... i remember now.........you`re gonna laugh boys check this out...
once ..... i started one pc...and quess what .... i forgot to put the cpu into it`s socket but i mounted the heat sink 
....
imagine what followed....bum..same capacitors arround the cpu socket blew up.......it was like 4-th of july..real nice..fireworks....
| Quote : It wasn't so many years ago every government building, school or bank you walked into you were told, "I'll be a few minutes...computer is down!" |
It was like yesterday. The computer system was up for about 10 minutes every hour it seems! No matter where I went or who I called same story! LOL!
Well, once at my work, I passed by the office of the person responsible for distribution, and I heard that he told some customers on the phone, that we could not ship that day, because "the computer system was down". Thing was, it was working just fine - he just didn't feel like doing more work that day, and used the "computer is down" excuse.
Being the responsible for the computer system, I naturally had to report him to our boss 
| Quote : the only way to top that is trying to gargle peanut butter |
Mental Image.... 8O
Now some n00b is going to go out and try it. verndewd, you have lead to the death of a n00b.
| Quote : the only way to top that is trying to gargle peanut butter |
Mental Image.... 8O
Now some n00b is going to go out and try it. verndewd, you have lead to the death of a n00b.
Hey, if Vern can do it, why not a n00b?
| Quote :
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1) One of my first self-builds (A 486DX or something like that). It was a mini-tower, and I was upgrading the RAM or something. Back in those days you could really only take off 1 side of the tower. I needed to take the other side off, so I reached inside to see if there was a switch to pop the side off (Around the other side of the CD-ROM/Floppy cage). There was a switch there, for sure, but it wasn't for the case. It was the power switch. (For those I've dated with this story, the old AT form factor wired the live AC voltage right to the power switch). My arm jirked quickly (from the electricity?) and my fingers were burnt. I cut myself on the case when my arm jerked. Not smart.
2) Before I really knew about ports (and hardware in-general), I did this: I had a computer with 2 serial ports an a parallel port. One serial had my mouse (
), and the other was a scanner or something. Everytime I wanted to use the internet, I had to unplug the scanner and plug my external modem in (and vise-versa). I got tired of this, and not realizing the Parallel port was different than the serial-port, I found a wire that fit my parallel port on one side and my scanner on the other (scanner was serial). I plugged my serial scanner into the parallel port. Poof went the scanner. *edit* typo */edit*
3) My friend is just dumb, but noteworthy.He built his first computer without any advice or research. He built a P4, but only 1 stick of RAM (Ran it in single-channel. He thought because a 1GB stick was more expensive than 2 512MB, that it was better). He then bought E-IDE drives, but he had an SATA motherboard. He had one hard drive, but bragged to everyone he was running RAID (because his motherboard supports it). Moreover, he put his main HD on Primary Master, his CD-burner on slave. he had an old burner which had to be on MASTER to work right. He then started complaining that his new computer was slower than his old one, stating that windows AND games were slower. He was using integrated graphics.
Speaking of dumb friends... Back in the '80s I went shopping for a new dot matrix printer (laserjets were far too expensive then). So my friend from the office decided to tag along, although he didn't own a computer. You know the type - real nerd's nerd - coke-bottle glasses, Moe haircut and 60's 'Howdy Doody" plaid clown pants. I usually tried to keep my distance from him in public, so nobody would associate the two of us .
After I finish looking and am standing in line to pay for the new printer, I hear all this shouting from the rear of the store. Apparently my friend wanted to buy some Diablo-type daisy wheel printer and was asking a sales rep about compatibility issues, and finally blew his top when the rep asked 'What kind of computer are you going to be hooking it up to?' one too many times. My friend started shouting "I don't have any g*ddamn f*cking computer, you f*cking moron!" at the top of his lungs! Anyway the manager comes over and kicks us both out of the damn store! He must have seen us come in together or something... Most embarrassing moment ever.
Needless to say I never went shopping with that guy again...
worst mistake was on a old 66Mhz intel with a 2MB HDD(fast as hell 
) i was messing about with it when i accidently pulled out one of the litte black connectors from the motherboard you kno the little black connecter things, well i quickly plugged it back into place(well so ithought) needless to say i had plugged it in incorrectly, the computer started and the plastic covering on the wire heated and melted sending the thing up in smoke and flames.
other silly mistake was buying a AGP GFX card for a mobo that only supported PCI.
Well since you are building I though I might share this with you and everyone else here:
Murphy's Computing Laws Treat 'Em as Gospel Folks...
1. When computing, whatever happens, behave as though you meant it to happen.
2. When you get to the point where you really understand your computer, it's probably obsolete.
3. The first place to look for information is in the section of the manual where you least expect to find it.
4. When the going gets tough, upgrade.
5. For every action, there is an equal and opposite malfunction.
6. To err is human . . . to blame your computer for your mistakes is even more human, it is downright natural.
7. He who laughs last probably made a back-up.
8. If at first you do not succeed, blame your computer.
9. A complex system that does not work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine.
10. The number one cause of computer problems is computer solutions.
11. A computer program will always do what you tell it to do, but rarely what you want to do.
12. A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 men working 20 years make.
13. The computer will work perfectly at the repair shop.
14. Never test an error condition you don't know how to handle.
And Finally:
15. Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.
These are our 15 Commandments. Live by them or be prepared to put your head thru a wall in fustration.
Thanks to everyone for the submissions and please keep them coming.
Not really a giant FUB but a screw up none the less.
Remember before the wonder that is SATA when we had, and still have IDE drives? You know how you always had to set one drive to slave if you had two drives on the ribbon? I got a deal on two drives from Tigerdirect, one was a 20GB the other was a 150GB. Not remembering to check behind and set the jumpers, I just pluged in the IDE cable and the molex.
I powered up the system, when to BIOS and tried to figure out why the dumb thing couldn't see either of the drives.
A friend of my father's who also was a electrical engineer, kindly pointed out to me that you had to set one of the drives as a slave and one as a master.
A newbie mistake I'll say.
@Verndewd
Thanks for the promote. 
For you
Lovin moses and his 3rd tablet
The only thing bad so far as that I burned my fingers on an Athlon heatsink I put in my mom's PC. When I had put the system together, I didn't pay attention to where the main power connector bundle landed, and it sat just where it could touch the HS fan and stop it from spinning. Got so hot the PC was powering down and when I checked it, I scalded the ends of my fingers. Moved the wire bundle and it worked fine! Until about a year later that is, when the PS went up in smoke for some unknown reason. The little trail of smoke out the back of the PC was pretty funny though.
I'm on the forums everyday, I don't have any classes till the mornings so i can spend time browsing the threads while I do my homework, I'm still in the forums while in class (and I still have an A- average suckas), have multiple windows open, and try to help as many people as possible.
Did I mention that I've been addicted to coffee since I was 5, so I don't go to sleep till 2:30 EST? Hasn't stunted my growth yet.
Matter of fact, I recommend coffee to anyone under my age of 18 who is reading this.
| Quote : Matter of fact, I recommend coffee to anyone under my age of 18 who is reading this. |
So do I. Right now, I'm drinking mocha that I made by mixing coffee with milk and nesquik. All of this while finishing a response paper that's due tomorrow. I have writer's block, so I'm wasting my time on the forumz .
Oh, yeah; I'm a high-school freshman.
| Quote : Did I mention that I've been addicted to coffee since I was 5, so I don't go to sleep till 2:30 EST? |
O rly? How tall are you?
| Quote : you had to set one of the drives as a slave and one as a master. |
If I got a dollar for every time I've had a problem with the HD jumpers....
I've also miswired the USB header. I didn't fry the Mobo - I fried an iPod. (Thankfully nobody at Best Buy ever questions my returns).
I had an original IBM PC - I got it for free a few years ago from someone upgrading to a top-of-the-line PIII. I wanted the keyboard (why doesn't anybody make spring keyboards anymore) - got a DIN to PS2 adapter, and forgot that the original PC keyboard used different key scancodes than they do today. Needless to say, my garbage was about 100 pounds heavier that week. (I considered keeping it for nostalgia, but it just took up way too much space, and weighed a freakin' ton.)
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