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I nearly stripped a PII266 for parts when all that was wrong with it was a dodgy power switch(this was when PII350 was the top bollox CPU)......Whooops :-0
M
one of the first UK T-Bird users....
M
one of the first UK T-Bird users....
I had this 486 (my only computer at the time) and something that I really couldn't afford to replace at the time. I was living up in the mountains and we had really bad power. Everytime there was a storm power would surge and blackout everytime. I would run my system through the storm everytime and only get pissed when I didn't save before the outtage. A year later (after I had a job that I could afford replacement parts) the power supply finally gave up the ghost. I'm amazed it worked as long as it did, must've been surged like 50-100 times.
"The answer is not in your hair."
"I'd rather jump in the lava than be fragged by you."
"The answer is not in your hair."
"I'd rather jump in the lava than be fragged by you."
Back in march 96, convinced my dad to buy an IBM Aptiva instead of a Dell because I liked the speakers that came with it.It cost 4000 CA$ for P100 w/16 meg RAM & Trident 1meg video card.
How about this:-
After installing a new m/b(jetway) and chip(celery366),I started to reconnect everything back up.Got my M/soft F/F wheel connected to the 1st comm port then went to plug in my modem to the 2nd one when the f@#?ing lot came away in my hand.Talk about having a touch like a rapist.
After installing a new m/b(jetway) and chip(celery366),I started to reconnect everything back up.Got my M/soft F/F wheel connected to the 1st comm port then went to plug in my modem to the 2nd one when the f@#?ing lot came away in my hand.Talk about having a touch like a rapist.
My dad once bought an Amstrad PC1640, running GEM desktop.
Still, at least I becaume familiar with DOS...
I did have fun playing Battletech on it though...
DESIGN TEAM.
Still, at least I becaume familiar with DOS...
I did have fun playing Battletech on it though...
DESIGN TEAM.
Grizely1
Splendid
- Dec 31, 2007
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Ok this is one:
I was trying to overclock my Athlon 750, so I set the FSB to 120 (120*7.5 = 900). I thought HECK THIS AINT ENOUGH so I changed the FSB and PCI clock to like 135 and 55 or something, then added another 10 FSB MHz, so it was 145MHz FSB and a 55MHz PCI clock. STUPID ME!!!!!
I turned it on and the computer didn't even boot. I got that wierd feeling in my gut as I though, "OH (*#*(% I FRIED MY COMPUTER"
But then I reset the BIOS and everything worked 😉
I was trying to overclock my Athlon 750, so I set the FSB to 120 (120*7.5 = 900). I thought HECK THIS AINT ENOUGH so I changed the FSB and PCI clock to like 135 and 55 or something, then added another 10 FSB MHz, so it was 145MHz FSB and a 55MHz PCI clock. STUPID ME!!!!!
I turned it on and the computer didn't even boot. I got that wierd feeling in my gut as I though, "OH (*#*(% I FRIED MY COMPUTER"
But then I reset the BIOS and everything worked 😉
HamsterSlayer
Distinguished
- Dec 31, 2007
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I once connected the FDD cable to my diskdrive while my PC was running...and all of a sudden my HD had gotten a bunch of bad sectors...I was able to get a new from the store though
slvr_phoenix
Splendid
- Dec 31, 2007
- 6,157
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I was trying to set up a dual-boot between Win98 and DOS. (I still have a bunch of great old DOS games like Earth Siege 1 and Battledrome that just don't work under Win95 and higher thanks to Microshaft's lack of backwards compatability with DOS emulation not covering all DOS assembly interupts.)
So there I am, brilliantly following what info I can find on doing this using a single unpartitioned hard drive. It ammounted to some feature actually built into Windows (but hardly documented) where it would swap system files so that it could boot in either DOS or Windows, so long as you put the DOS files there for it to use.
I get all the work done, boot it up into DOS mode, and violla: NOT A SINGLE THING WORKS.
What did I do wrong? You see there is this thing called FAT32 that DOS just doesn't know how to read...
And, of course, like a genius, I hadn't tested my one and only recovery floppy. It just happened to have gone bad since I last created it. Oops.
So there I am with TWO operating systems and neither of them will load because Windows is making it boot up with the DOS boot since that was the last thing I attempted, and DOS couldn't read my hard drive using FAT32 instead of FAT16.
Eventually I had to take it over to a friend's house and use his floppy to boot it up so that I could change it back over to booting up Win98. Once I had his WORKING boot disk, it took only a minute or two to restore to working order.
- Sanity is purely based on point-of-view.
So there I am, brilliantly following what info I can find on doing this using a single unpartitioned hard drive. It ammounted to some feature actually built into Windows (but hardly documented) where it would swap system files so that it could boot in either DOS or Windows, so long as you put the DOS files there for it to use.
I get all the work done, boot it up into DOS mode, and violla: NOT A SINGLE THING WORKS.
What did I do wrong? You see there is this thing called FAT32 that DOS just doesn't know how to read...
And, of course, like a genius, I hadn't tested my one and only recovery floppy. It just happened to have gone bad since I last created it. Oops.
So there I am with TWO operating systems and neither of them will load because Windows is making it boot up with the DOS boot since that was the last thing I attempted, and DOS couldn't read my hard drive using FAT32 instead of FAT16.
Eventually I had to take it over to a friend's house and use his floppy to boot it up so that I could change it back over to booting up Win98. Once I had his WORKING boot disk, it took only a minute or two to restore to working order.
- Sanity is purely based on point-of-view.
Not really my stupidity here, but a tech support story/joke/myth floating around...
"No smoke"
Guy gets this call into tech support, greets the client and immediately the client tells him, "There's smoke coming out of the back of my PC, how do I get it to stop?"
Tech: "Your computer is on fire! Unplug it now!"
Client: "No, I know there is a command I can type in to stop my computer from smoking. You're going to tell me what it is."
Tech: "No, really your computer is on fire, you need to unplug it right away!"
This goes on for almost half an hour, the client absolutely convinced that a simple command will stop his computer from smoking. All this time the computer is still on, still smoking and amazingly still running. Only guess is the insulation on a power cable was burning or the like.
After all this time, the tech finally gives up and tells the client, "Ok, I'm not supposed to tell you this but here goes..."
Client, listening for once "Finally... ok, so what do I do?"
Tech: "Type in this exactly, nosmoke.exe and hit enter."
Client: (Typing sounds) "It said 'bad command or filename'. What does that mean?"
Tech: "That's what I was afraid of, your computer doesn't have the latest version of nosmoke.exe. You'll need to talk to Microsoft for an upgrade."
Client: "Thanks! I'll call them right away." (hangs up)
A week later, the same tech answers another call and it's that same guy!
Client: "Hi, I called Microsoft and they said my computer won't run their version of nosmoke.exe and I need to upgrade my computer."
- Hope you enjoyed. 😛
"The answer is not in your hair."
"I'd rather jump in the lava than be fragged by you."
"No smoke"
Guy gets this call into tech support, greets the client and immediately the client tells him, "There's smoke coming out of the back of my PC, how do I get it to stop?"
Tech: "Your computer is on fire! Unplug it now!"
Client: "No, I know there is a command I can type in to stop my computer from smoking. You're going to tell me what it is."
Tech: "No, really your computer is on fire, you need to unplug it right away!"
This goes on for almost half an hour, the client absolutely convinced that a simple command will stop his computer from smoking. All this time the computer is still on, still smoking and amazingly still running. Only guess is the insulation on a power cable was burning or the like.
After all this time, the tech finally gives up and tells the client, "Ok, I'm not supposed to tell you this but here goes..."
Client, listening for once "Finally... ok, so what do I do?"
Tech: "Type in this exactly, nosmoke.exe and hit enter."
Client: (Typing sounds) "It said 'bad command or filename'. What does that mean?"
Tech: "That's what I was afraid of, your computer doesn't have the latest version of nosmoke.exe. You'll need to talk to Microsoft for an upgrade."
Client: "Thanks! I'll call them right away." (hangs up)
A week later, the same tech answers another call and it's that same guy!
Client: "Hi, I called Microsoft and they said my computer won't run their version of nosmoke.exe and I need to upgrade my computer."
- Hope you enjoyed. 😛
"The answer is not in your hair."
"I'd rather jump in the lava than be fragged by you."
OK, i knew for sure that i had fried my Mo-Bo(at least i thought i did), so off i go the the local computer store, pick up my current K62-450 and Mo-Bo, get home open the case start to gut it and about the time i get to the video card i realize its loose. What a fool i am, so i decide to reinstall what i have removed and see if that was really the problem. after all is installed i test and its fine. Great. Then i notice the motherboard isn't fully seated on one of its little plastic clips so i power down, unplug, ground myself reach in apply a little pressure and SNAP!!!! Gee does the MB have to be in one piece. Will that little corner really matter.
I laughed to myself for the next few minutes as i again began gutting the case.
Moral to this story.........dont break your motherboard.
I laughed to myself for the next few minutes as i again began gutting the case.
Moral to this story.........dont break your motherboard.
I had compressed my 1gb harddrive, and after a few weeks i
found a strange large file (1gb) on another drive (H
, and ofcourse i deleted it (DOH!!!). Guess what it was? 😛
//warhawk
found a strange large file (1gb) on another drive (H
, and ofcourse i deleted it (DOH!!!). Guess what it was? 😛//warhawk
ok, this one was quite recent. i had just gotten a brand new golden orb for my 900MHz Athlon, and was going to install it. so i take out my processor, and the thought occurs to me to take off the plastic back plate, because after all, it's basically a useless heat trap. so i take the back plate off without any problem, and i'm about to install my fan, when i think: well, why don't i just take the front plate off, too, and check it out. this poses quite a challenge, as i live in a dorm, and my only tools are a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. so i start prying off the metal fasteners... my hand slips, and i scrape the pliers across the PCB. i wet myself. then i check the PCB and see that everything's as it should be. no problem. most would see this as a sign to quit while i'm ahead, but i see this only as a sign to continue the operation. when the pliers slip again, i'm not too concerned, but i check to make sure i didn't damage anything again. then i see it. a tiny little resistor is missing. and i realize i'm holding a $420 paper weight.
Actually, in the 10 years I have been messing with computers (started on an old Apple IIe) I have never done anything really dumb. Never lost a piece of hardware. But a friend of mine did something pretty stupid.
He is all into this data security phase. Running 386 sx16, 40 meg harddrive. So, he gets online, and downloads this hard drive encryption software. Shareware, time locked. So, he installs it, and encrypts EVERYTHING. Including command.com, io.sys, and msdos.sys. This little encryption program actually wrote to the boot sector and could unencrypt your hard drive from boot up before loading the dos system files.
So, he really likes it. Full encryption of his drive, password to boot. Perfect. So he figures. Ok, time locked. I will set my clock to 1986 and run this stuff for free forever!
Does this. Reboots. Get's the following message "This version of "software X" is expired. If you wish to continue running this software please register your copy at "blah blah blah..." "
And that was it. Hard drive completely encrypted, and no way to unencrypt anything.
Ahh well.. That's why there's format.exe.
He is all into this data security phase. Running 386 sx16, 40 meg harddrive. So, he gets online, and downloads this hard drive encryption software. Shareware, time locked. So, he installs it, and encrypts EVERYTHING. Including command.com, io.sys, and msdos.sys. This little encryption program actually wrote to the boot sector and could unencrypt your hard drive from boot up before loading the dos system files.
So, he really likes it. Full encryption of his drive, password to boot. Perfect. So he figures. Ok, time locked. I will set my clock to 1986 and run this stuff for free forever!
Does this. Reboots. Get's the following message "This version of "software X" is expired. If you wish to continue running this software please register your copy at "blah blah blah..." "
And that was it. Hard drive completely encrypted, and no way to unencrypt anything.
Ahh well.. That's why there's format.exe.
I hate to admit this, but it was late at night and I was at a cust house, I was loading Win 98 for him and he had one of the cd's with no tray, just a slot that you put the cd in and it grabbed it and took it in, anyway I put the cd in and nothing, wouldent read it, wouldent even recognise it, So what was going to be a simple job now looked like becoming a major hassle, pulled the case off, and pulled the cd player out, was about to take the cd apart when I saw a shiny microsoft cd inside the system, I had missed the cd slot and put the cd in a gap above the cd player, the cust was watching me which made it worse, after that I went and got some glasses
Yeah I once DoubleSpaced my old 200 mb drive and got 400 mb..
weee i though and than after working with it for a year.
it got ..full so i though lets check my HD for errors with the newest norton disk doctor .. (offcourse no backup of drive and full of Critical documnets of my mother and full of games) .. so i write NDD /? hmm..
I see an interesting option there which does something i though do some good....
Again remeber its a Compresed drive...
click..
Gets out of the Ndd (ndd does alot of repairs )..
pops to dos...
dir/w |->
and ..
gibreesh.... AHHHH
you know the gibreesh...
No more harddrive... 🙁 my mother kicked my ass than,,,
<b>-----------------------</b>
-<font color=red><b>R.K.</b></font color=red>
weee i though and than after working with it for a year.
it got ..full so i though lets check my HD for errors with the newest norton disk doctor .. (offcourse no backup of drive and full of Critical documnets of my mother and full of games) .. so i write NDD /? hmm..
I see an interesting option there which does something i though do some good....
Again remeber its a Compresed drive...
click..
Gets out of the Ndd (ndd does alot of repairs )..
pops to dos...
dir/w |->
and ..
gibreesh.... AHHHH
you know the gibreesh...
No more harddrive... 🙁 my mother kicked my ass than,,,
<b>-----------------------</b>
-<font color=red><b>R.K.</b></font color=red>
Well, I'm glad you mentioned this, because it made me feel a whole lot better about ruining both my NT4 CD and the CD drive by putting it <i>on top of</i> another CD which I forgot to take out first!
--that was when 8x was really fast too!
--that was when 8x was really fast too!
- Dec 31, 2007
- 48,582
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- 66,190
I had this AWSOME Zenith 386, and the picture did not quite fill the screen. All the adjustments for those monitors were internal. So I pulled the cover, found the right screw, and turned them. Powered it back up, things were better, but not quite right. After about 20 attempts to get it right with the thing off, I tried adjusting it with the computer and monitor on. Now things were Really getting close to perfect fast until POP-spark from the flyback transformer hit the screw driver, stopped my everything for a second (sudden chest pains) and threw my screwdriver out of my hand. Everything still worked. 2 days later my modem went, 3 days later my floppy quit, a week later my hard drive failed, and about a week after that my video card went. And now I'm a tech.
I was getting my 'ol P133 ready for sale -- I had placed an ad in the paper the day before. The year was 1997. I figured the thing was worth maybey $300. I did have 96 megs of ram on it, which at that time wasn't bad at all. It had a sound card (SB16), 1.2 gig HDD, 33.6 modem, cdrom, floppy. 9 am i get a call, the guy sais he'll be right over to get the pc, he only lives like 10 mins away. Before he gets to my house I get anotheer 3 calls for the computer. I start thinking that this guy is getting a hell of a deal. I hurriedly decide to take out my then kick-ass diamond graphics card and put in a crappy one. Neglecting to notice the computer was still on, I ripped out the old one and threw in the new. I didn't see sparks till i dropped the screwdriver right onto the exposed mobo. I yanked the cord out of the wall and curse loudly. I then hear a knock at my door -- I hear the guy tell my dad he is here for the computer. My dad motions him to my room. Praying to god the POS will fire up, I throw the case back on as the guy enters my room. I'm sweating profusely at this point as my shaky hands find the power cord and plug the computer back in. To my amaizment, she fired up. The guy walked away a happy man. Later I could have kicked myself when I recieved calls all day for the computer. One guy said he would have paid $450 for it. DOH !!!! Well, that's my story ;o).
OK, here's my story. I never destroyed any hardware although I got one mobo to have it's voltage stbilizers crack open, but I think that was a faulty mobo 'cos I did everything properly and there wre others to verify it. So It was some 6-7 years ago when I got my first PC (386). I was using PCs at highschool but I wasn't a techie at that time. So my brand new PC, let's have a look into the BIOS not really knowing what all the settings are for. I got the password enabled somehow but I thought I set a password (it was an AMI BIOS with factory set password which was documented in the mobo guide but who reads the guides first . Rebooting and trying to get passed by the password without any luck. I took out the BIOS EPROM (I didn't know too much about PC hardware back then) hoping that it'll be but it didn't when we (I had my friend over and my brother) figured out what was the factory set password and got it beyond it. I went straight back to the BIOS and disabled password security. It scared the hell out of me because I just got that PC for my birthday and my father was to come home soon.
Another hairraising story. I was assembling a custom built PC and I usually check if the power button is off on the case but I forgot this time (or left it on - see later why). I was installing the mobo, processor, memory and connecting all the cables when I got to the speaker and it started beeping (!). I don't remember exactly why I had the case plugged in (maybe because that was a case which had a MHz display on the front and I set that up first) but I installed everything except a VGA card without a problem and it was beeping because it was missing the VGA card. I switched off the case, installed everything and it worked. No parts were good brands except maybe the hard drive.
Build your own PC and get what you exactly want not what OEMs think is good for you.
Regards,
Morc
. Rebooting and trying to get passed by the password without any luck. I took out the BIOS EPROM (I didn't know too much about PC hardware back then) hoping that it'll be but it didn't when we (I had my friend over and my brother) figured out what was the factory set password and got it beyond it. I went straight back to the BIOS and disabled password security. It scared the hell out of me because I just got that PC for my birthday and my father was to come home soon.Another hairraising story. I was assembling a custom built PC and I usually check if the power button is off on the case but I forgot this time (or left it on - see later why). I was installing the mobo, processor, memory and connecting all the cables when I got to the speaker and it started beeping (!). I don't remember exactly why I had the case plugged in (maybe because that was a case which had a MHz display on the front and I set that up first) but I installed everything except a VGA card without a problem and it was beeping because it was missing the VGA card. I switched off the case, installed everything and it worked. No parts were good brands except maybe the hard drive.
Build your own PC and get what you exactly want not what OEMs think is good for you.
Regards,
Morc
Killerkris
Distinguished
- Dec 31, 2007
- 91
- 0
- 18,630
A few small entries
1) First ever computer i had had a 1.2GB hard disk. And unfortunately i needed space all the time for my latest games. So i played a game called clean the windows directory. Lets just say i never learnt and i had to reinstall windows so many times. my problems included deleting the display.sys file because i thought it took up 200k of space on my hard disk 🙁
2) Building my first computer, a K6-2 450 coz i am only a young nipper. It wouldnt boot first time. After over a day of moving everything around and all the normal crap i decided to move the CPU. Found out what that strange little lever on the socket does........... I could have killed my self.
3) A bit older and now working part time in a computer shop we had a motherboard with problems. Me and my boss were there and we changed the PSU to see if it was the problem. I was standing there holding the board feeling invincible when we turned on the power. The board sparked and i leap in the air in shock. Luckily no serious damage but still was funny as anything (i saw the funny side after) now i am more careful
KK
Please dont hurt me.....please
1) First ever computer i had had a 1.2GB hard disk. And unfortunately i needed space all the time for my latest games. So i played a game called clean the windows directory. Lets just say i never learnt and i had to reinstall windows so many times. my problems included deleting the display.sys file because i thought it took up 200k of space on my hard disk 🙁
2) Building my first computer, a K6-2 450 coz i am only a young nipper. It wouldnt boot first time. After over a day of moving everything around and all the normal crap i decided to move the CPU. Found out what that strange little lever on the socket does........... I could have killed my self.
3) A bit older and now working part time in a computer shop we had a motherboard with problems. Me and my boss were there and we changed the PSU to see if it was the problem. I was standing there holding the board feeling invincible when we turned on the power. The board sparked and i leap in the air in shock. Luckily no serious damage but still was funny as anything (i saw the funny side after) now i am more careful
KK
Please dont hurt me.....please
I'm almost to embarrased to admit to this, but here goes...
I decided (and correctly i believe) to move on from Celerons to Durons. I bought a new duron 650. But i was two short on cash to replace the generic no-name heat sink. So i just ran with it for 2 months. Going into summer (In Australia) it started to get kinda hot so i thought i'd do the right thing and go and by a new HS and fan before any thing bad happened. I was sold a Golden Orb. Little did i know that they were not designed for amd's and needed a little alteration to fit. Trying to attach the heat sink, i thought: "just one more push and i'll give up and think about this" (aint that always the way). During this last efort, i heard a crunching sound. Yes, it was the chip cracking. Believing i had completely stuffed it, i became desperate and out decided to test it to be sure of it's fate before shooting myself out of shame. To my surprise it worked! (lucky, i couldn't afford a gun either) But in my haste, i forgot to refit the old heat sink and fan. Within 6 seconds it had reached approximately the temperature of the sun and refused to work any more.
After an hour i discovered (after much testing, cursing, wailing and nashing of teath) that my wonderous DFI AK74 M/B had saved the chip from frying by cutting power to the chip at 50 degrees C. It took 45 minutes sitting under every cooling device i could find short of a frisge for it to get below this temperature again. This trusty combination continues to serve me beautifully after having a correct HS/fan fitted. Long live amd/dfi.
Amen.
I decided (and correctly i believe) to move on from Celerons to Durons. I bought a new duron 650. But i was two short on cash to replace the generic no-name heat sink. So i just ran with it for 2 months. Going into summer (In Australia) it started to get kinda hot so i thought i'd do the right thing and go and by a new HS and fan before any thing bad happened. I was sold a Golden Orb. Little did i know that they were not designed for amd's and needed a little alteration to fit. Trying to attach the heat sink, i thought: "just one more push and i'll give up and think about this" (aint that always the way). During this last efort, i heard a crunching sound. Yes, it was the chip cracking. Believing i had completely stuffed it, i became desperate and out decided to test it to be sure of it's fate before shooting myself out of shame. To my surprise it worked! (lucky, i couldn't afford a gun either) But in my haste, i forgot to refit the old heat sink and fan. Within 6 seconds it had reached approximately the temperature of the sun and refused to work any more.
After an hour i discovered (after much testing, cursing, wailing and nashing of teath) that my wonderous DFI AK74 M/B had saved the chip from frying by cutting power to the chip at 50 degrees C. It took 45 minutes sitting under every cooling device i could find short of a frisge for it to get below this temperature again. This trusty combination continues to serve me beautifully after having a correct HS/fan fitted. Long live amd/dfi.
Amen.
hmm... well, I bought a Diamond Monster Sound MX400 for the surround sound, but the company went bankrupt, my computer doesn't recognize the card, and the sound craps out every five seconds. upgraded OS, processor, hard drive, and speakers, it still didn't work. DAMMIT
-Pedro229
-Pedro229
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