Post Your Biggest Cooling, PSU, & Case Mistakes

[LazerL0rd -]

Buying a Corsair CX750M for my 400W build... And now unable to resart without bios saying OC Fail... Still works though 😉

 

[LazerL0rd -]

Bought a corsair CX psu and kept Intel stock cooler on my 4690k thinking I could overclock.
Look, at my build now I learned

I did something similar. I have a CX750M on my build and since I OC'd my FX-6300 to 4GHz half the times I restart I get an OC fail error...

 

[PhatLloyd]

MADE IN CHINA

 

[spadron]

buying a $700 pc with amd-a8-6600k quad core with integrated graphics and aerocool...

 

[Ambular]

Not buying a DEMCifilter for my first Antec 900 case.

My place sits by a dirt road and is itself as old as dirt. I spent four years relying on a set of homemade filters (which, don't get me wrong, beat having none at all!) and periodically hauling the beast outside to muck out enough dust bunnies to re-enact Watership Down on my front porch. I really liked the case and picked up the newer USB 3 version for my new build this past February, but this time I sprang for a proper front filter, and I haven't seen a bunny since.

 

[Guyinacorner]

I put a bit too much pressure trying to lock the heat sink into place and broke the pins. don't think they were aligned quite right.

 

[wogfor]

Not a PSU or cooling but a general: Mom had bought a new Dell computer and couldn't wait for me to get off work so I could come over and set it up. Everything was fine, but I couldn't get any sound from the speakers. I tried everything I knew of to make them work. Finally contacted the on-line support site, who had me try several steps check everything was working, then finally they sent me a little picture showing where the switch was to turn them on.....

 

[Tibrocks]

Ok here's mine.. I was building a real bad-ass PC few years ago, I got an Antec case, quite heavy, but good quality.

Was looking to get it watercooled and it was quite a new thing back then, so I got a Cooler Master kit for the CPU, the Cooler Master Aquagate MAX (still pretty cool).

I didn't install case fans because I didn't want any noise; also the case didn't have a window but I still wanted to expose the internal parts because of how cool they were.. so I didn't install the side panel :]

...therefore I wasn't really able to use the PC more than 5 mins because it would overheat and shut down automatically, it took me a week to figure it out, it was more because of the Northbridge and chipset radiators, which were passively-cooled and due to the lack of a CPU fan (or case fan..) they were hitting max temp really quick :/

 

[MrCrazy0ne]

I wouldn't consider this a fail or anything but back in about 2007-2008 my dad had built a pretty beast pc, e8400, 4gb of ram, 9600gt, an asus p5gc-mx motherboard and windows xp. But the coolest thing for me was seeing the case, the case he had, and i just found out recently, is a Ultra MicroFly. This case had everything from front panel temp sensor to a removable motherboard tray to install you components, i had found this case only in the beginning of 2016 and it was all corroded away, rusty all over, but to my suprise the components still worked just fine, windows refused to boot but it worked fine. I then realised that the components really shouldn't have been sitting in our basement because i took the gpu out and it had a crap ton of corrosion on the back, same with everything on the mobo. Just thought sharing that story someone has something similar

 

[Oftenneedshelp]

Buying a cooler master power supply

 

[superninja12]

Buying a cooler master power supply

cooler master doesnt manufacter their own powersupplies, they just brand it like evga. yeah they got some thrash series, however their V series made by channelwell and seasonic are one of the best today.

 

[fabiodrm]

I had a FX 8320 for about 3 years, got it when it was released. it was paired with a HD7970 and a AIO Thermaltake Water 2.0 Performer, they are running really good.

Some time later, with new games being released, my performance start to show its "age", i upgraded the HD 7970 to a GTX 980! I didnt the performance boost i was specting but it was an upgrade.

More games released and performance still not good as compared with online benchmarks and friends, so this year i decided to get i7 6700k, Z170 and DDR4.

I removed the old MOBO+CPU(FX 8320)+ memory from my case, disassembled the watercooler from the old mobo and installed in the new one.

Lets start the rig and play everything MUAHAHAHAH.
Life says: NO HAHAHAHAHAHA. #PunchInYourFace

my computer turnoff every 5 to 10 minutes and when i start it again i got a warning message saying the temps are too high.

After checking the temp, wich is 100C, 100% of the time i started to freaking out.

Realized that my watercooler was dead for some time, my FX8320 was running at 1.3ghz to prevent damage because off the temps.



Resume: I got a entire new rig assuming the performance wanst good, but my problem was my dead watercooler (pump).

Got a Corsair H80i GT and everything is good now and cool.

 

[Scanes]

Well I wanted to use my old bosses old pc for cad software to do work for him (cad software used parallel port dongle, driver 8 or 16 bit based so only works on 32 bit os not 64 bit).
Had a ati HD5850 lying around so thought would clean out case and whack it in, pc uses an i3 2120 so should have been an upgrade and freed up ram.
So used canned air in living room like always did, there's a fireplace so plenty of ventilation, only this time it was winter and there was a fire in the fireplace, next thing I know, flame flows out over the carpet (carpet didnt catch fire) singed hairs up my trouser legs as sitting cross legged on the floor, singed plastic net cable tidy from cpu, there was still a bit of dust hidden in corner of case that also caught fire.
PC still works fine as ever, still makes me chuckle even now thinking about it.

 

[l187l]

long story short:
Ended up replacing PSU and motherboard after my system wouldn't boot 90% of the time. Ended up being something with the OS. Worst part is, while I was going to store my old motherboard, I tried to put the socket cover back on it to make sure no pins got pushed in... Ended up putting it in backwards and pushed in almost every pin. Luckily it was just a z97 GA HD3(about $110). Replaced it with an ASUS z97 PRO GAMER; much happier with this board.

about 5 years ago I lost a phenom CPU from spilling a half a glass of water on my computer. All of it went through the top fan. I don't know how it managed to only take out the CPU. Everything else was completely fine.

 

[OfficialG3]

buying a 550w psu that is fake-rated and worse and lighter than my 450w... yet overclocked my gpu and cpu and running furmark, and boom there goes the psu, loud pop , awfull smell, thankfully it only took out one of my hard drives and nothing else