Worst PC Build Screw Ups

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Well at this rate nobody is probably reading to the end of the 12 pages but oh well.
I for one, have never saw blue smoke, nor had DOA items...I've only built 4 computers though so...Maybe my time will come.
I haven't had any screwups really...except that on my first upgrade from a Dell to a new case, I tried drilling new holes in my case to accept the mobo...didn't work too well. I got a new mobo and a new case. OK...time to put the proc on...Oh wait...The HSF brackets aren't the same on the Dell as other mobos. I tried cracking the brackets in pieces, using the pieces..using hot glue and other horror stories. Eventually I ended up buy a new heatsink and fan because I of course had to. I wish I figured out a touch earlier that you could buy just a HSF bracket from Newegg for like, 2 dollars.

As far as huge, destructive blunders. Nothing here. That's why I search these forums every day. To learn from all you poor bastards blowing up your CD-ROMS, HDDs, video cards, and everything else. I benefit from your misfortune!!! Mwahaha! I figure as long as I see everyone else's mistake here first, I won't make it it with mine! Yarr!
 
My worst PC build screw up has nothing to do with the build. It was letting my brother get my first custom built system. I go oon the thing today and i get greeted with a HD that is over %80 fragmented, a computer that hasnt had Adaware run on it in over 110 day and 47 processes running in the backround. I cant beleive people actualy let there computer get like that. Plus when i offer to fix it for him he refuses to let me.
 
I didnt finish an essay so I stayed home from school yesterday. I was bored after finishing it so I decided to redo the volt mod on my two 7900gt's because i have fans blowing on the video card and the graphite from the volt mod slowly was coming off (resistance change from 573 from 553 where it should be). So i erase the graphite and use acetone to make sure it was all off and reapplied it. When I go to turn on my computer it seemed like the powersupply was shorting and the computer would only stay on for a few seconds. So I take one of the cards out and turn it on, then suddenly sparks came out and the back of the card started on fire OMFG!!!!!! So, I quickly onplug the power cord. I thought it was only that card so I decided to insert the other 7900gt and take out the other. After doing this I turned it on and then spark, then fire OMFG!!!! I was almost crying when I thought to myself "If I went to school this would of never happened". This is up there with the worst days of my life and now untill they get rma'd I have to use a athlon 500mhz with no L2 cache and only 64mb of ram.

P.S also getting the mobo rma'd just incase
 
A few years ago I worked for the most evil company in the entire world, and on top of it, they were really cheap when it came to computers. One day I was sitting in my office when I hear this loud boom. I jumped out of my seat and started looking around, and about that time I noticed that there was black smoke rolling out of my POS computer. The boss came in and yelled at me about what a F*ck up I was. Then the next day they gave me $150 to build a new computer. Boy that was a piece of crap, I had to use a screw driver to get it started because they junky mobo was shorted out, and the case was missing a side(I got parts from some friends that were throwing them away). To make it even better, one of the other people was having a ton of problems with his POS, and the boss told him that if he didn't get it fixed and get back to work, he was going to be fired. Well I fixed it for him! A screw driver really can do a lot of damage to a running computer! It was about this time that the company decided to spend some money and buy computers that could run CAD and all the other geology software that we used. I still laugh about all the crappy computers that we had, and how I "fixed" so many of them.
 
Then the next day they gave me $150 to build a new computer. Boy that was a piece of crap, I had to use a screw driver to get it started because they junky mobo was shorted out, and the case was missing a side(I got parts from some friends that were throwing them away). To make it even better, one of the other people was having a ton of problems with his POS, and the boss told him that if he didn't get it fixed and get back to work, he was going to be fired.
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Man, that's worse than having to walk uphill to school both ways.
 
Now I've always tried to figure out how thats posssible. I'd find it easier to walk uphill both ways than to fix a smoking PC with only $150.
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Our kids have to do it. We live in mountains and there are multiple hilltops on the way to school. There is about 200' vertical climb on the way to school and 100' on the way home.

The other way is to be trapped in an Escher painting on the way to and from school!
 
ascending_and_descending.jpg

Now where the hell is my anatomy class?
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Now where the hell is my anatomy class?
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I took my first computer science class in Faner Building at SIU-Carbondale. The building was designed by a psychology professor turned architect that happened to be going mad at the time. The building had 13 entrances, only two of which were interconnected. The motto was "You can't get there from here". I'd leave one class and run over 1/2 mile to get to my next class that was only a hundred feet or so away. I should have gotten free college credits in Cynicism 403 for enduring that BS.
 
Haven't posted in a long, long time. Figured I'd share my moronic antics.

1) My first personal build (a cursed one at that), couldn't wait for AS3 to arrive so I smartly figured putting the heatsink on the athlonXP 2000 without it wouldn't hurt. 😳 Managed to powerdown before the chip was visibly fried but definitely killed it. Gotta love the smell of burning horse hair! Was able to exchange for a new one as I was a poor college student at the time, would probably fess up to my stupidity now though and eat the cost. For the same build I bought 1 512mb of Corsair XMS. Decided to add another shortly after it was up and running. In my eargerness to pop it in, ESD reared it's ugly head :cry: RMA'd it and the next stick was DOA. Finally got the next stick and everything has purred fine ever since (with many no-issue upgrades).

Moral of this story: Either us a static wrist band or be very careful if you don't.

2) This is a good one. Decided to do some moulding work in my kitchen after playing some COD2. Left the computer on figuring I'd use it after my "handyman" project was done. Got to work on cutting th molding with my trusty power miter saw. Finished up and went back to playing COD2 for a while, shut the computer down and went to bed. Next day computer powers up for all of 2 seconds and dies. Try multiple times and same result. Luckily for me and not my co-worker he did the exact same thing about a month before so I knew I had burned out the PSU.

Moral of this story: Turn computer off when it's on the same circuit you are using for high draw power tools. And also that I'm a moron.
 
So is there a thread that people can post pics of they're modded systems in the forumz or what? just curious.

The worst thing I've ever done was forget to plug in the video card to power. As soon as I started the system it of course displayed a big red error and I immediately freaked out. Luckily I remembered to turn off the system before pluging it in.
 
Well this thread is not only entertaining, it is educational. For pure entertainment, I recommend that one visit the thread starting with "Thankx for the no help..." in the memory forum.

On to topic. I myself have not commited any of the masterpieces described here, but I have seen a few gems in my time. The worst that I have done is miss-connect a floppy drive cable, but no damage done. Other than that the noly other self-inflicted errors have been jumper settings on hard drives.

I suppose that the reason I have been able to escape the little fauxpas described here is because I am careful and take the time to RTFM.

The best thing I've seen was when the head IT guy at a client's company decided to experiment with disconnecting the CPU cooling fan power connection on an AMD Athlon 1200 while it was running. It took about 10 seconds for the CPU to fry. Little popping sound and a small puff of smoke. Now, we had built this system for this person and had delivered it about a week before the incident occured. Those versions of the Athlon ran hot, and cost over $1,000.00 wholesale (hyow times change).

The next most interesting thing I saw was when a relatively new staff member was assembling a ssytem for a client at the shop. He was drinking coffee while assembling the componentsa onro the MB and moving the mug (with coffeee!!) back and forth over the MB and putting it down on a pile of empthy parts boxes right near the edge of the new system. Oh yeah, it was a reach to get to the resting place of the mug. If the mug had slipped there would have been a real mess.

This same individual generated an extremely interesting system fault in one of the in-house computers a few months later. Not his fault, but an object lesson, nevertheless. This was at the time when SDRAM was transitioning from PC100 to PC133. It was usually clearly indicated what speed the stick was, but not always. many PC100 MBs wouldn't support anything else, some would support PC133 but run it at the slower speed. Furthermore, some MBs would support mixed speed memory sticks and some wouldn't. Usually, if they didn't support mixing flavours there was no doubt - the system wouldn't boot. Unfortunately, there were some boards that choked on the mix, but still seemed to work. Bootup was problematic in terms of taking a long time, but the system seemed to work OK after that. No way to tell there was a problem because the systems were being used for low-intensity business apps. This particular case had a very strange manifestation. During the boot process, the system would attempt to access the floppy drive for a very long time. It took at least 2 resets to boot the system up, but after that it worked OK. Eventually it became necessary to sort out the problem. I got the job. Several days spent trouble-shooting the components - individual RAM sticks worked fine and so on. Eventually the individual mentioned that he had upgraded the system by adding a 256 MB stick to the system, leaving the original 64 MB stick in. Good thinking, reasonable plan, system assemled correctly etc. But that model of MB did not support mixed speeds of ram. One or the other, but not both at once. And this was in the manual, which we had a copy of. Once the smaller stick was removed, all problems went away.

Moral of th4e story is:

1) think at least three or fopur times.

2) RTFM

3) excercise caution

4) execute very ambitious projects in stages.
 
Mine happened during the PC and XT (4.77MHz). I have inserted the power supply connector to the motherboard in reverse. There is no fire or anything; but the motherboard didn't boot anymore when inserted correctly. Back then, there is no notch on the motherboard connector - just need to align the black wires of the P1 and P2 power supply connector together.
 
So I take it we all have built PCs and have had moments that we're all no to proud of. Screw ups, mistakes, blunders, and just plain foolness is par for the course.
So in short, what's your worst screw up when you've built a PC?
Mine was the time I built a P2 system. First ever build. I had everything set right, CPU, GFX card, sound card, jumpers set right, everything was good to go. I just forgot to use the standoffs when I was attaching the board to the case. Every contact on the board was touching the metal case. Needless to say, I fried both the board and the CPU.
First time I was ever greeted by the magical blue smoke. Not my last.
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I had something simular happen to me only I got a cheap cheap case (like 20$ and it was clear green !!! awesome....) I did install the standoffs but the case was so poorly made that the PCI/AGP slots in the back would not line up perfectly and I think my VooDoo 5500 touched the metal and shorted out. Followed fairly soon by the mobo itself lol
 
Not sure if 'Acts of God' count but this is an amusing story told to me by an ex DEC employee.

The guy was part of the project team installing a new mainframe for the Met office.

One morning he gets a call saying not to bother coming in to work today as there's been a 'slight' problem with the mainframe.

What had happened was a rather large storm had caused a rather large tree to fall straight through the new computer room pulverising the new mainframe!

Now if only it had been up and running the day before and they might have seen that one coming 8O

p.s. Great thread, kept me well amused on a boring night shift
 
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