Worst PC Build Screw Ups

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As far as that school thing goes... our school was ghosting all the new computers from the server, so I would go over and unplug all the network cables, and then plug them back in... so they kept noticing it wouldnt work. They tried ghosting for a week before I decided to stop messing with them.
 
We have an HP workstation at my school that has a BIOS that allows you to overclock....

That is awsome. All my school has is crappy dells. But hey you can run Quake 2 on them.Everyone plays Quake 2 at school. I did, at least 10 of my friends at University did and a couple of my cousins as well. The thing is, when they discovered it and deleted it and blocked us from installing it, the class average dropped by 20%!!!!!! 8O

Wish I was informed enough to know bout Ocing in school...
 
The IT guy at my school thought ghosting was the sh!t as well. Don't know why they paid him to screw up the network but he didn't last too long. He kept blaming all the problems on the "students that know too much" that keep messing with the system. The only thing he was good for was starting the internet cafe at school...(spent many days there)
 
I didn't have my reading glasses on 😀

r u like 86 or something :wink: :wink: :wink: :wink: :lol: :lol: :lol:

seriously

I wonder how old the oldest Tom's regular is? I heard Action Man is something like 86 million years old or something like that so he's got me beat (barely).
 
The first old Mac "Classic"-type case (512, Plus, SE, etc.) had torx screws that were sunk so far in the case that no hardware store carried a torx screwdriver that long. The first time I had to open a customer's case I used a long phillips and turned the torx into concavities. I had to saw the case open with a jig. Cost me almost a grand to replace the case and the chassis I sawed through. But the customer never found out! Now that is customer service!!! (or terminal stupidity) 😀
 
don't talk about him, I thought he was a serious person to talk with at first - until he turned out to be a master basher: the kind who knows his subject well enough to convince noobs, but who is unable to maintain a meaningful conversation with someone of a different mind on a matter.

I forgot to add one of the worst mistakes I ever made: installing Vista on my computer.

3 hours wasted.
 
shockedbw0.png

Dear... God.
That is the Number 1 Power Supply Screw up....
Have this :trophy:

Many Thanks to you DaSickNinja

It was many years ago in the days of DOS and I can still remember the smell.
 
I was installing a socket 754 Athlon64 for my best friend and it wouldn't go into the socket. So I pushed it and still it wasn't all the way in. I pulled the processor out and tried to figure out what was wrong...I had bent a pin badly. I tried to gently bend it back with a paper clip and then *flick* the pin broke off.

So I told my friend and then told him to try to take it back to the store and tell him that the pin was missing. He had bought it open-box from a local shop and even expressed concern with it being open box but the salesman assured him no problems. He brought it back and showed them, sure enough they took it back and gave him a boxed-processor instead.

Whew, saved me about $200+ dollars (at that time).
 
The first old Mac "Classic"-type case (512, Plus, SE, etc.) had torx screws that were sunk so far in the case that no hardware store carried a torx screwdriver that long. The first time I had to open a customer's case I used a long phillips and turned the torx into concavities. I had to saw the case open with a jig. Cost me almost a grand to replace the case and the chassis I sawed through. But the customer never found out! Now that is customer service!!! (or terminal stupidity) 😀

Now THAT is a classic story.
 
Now coffee has cost me many a keyboard over the years. Last but not least my new Zboard. I was pirating in Eve Online, having just blown up their ship and ransomed their Pod I was feeling very pleased with myself, when 3 players warp on me, make me wet myself and drop my coffee. Keyboard got a good soaking, all of the keys worked when pressed (really hard mind you) but the smell of rotting coffee did the damage.
 
We have an HP workstation at my school that has a BIOS that allows you to overclock....

That is awsome. All my school has is crappy dells. But hey you can run Quake 2 on them.Everyone plays Quake 2 at school. I did, at least 10 of my friends at University did and a couple of my cousins as well. The thing is, when they discovered it and deleted it and blocked us from installing it, the class average dropped by 20%!!!!!! 8O

Wish I was informed enough to know bout Ocing in school...

when i was in college the 1 class had PCs good enough to run UT2k4. 😀
of course the network admin found out and deleted it since it was a pirated copy.then the students just hid the game so you needed to use cmd prompt to run it. that admin never found it either.
 
This isn't a build though.... I wanted my old c language program from my old 10 GB HD. I successfully installed its power connector in wrong direction. I turned on my PC and ........... u all know what happened
 
We have an HP workstation at my school that has a BIOS that allows you to overclock....

That is awsome. All my school has is crappy dells. But hey you can run Quake 2 on them.Everyone plays Quake 2 at school. I did, at least 10 of my friends at University did and a couple of my cousins as well. The thing is, when they discovered it and deleted it and blocked us from installing it, the class average dropped by 20%!!!!!! 8O

Wish I was informed enough to know bout Ocing in school...

when i was in college the 1 class had PCs good enough to run UT2k4. 😀
of course the network admin found out and deleted it since it was a pirated copy.then the students just hid the game so you needed to use cmd prompt to run it. that admin never found it either.

replace college with High School, and change UT2K4 to Quake 1. thank god for computer repair elective classes.
 
We all played Counter-Strike and Diablo 2 on our Tech lab's school computers. When we played Diablo 2 we would leave our bots (mephisto or pindleskin runs) running on the computers with the monitors off throughout the school day, checking on them between periods and during lunch.

And every tuesday for 1 semester about 30 of us met after school to play Return to Castle Wolfenstien on the computers. My tech lap teacher has spare funds from the school and put GeForce 4's in all of them, he stayed after school and helped run the event every tuesday.

Anyways, as far as keeping to the subject...we could overclock the techlab computers in our school and there was this one that had issues with everything so for fun we let it fry... :)
 
We have an HP workstation at my school that has a BIOS that allows you to overclock....

That is awsome. All my school has is crappy dells. But hey you can run Quake 2 on them.Everyone plays Quake 2 at school. I did, at least 10 of my friends at University did and a couple of my cousins as well. The thing is, when they discovered it and deleted it and blocked us from installing it, the class average dropped by 20%!!!!!! 8O

Wish I was informed enough to know bout Ocing in school...

when i was in college the 1 class had PCs good enough to run UT2k4. 😀
of course the network admin found out and deleted it since it was a pirated copy.then the students just hid the game so you needed to use cmd prompt to run it. that admin never found it either.


I'm wondering how to do that? I've never tried it before.

Someone care to teach me how to do that?

Thanks if anyone tries.



on a side note, my school has "new" P4 ovens in SFF cases, those things run real hot, well the tech guy at my school isn't that bright and the password on the bios is just the schools name and the bios thankfully has options for overclocking, I will try it and see what happens one day. BTW the cases aren't well ventilated and only have 1 80mm fan blowing out of the case, the ps dont even have a fan.

Should be a fun experiment... :twisted:
 
Haven't posted for a looong time, but I enjoyed this thread so much I had to post my experiences:

My first exposure to the magic smoke was when my Sinclair Spectrum 48k (the one with the rubber keyboard) power supply decided it wanted to let the dragon have some exercise. My dad was trying to get it to work at the time. I can still remember the frantic "turn it off... TURN IT OFF!!!!" as the smoke continued to rise. :lol:

The best one was when I tried to upgrade my 486 DX2/50 (with 4MB RAM and a 1MB VESA LB graphics card 😀 ) with a CD ROM and a larger hard drive. I connected everything up okay, turned on, and the dragon got more exercise. I took the components back to PC World, and my computer back to the little "Comp Shop" that I'd bought it from. They sent it away to get fixed. The label on the computer said "Went bang. Doesn't work any more" 😛

Andy
 
First time in this thread ...

I have been building computers for a long time now , maybe 8 years. I remember when i got a p2 333 for xmas and set it all up myself , etc. Worked for about 2 weeks then one day i put it on its side turned it on and nothing. i spent 2 weeks trying to figure out what the problem was. Then i noticed the dip switches were set backwards. I knew that computer was pretty dam fast for a 333. WHOOPS, but thats not the worse of it. I let the dinky little computer shop trade me for a amd k6 3 300. OH ITS JUST AS FAST .... my ass.

DOH!
 
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