Worst PC Build Screw Ups

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This is what happens when you use outdated tech... :wink:
Lesson: Floppy Drives are the root of all evil. Period
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I thought the power supply was the root and the floppy was the victim?
That's what the floppy wants you to think. How else did it survive that shock? I'm telling you, all floppy drives are evil.
I remember when I had a very important project, and this was when I had to use floppies to transport the data. As usual the diskette broke. I failed that class. The drive and its media are evil man....
 
I've shot numerous pc's, monitors, etc. Ink jets with ink still in them are the best, hit the tanks and you get a nice colorful poof. Monitors implode, makes a unique sound.
 
As a matter of fact, he was the IT department boss - but was soon replaced.

Incidentally, I had the new boss running out of my office very soon once he arrived when, after one of the staff got a screwed up laptop, I used several spares, my own laptop and some kniknack to build a 'laptop stack' (I needed to get the HD from one laptop, the ethernet card from another, a new laptop that could accomodate both at the same time to clone the fourth anew - I stacked them all one over the other to save on desk real estate).

Sometimes it's good to be me 😀
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laptop stack--- :lol: :lol:
 
If you search somewhere within the recesses of this thread you'll find that someone actually shot there PC....
Its in there somewhere... :?
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It's more fun to go to the roof of a large building and toss the sucker off. Have a video camera running near the impact zone. You might be surprised how well a hard drive can bounce.
 
One of my PC that I built many many years ago, can't remember, a Cyrix 166MHz setup. When I was flashing my motherboard, the weather outside was raining cats and dogs, then lightning zapped, my whole house's electric supply was tripped, and guess what? My motherboard gone, back then, that stupid motherboard cost me a whole $120, and my motherboard was only 2 days old. Brought it back to the shop, they won't replace, coz they claimed that warranty would be void once I flash the bios. What a bull ****.
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That brings new meaning to 'flashing your bios'.

:lol:

Bad luck dude, but also it's not good to handle the electronics during a natural build up of static electricity at any rate.

True, but then I was a noob back then, didn't know anything about flashing, and failure would deem my mobo useless.

The funny thing is ... how often does someone flash their mobo's bios? and how often does it rain cats and dogs outside? and how often lightning actually hit my main power line and tripped my whole house's electricity?

Combining all of that, I'd say the probability of that happening is like 1 to a billion gazillion? Maybe more, maybe less. But I'm pretty sure that I'd have had better chance hitting the lottery/jackpot, than that happening. So, in a way, I'm a winner. 😛
 
If you search somewhere within the recesses of this thread you'll find that someone actually shot there PC....
Its in there somewhere... :?
Click to expand...

It's more fun to go to the roof of a large building and toss the sucker off. Have a video camera running near the impact zone. You might be surprised how well a hard drive can bounce.
Oohh. I'm going to go try that now...
 
If you search somewhere within the recesses of this thread you'll find that someone actually shot there PC....
Its in there somewhere... :?
Click to expand...

It's more fun to go to the roof of a large building and toss the sucker off. Have a video camera running near the impact zone. You might be surprised how well a hard drive can bounce.
Oohh. I'm going to go try that now...

Don't forget to make windage corrections...
 
Will have to get a screen shot and picture next time I'm round his...Honest to god himself, it still works...It's a P4 2.4 (needs replacing bad)
Than means a screen shot of CPU with glue around it and actually operating.
Think we damaged hiw graphics card, can't remeber what it is (will have to have a look next time - think it a GF 6800) but it didn't quite fit - the HDD IDE cable was in the way, so we had to kinda force it in, it kinda bends to one side and the HDD IDE connection is being squashed, will have to move HDD some time.
It's not as if we don't care or know what were doing, we just kinda end up seeing how far the breaking point is for components...That really is stupid...
Myself haven't really had that much problem with PC's myself. Broke a few monitors in the past, don't know why but they just die on me. On about monitor 18. poss 17 (had it for about 5 years) and it's a Iiyama 514 pro CRT.
 
You may want to fuse your PSU (you're right, better the PSU than the whole system, and a fuse doesn't require being a rocket scientist to change) but I'd rather prevent surges from reaching the computer and ensure everything is well grounded before I reach this extremity.
 
I'm missing something about HHD's 8O

Remember when the PCB's on the HHD did not have recesses for screws...

I took a machine apart 3 times, assembled on the bench it works fine, put it in the case it refuses to see the drive.

Used shorter screws on that one :lol: , felt really 😳



Taking it back a bit, anybody scramble a couple of punch-cards... It takes a couple of days to sort that out... (guess it does'nt count... only mini computers has punch-cards) But it was fun...
 
tried to install "golden orb" cooler on my cusl2-c / p3 1Ghz (1st homebrew..f*cker was working fine w/ stock hsf 🙁

stupid golden orb did actually twist all the way on (have i mentioned how much I hate the golden orb cooler?) and poof no more p3 1Ghz....


and just last week.
bought a FX-55 (for quite litte amounts of money) didn't realize my 9NDA3+ wouldn't work with it.... OOOPS.. oh well got Asus A8V for about $30 from mwave problem solve 😀
 
back when p1 's came out ,486's droped in price big time , so I got the idea of upgrading 286,s to 486dx2 or x4.. bought a bunch of 286,s at auction and upgraded them , repinning power supplies , swapping mem, hd, whatever..2 months of this.. learned alot.. blown ,sparked, burnt , mb ' pws ' connectors [on everthing] watch those stand offs, watch witch way pws plug [connectors incude]Ive seen 1.x gig drives dropped and become 32meg [or less]
' hate propritary boxs,mb,pws [will only strip them now ]'
..but i did not blow any 486's , wore an anti-static wrist band...now days I turn off and unplug the komp I'm working on and gound myself to another komp .. I fix and repair locals komps. and for every3 junk/garbage/given, I get one working to give away. I wish I could have had all this stuff I have now,back when it was new But the neat things about these old p1&2 is thah they play StarCraft and network
....but the worse mistake is any that you repeat .. fingers in the fan
.[which ever fan for which ever reason][watch it ,they work in pairs or more]
AND YES I WOULD LOVE TO SHOT SOME KOMPs... throwing them is gettig old
 
well guys just last night i had a major screw up. i was bored and decided it would be a good time to clean out the hsf on my ferrari 4005 laptop. and in case you don't know, getting to the side of the hsf where you can do the most cleaning requires taking almost everything apart.

Well disasembly went smoothly, i even kept track of the 30+ screws and took pictures of how wires were routed and stuff. I then proceed to blow out all the dust without a hitch. now reasembly is where the problem always happens. as i put everything back together i was trying to make sure all the connecors were seated properly and all the screws were tight, but as i found out later i missed one of the connectors (it was 3am).

So i have everything but the keyboard attatched(it was pluged in though) and press the power button. It posts as normally and the windows xp loading screan appears, then i get a wiff of something, look down in the keyboard opening and see the evil smoke.

after immediatley pulling the power i begin disassembly to see the extent of the damage and which board got fried. to my disappointment there was a blackened component on the mainboard, but it was right next to a connector for the usb daughter board so i decided to take a look at it, and i found one of the pins bent and touching another pin.

i then decided it was time to sleep (although i had this horrible feeling in my stomach so it was hard to sleep, i was fearing buying a several hundred dollar mainboard). this morning i woke up early (again bc i couldn't sleep) and went back to work. i figured that since the comp was booting, that the component must only be related to the usb plug i decided to take a chance and run the thing with the pin fixed and the connector unplugged.

Luckily it works and i am typing this on it now with no problems, other than i now lost 3 of my 4 usb ports, the internal bluetooth, and also the connector hooked up the right speaker so i lost that too. but i can live with that compared to buying an expensive mainboard. now why couldn't this have happened instead while i was building my parents cheap system last year, it always happens to the expensive stuff.
 
well it looks like this thread finally slowed down, i was begining to wonder if anybody was going to read about my screwup.

...so would anybody know where i can get a motherboard repaired. i looked around and it looks like a new mainboard for the ferrari 4000 is $400+ if i send in the mine, w/o the trade its $700+, so i think i will just live w/o my usb ports and such. although i am thinking of opening this this back up one of and trying to figure out the pins on the burnt connector and trying to get at least my bluetooth, and speaker working again, and possibly one or two usb ports.
 
22 pages of content, most of it on-topic, is a pretty good run, My guess would be that in a few weeks more people will mess up bigtime and post their very funny, yet sometimes sad, experience here.

Thats my insight...
 
This is a screw up on my Dad's part. Personally, I have been building computers now for about 10 years. I have received faulty hardware but never actually burnt out a component (at least I said it was faulty when I RMA'd it lol).

Anyway, a few weeks ago, my Dad calls while I am at work. I am in a meeting so I check the message when I get out and he asks that I call him because he had taken the HSF out of his system to clean it. Bad idea. Now he wants me to come over to put it back. He calls back again before I do and says he has attempted to put the CPU back himself, and that it will not fit. The first thing I ask is did you release the lock on the socket? He says yes, but then he says that when he took the cpu out he forced it. The HSF would not budge from the CPU so he just pulled the whole thing out. Well, apparently one of the pins from the CPU managed to pry off. It is only a 3.2GH chip, a new on was about $80 on NewEgg, not that big a deal.

So, about a week later the chip arrives and I think all is good. But no, of course my Dad tries to install it himself before I can get over there to do it. He calls after failing to get it to start. I make it over there later that night and I realize the CPU isn't even flat on the socket. I take the CPU out and the first thing I see is that the pin holds on the socket are also bent. How could that heppen? At this point I am thinking he has to get a whole new MB too, so in a last ditch effort I just force the CPU and lock it. It boots up fine to my relief. But how long it will last is anyones guess.

Not the worst screw up but def' an annoying one.
 
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