Worst PC Build Screw Ups

[dasickninja]

Why is it that most of our stories involve fire or combustion of some kind?

 

[Druid029]

Because most uv uss is male and ecksploshuns and fire iz gud.

 

[itneal2277]

if you wanted a excuse to upgrade just take up chain smoking. Kills you and you comp

😀 I hear that! People who are heavy smokers have the nastiest cases.

I'm starting to despise working in filthy cases. I've gotten to the point where I won't even work on a friend's or family member's computer until they get some compressed air and blow out the case. I refuse to do it. I'm not a maid so I am not going to clean up someone else's mess. I find it amazing that people let things get that bad. Even when I let them know that they should blow out their case every few months, they don't care. They just complain when they can't play their stupid Yahoo games or go onto MySpace because their CPU is 90C at idle.

Thinking about working in nasty cases pisses me off ... I will take out my rage on VIA. 😀

 

[caamsa]

Hmmm Ninja sitting in front of the computer all day replying to every single post..............now is that commitment, love, OCD or a little bit of all three

 

[itneal2277]

Your snake pit scares me also.
@Everyone
Who here ever bought a Newton or some other kind of tech that was supposed to be the way of the future then went bust? Or buy into the entire Y2K computer bug fiasco?

One word "Prescott"

 

[dasickninja]

Nuff said.

 

[exit2dos]

😀 I hear that! People who are heavy smokers have the nastiest cases.

No, People who have cats have the nastiest cases.

 

[rsquared]

1. My father bought a combo special of a 486 with a motherboard, pre-mounted. The chip went poof when I powered up the completed system. In the autopsy I found that they shipped it with the CPU installed backward: it was rotated 180 degrees in the socket. Not quite my screw-up but a screw-up nonetheless. This incident also instilled a fear of the phrase "Smoke test!" into my father, as I had said it just before turning on the PC and getting the resulting poof.

2. Impatient with the wonky 80mm exhaust fan on the back wall of a case, y'know, right by the CPU, I was replacing it with the PC powered on. I slipped with the screwdriver and crack knocked two of the blades off the spinning CPU fan. This was a quick-to-fry Athlon XP, so of course I immediately yanked the power cord and then went out heatsink-shopping.

3. In the process of sleeving my cables, I inadvertently switched the +12V and +5V wires in a power connector. But of course it wasn't powering a fan or something similarly harmless; it was the connector at the end of the four-way splitter powering my four hard drives. Three of the drives fried. I managed to recover the most important stuff by buying another drive of the same model (a 120GB SATA drive, which at the time was cutting-edge, enormous, and freakin' expensive) and swapping the new drive's circuit board over, but lost everything on the other two drives.

 

[GreenJelly]

Water, or other liquids will NOT damage hardware....... Unless its on....

You can wash your motherboard in water, then put it in the oven at around 100-150f and bake it till its dry... I use alluminum foil on the layer bellow it to prevent direct heat from the elements...

This is not dangerous to motherboards, though it does sound like it would be...

Most manufacturers, bath their mass produced circuits in a mixture of water and an anti-corrosive agent, before final packaging. And they dry it in a oven (well its more like a hair drier)

Mike

PS... spill soup or soda on your keyboard... take off all the keys, take the screws out the back, wash it with water then I use window washing fluid, and a que tip. Put it in the oven, like I said... VERY LOW HEAT... and then re-assemble... Will work like new...

Dont do it to many times (or it will rust)... and dont get the window washing fluid in the holes that hold the keys... you will wash away the oils... Just clean up the spaces...

 

[czar1020]

Neal

ya sumed it up,

anyway got another for ya

I built a friend a comp i showed him how to do it ect, i got it up and running before i left, i called him a week later and told him to take off the HS and put on the as5 that he ordered late.

told him how to clean it off and to apply the new stuff, a drop about size of bb no more and tada you done, three days later he calls me and says his computer wont turn on. I go over there and look at what he did. i looked down and i saw thermal paste oozing out from underneath the cpu and into the socket... i was like omg wtf didnt u listen i said bb size. He said he forgot how much to use and figured more is better. I ended up cleaning it all up out of the socket and all that. told him to rma mb and cpu , well he decides im a dumb ass and calls amd and tells them what he did and that he wants them to send him a new cpu.. he said they laughed and said NO. and he ended up just parting out a week old computer because he couldnt use a q-tip and clean out them damn ears.

btw this was a 1.2k computer when he bought it, was when the geforce fx series just came out. It was good stuff and he fubarred it..

 

[czar1020]

I dont think cats are that bad

for the most part a shop vac will take care of it, it is still nasty but nothing like having crubs of black sh*t fall on you when your trying to take something outta case. man that guys case still makes me sick thinken abou it

 

[clue69less]

Did I mention that I've been addicted to coffee since I was 5

We won't hold it against you for being a late starter.

 

[czar1020]

ahh yet another for you guys.. but this is my foc up =(

taking a socket A HS off with a flat head screw driver.... slipped and took out a few layers out of the board.

a week later the new board i bought came in,along with a new HS that had a "anti" slip for that. Had a lil thing above clip that held screw driver in place so it couldnt slip to either side.

 

[clue69less]

Wusy makes me wish I was Bastage.

You mean you're not?

 

[Fallacy]

lol i did the same thing, but i realised it and it still works 😀

 

[GreenJelly]

This one is credited to my father... Sorry Dad...

He was working on a machine, and needed to drill a hole in the to fit some wirers through them... he used a air compressor to blow out the system... but well he must have not done a very good job...

He said it sparkled...

Mobo still works... and the machine never crashes...

BTW: It was a giga-byte mobo...

 

[dasickninja]

All I want is to see one of my old 478 motherboards do this.

This will probably be the end of a good plasma torch but, what the hell.
Expect pictures or a video on Youtube

 

[Strabo4]

Nice pic.

How tall is that flame? 2-3 feet, maybe?

 

[3lfk1ng]

Excuse me, I have 3 cats. 2 of them shed like there is no tomorrow...and one of them doesn't shed for some reason. I have yet to even dust out my case because it is still absolutely spotless just like it way the day i put my system in side my Thermaltake Kandalf (last sept).

I gotta say, it's only when you have a shitty case does it make a mess of dust/debris on the inside. My old case I bought for a mere $40 and that thing was filled with dust in no time.

 

[Trippynet]

Point is I re-installed Windows XP about 5 times before I realized that the jumpers for the CD drive and the Hard Drive were both on cable select and they were on the same IDE chain.

That's how it's supposed to be with Cable Select surely?

As for my biggest cockup, well I one plonked a floppy power connector on in the dark and didn't realise that I'd managed to plug it in one pin out of line with where it was supposed to be. Shorted 12v to ground, melted the power lead, produced loads of smoke, but amazingly never blew anything inside the system. How I don't know!

 

[happy_fanboy]

I once spent hours completley dissasembling and reassembling my first DIY PC for a lack of posting. I figured i wouldnt bother disconnecting the silly floppy drive. Still not having any luck i laid on the floor and stared at the thing, then it began to smoke. I joined it.

 

[Flakes]

i just remembered another one of mine on a very expensive 19" CRT monitor, i had just got the thing just before my 18th birthday party, of course since it was my 18th a big pissup at my house was in order on my birthday a full day of drinking and me and a few of my mates where messing about on the computer when i knocked one of my cans of larger off a shelf just above the monitor, the larger hit the monitor and soaked the insides, the monitor didnt explode thankfully but it did go with a loud POP. i was devestated thankfully i managed to get a replacement by cleaning it up and just teling the guy at the shop that i didnt know what happened to it.

another wierd problem not a mishap or screw up but my old pc didnt used to work unless there was a floppy drive attached to it. the worst one was definatly setting the computer alight(found on page 4 of this thread )

 

[Dade_0182]

Man this thread grows fast. I was gone for a day and i had 5 pages of catching up to do. Had to read it all, too good to miss anything.

I spilled a beer mug full of coke over my mom's new (at the time, I think a pII) laptop. It was a work one so my mom had to face the music at work. She gave me hell afterwards of course. The thing still worked (for some mysterious reason) but the buttons were so damn sticky. Just like this thread should be - a sticky.

 

[Vokofpolisiekar]

My first pc was an 386sx33 - turbo button and all... The good old days when you could actually increase the game speed with the push of a button. 30fps, flick, 100fps. Nowa days, it just slow right through...

My worst experience was a.) founding out the hard way that intel's thermal pads and a netburst cpu are quite fond of each other, hence the bend pins and b.) tideness can actually save one alot of money - one of my cats hairs got sucked in by my front fan, and it landed very nicely on the PCB of my imported 1800XL - short on the one transistor and a small bond fire and plenty of good old smoke.

I'm still doubtfull as to the hair causing a dead short, but something shorted that ah heck. But the saying goes: everything electronic works with smoke, once it's out it doesn't work anymore...

 

[Vokofpolisiekar]

While we at it, I'll share my most idiotic behaviour infront of a pc.

I was playing SH3, and having a few beers. Being engrossed in the game, I didn't have an ashtray and decided the one empty can will act just as good. Mean while, my fresh beer was directly next to it.

So, there I was, being depth charged out of the ocean and all the while I'm ashing into the wrong can! But it doesn't end there, as I proceed to finish my smoke, and dispose my butt into the fresh can.

The following gulps of beer was quite horific, and the butt nearly was swallowed. Now that's A grade dumbness... 😳