Worst PC Build Screw Ups

Page 9 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
This one caused some colourful outbursts. :roll:

Built an Athlon system and had everything running great...
Put the case on the floor.. ran fine for a YEAR!

Then one day I dropped a pen off the back of my desk...
as I was trying to reach it I pulled the case forward slightly by nudging the PSU cable... BIG mistake finally revealed.. I had forgotten to put in the screws for the PSU.. snapped HSF retaining clips, radeon 9700 and sound card! :x

Also got a nasty bump when I slammed my head into the bottom of the desk and landed flat on my face as my wheeled chair flew across the room behind me. :cry:
 
Well my main screw up would be trying be a Samaritan and work on the work computer, it was running hot so i said sure what the hell ill dust the sucker out and redo thermal paste ect... well when i went to take the HS off well it took the cpu with it.... it was one of those $@@!! did anyone see that. I sat there for the next 20 mins trying to get the damn cpu of the HS, it was a p3 btw. ended up having to take it home and heat up the HS with g/f's hairdryer to get it off, then i saw a few pins were pins were bent, I straighten them up, cool im good to go not a big deal, take it to work set everything up. Damn thing wont post... im like ()*#! i screwed it up, opened up the side of the case look around the p4 connecter wasn’t plugged in, i was like F*&cken hell, i then grabbed the damn thing and plugged it in.... the computer was still on at the time, sparks flew... i then just ripped cable out of the back sat there, and damn near cried... then i put it all together and it started up and is still running fine. I will never touch another work computer if i can help it. Ugh not a good time.


Not really a foc up but a story. I worked for a comp store; some guy brought in his comp wouldn’t get it to format right. so we took it and said we'll get it working, we open the side panel and the room fills with the smell of a ashtray.. Great.. Anyway try to turn it on; his cpu fan had so much tar on it the fan would not spin, so we replace that. Anyway the reason he couldn’t get it to format was that smoke and debris had gotten in the hd. so he had to replace that, we got it working but the every HS on the MB or vid card was covered in the gooey tar, so he said foc it and had us order new parts just so he didn’t have to try and clean it. suppose if you wanted a excuse to upgrade just take up chain smoking. Kills you and you comp
Click to expand...

My dad has chainsmoked at the PC for years. I had to build him a custom case. It uses a 20" x 20" furnace filter on the side with a scrounged fan blade spun by an old 8-track motor keeping the air flowing :roll:

Still have to clean out his kb and mouse once a year. Did you know tar can obscure the sensor on an optical mouse? It's a wonder his walls aren't sticky with it!
 
snapped HSF retaining clips, radeon 9700 and sound card!
Click to expand...

Reminds me of a PC death I witnessed... Back when Mac vs. PC wars were going strong in the workplace, it must have been around '01. One of the more vocal PC proponents put together an expensive rig and was taking it down a stairwell to show it off to a team of Mac lovers. Anyway, with a half-flight of stairs left, he started yelling out about his hot new machine and how it was a Mac-killer. Then he lost his footing and that brand new box LAUNCHED out into space. He watched with a horror-stricken face and it bounded down the stairs and landed on the cement floor. He'd used some kind of monster generic server case and the whole front of it was plastic. Plastic bits flew everywhere, one of the doors popped off. He'd custom-made a big aluminum CPU HS and had a big fan on it and all that momentum caused the mobo to break like a potato chip. It was a horrible death and to rub salt in the wound, the most outspoken Mac devotee stood up from his Mac and applauded and then told the PC guy that it didn't look particularly fast. Fanboys can be so cruel!
 
This one was my first real attemps at building a rig, it was summer 98 of I'm not mistaken and it was the real war between socket7 and slot1, and I was on a budget. I nearly chose socket7 with ALI Aladdin chipset but if anyones remember these, they really sucked (P2 266 beating a K6 450 with these ALI mobo wasnt surprising)... So I chose a Celeron for good overclocking potential and a brand new chipset from Intel : the infamous 820 series... with the SDR onboard convertor because all these 800 series at the time were using RDRAM Module which costed an arm and two legs... (These board were expensive and considered the future of Intel lineup at the time, just to be removed from market after 2-3 months due to the fact the SDR convertor was buggy.)

I was hoping of reaching sky high overlocking with a Celery 466 in that kind of ASUS highend motherboard which had 100 mhz FSB, So I was building the rig in harsh condition, on the basement ground in a dark room... Ideal for first rig :)

When everything was assembled, I pressed power button and all seemed good, except blank screen lol. After several checkup, I didnt find what the problem was and I Returned to the shop with the computer. They went to the backstore with it and returned after 5 minutes saying "everything is fine now" you can take it back. I said what was the prob and tech guy said "Oh just a little glitche"... I said to myself wtf and went back, ready for some big time Starcraft game. Pressed power button and... Nothing. I was really mad, as these guys said "all is good" and I had no car at the moment, this shop was at about 40 km from home. So I read the ASUS manual from top to bottom, to find explicitly : "CPU Support P2 - P3"... the fucking board didnt even support Celeron nor 66mhz bus, and my overclocking plan was scraped. Not to mention I never returned at that place... I still remember the tech guy smiling and saying that It just booted fine in their backstore...

PS

I Ended putting a trusty P2-400 overclocked to 500.
 
Brings new meaning to the words, "Read the F***ing Manual." Worst than actually screwing up a build is buying components that aren't compatible with what you have. Wasting money = bad.
I remember when PCIe was first being implemented, I bought a board that supported only PCIe. Me thinks it was a Intel DG board. I accidentally bought a AGP card instead of a PCIe card. Pissed me off that I wasted $120 on an outdated card. I was subjected to the horror that is on-board video. :evil:
Moral of the story? Double check your order before you proceed to the checkout.
And don't buy Intel boards. They suck on ice.
 
Well, here's an screw up (not mine)

I have a friend who had a faulty disk, so he gave it to his brother to backup all his data because he was going to buy a new disk, but was too damn busy with college and he didnt had time for the backup.

He calls his brother the next day

Lou(my friend): So, dan, did you finish it?
Dan: err....nope, your HDD is fkd up, it's not on "my pc" and it's not working...

He rushed to his house just to find out that his brother forced the floppy power connector into the master/slave pins on the HDD!

Seriously, I don't know how he could do that......but that's what he tells me

Aftermath: disk burnt.......totally (did I mention data loss?)

This one (borrowd from another forum) was about a guy that was cleaning dust out of his PSU, it was very dusty and he had flu, so he sneezed and a HUGE amount of mucus covered the psu....giving it a one way ticket to the garbage 😛

My only screw up with electronics was when I was 9 or something, I built a classic battery-switch-light bulb circuit with a 1.5V lightbulb, I showed it to everyone til the battery ran out, so when I had to take it to the teacher to show her that it worked and get my grade, the thing didnt work anymore, the battery was depleted, so I borrowd a 9V battery thinking that it would work, to my surprise, the moment I turned it on the bulb EXPLODED, no sh!t xD me and the teacher were 😵!!!

That same year I tried to install an "alarm system" on my house, the instructions showed a square battery and I assumed "oh, it's a 9volt one", I connected it to the battery and a slight burnt smell hit my nose.....a few years later I realized that the square battery was a 4.5 volts one......

Finnally, I must add that I am Mr Conduitivity! xD, one day after a thunderstorm blew my voltage regulator fuse I was going to replace it, when I was putting the new fuse in place I got a discharge, then my arm moved back and touched another regulator and got struck too!! but that's not all, after the second shock my arm moved forward and hit the CPU giving me a 3rd discharge...damn I'm lucky....my hand hurted for 6 hours after that.....

sidenote: my BIGGEST mistake, by far, was having mc affee installed on my pc.....lost it in less than 24 hours with everythng updated and running... either that or that I bough EPSON printers...
 
Here's one that just happened:

Thinking that I could run my PC a little more passively, I took out some fans. It ran for the past week at a good temperature: 100F and hit a max of 120F at idle (I wasn't gonna do anything except surf the net because of HW). About 10 minutes ago, that temperature shot up to 158F!!!!!

I thought the PC was suppose to shut off at that temp! I set the CPU Temp warning at 140F; obviously it doesnt have that safety feature....

Luckily, it doesn't seem like I damaged the CPU (at least I hope not). Needless to say, I put back the fans...
 
You should have tried running larger fans with better bearings at a lower RPM if you wanted the quiet effect. Passive cooling is always the cause of many headaches.
Believe me, I know. For me I'd want the inside of my case to remain at 70F to 80F if I want to consider passive cooling.
 
Ok, some 80mm fans come with a regular plug that you plug into the Power Supply and a second plug that you can either plug another fan to or into the motherboard. Well, I forgot to cover all the "unused pins" on one of the fans and when my g/f's sister was yanking on some random cord that was plugged in the same power surge as mine, it somehow rocked the CPU case (while the computer was on) causing the "unused pin" to touch the Chassis, therefore frying the 420WATT power supply! In shock, I put in a 300WATT power supply to make sure it wasn't the case fan with the hanging "unused pins" (as for in the beginning, I did not know it was the "unused pins" from the fan). THANKFULLY, my good ole 300WATT Power Supply had a short circuit protection and shut the computer off, saving the power supply itself. So note, unused pins that dangle from a connected case fan will shorten your power supply if it comes in contact with case!

On other note, the Pentium D and Core 2 Duo heatsinks had me confused on the way the fan mounted. My friend's computer (which I put together), luckily didn't mess up when I figured out (after the computer had been running 24/7 for 3 months) that only 1 PIN WAS ACTUALLY LOCKED!!! I fixed the other 3 pins that lock the CPU fan and saw his CPU temps drop about 10C!!! Thankfully, it didn't fry his computer... else I'd probably end up having to give him my new C2D computer 🙁

Then, I made the same mistake (before I saw my friend's CPU cooler not hooked up right) on my new build, but this time, it was only 1 pin. However, my CPU still idles hot. 50C @ 333 x 9. I'm now waiting on my liquid cooler! 😀
 
I've got a few; none of them particularly bad, thought.

1) Mucking around with my system, late one night... Couldn't figure out why my serial wasn't working; realized it wasn't fully seated. Body reacted before brain engaged, and I pushed it down (unit still powered on). Whoops. Fat blue spark, gold fingers burned off card.

2) While I was working in retail sales (and did the hardware support for the stored), I reversed the connection on power button on a build. Whoops, nother fat blue spark. Got to quickly source out another power button, which was fun. No other damage, though.

3) Not mine but a customer's goof. She brought in her system, said the memory she bought wasn't working. No idea how she did it, but she had it in backwards. Even though there was the notch/key system to prevent it, she had jammed it in there. Take it out, flip it around, and off she went.

4) Another customer bought a 486 DX2/50 processor to upgrade his Packard Bell. He INSISTED on doing the upgrade himself, even though I offered to do it for free. Turns out on his system, the processor was soldered on. When he brought in the unit, he had snapped off about a quarter of the processor by jamming a screwdriver under the corner and prying up. New motherboard was more expensive than a new system.

5) And my last screwup... My first Socket 775 build, just this last spring. Asus MB had a plastic cover over the socket, with a "Remove This Before Installing Processor" sticker. But it wasn't very specific about what exactly I had to remove, so I ended up removing the whole metal hold-down (instead of the plastic cover). Hey, it came off easy! I realized what I had done while waiting for the local computer store techs to troubleshoot it (I brought it in dis-assembled), and they were kind enough not to call me an idiot... :)

Clint
 
5) And my last screwup... My first Socket 775 build, just this last spring. Asus MB had a plastic cover over the socket, with a "Remove This Before Installing Processor" sticker. But it wasn't very specific about what exactly I had to remove, so I ended up removing the whole metal hold-down (instead of the plastic cover). Hey, it came off easy! I realized what I had done while waiting for the local computer store techs to troubleshoot it (I brought it in dis-assembled), and they were kind enough not to call me an idiot... :)
Click to expand...
How they managed that..... 😀 [/joking]

To everyone... the best of the Worst PC Build Screw Ups will be hosted here: DaSickNinja's THGF Blog
Part 2 will be going up later today.
 
no offense, but how does a computer tech make that kind of mistake?

stay away from my computer! 😛
Click to expand...

Which one? :) Hey, I was young and foolish! I think that was one of (if not the) first build I did, too. Enough excuses, though. :)

Clint
 
After reading your post, I have come to the conclusion that you did little to nothing in the area of research before you bought your parts.

You would be better off letting somebody else build your computer.

hball
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom