The dumbest thing you've ever done on a PC

splashtech said:
Can't think of anything particularly stupid I've done (although I'm sure something will come to me...), but a couple of these reminded me of something one of my housemates did...

He wanted to run some game (cant remember what, but its a fairly typical high-powered 3D game), and couldnt figure out why it always crashed out when he loaded it up. For some reason, he got the idea it was to do with the virtual memory, so spent about 2 days enlarging the virtual memory, and them moving it to a different partition, etc. Then he went and bought a brand new graphics card, still nothing. Then... one of my other housemates was like "don't forget to plug in the power"... there was a molex danging by it. That's what the problem had been all along! He took the new graphics card back to the shop and mumbled something about "software issues", as he got his money back.... made us all laugh for days. :D
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Dumbass lol
 
Just got my new Asus P4S533 board. Hooked it all up, and watched a spark shoot across the room. Checked everything out, and I only had the RAM half way in. :p Doh! I then proceeded to order my new P4S533. :D
 
While swaping my PC from a crappy case to the lian-li its housed in now i installed every component and had it wired very nice and all hidden.

I was stoked about it until i tried to turn on the PSU on the back and it made a "WEEEE---WOOOOOOP" type of noise.

The PC wouldnt even boot and the light on the MB wasn't lit. I figured bad PSU after i tried several solutions. I ended up buying a new powersupply and dropped it in and got it rewired again to my liking and when i tried to flip the switch , "WEEEEE-WOOOOOOP".

What the fuck?

........................


Several hours and countless advil / coffee later i realized my error -- I had screwed my MB directly into the case without the fittings underneath.

LUCKILY i tore it down and redid it correctly and sure enough, it powered on like a champ. I've never made that mistake again :p
 
I know a dude who bought a pci-e card and owned an agp motherboard (might have been other way round, cant remember). low and behold, card wont fit. so this genious grabs a pair of Scissors... yeah... and cuts it... yeah... to make it fit... upon realizing that this was the most retarded thing he had ever done in his life, he tried to pass this card off as defective to me... I was, less then happy.

Anywho. He had already paid me for the card, and he ordered another one soo. I woulda sold him the second one for cost, had he not been so retarded to as to try to make me take it back.

and that about does it, lets see. I forgot to plug in a 4pin for the CPU. it was arranged in the case in such a way that it was really hard to see. took me hours to figure that out.
 
AntiSocialMunky said:
-I guilletined my Microfly Theromometer Lead in a RAM dimm and shorted out a stick. Didn't mentioned it to the egg guy I talked to for RMA - didn't think he would believe me anyway.
-I deleted paint one time from Win95.

Nothing too stoopid.
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Wow what happened?? That's exactly where I put the thermistor for my microfly. Jammed it between the heatspreader and a d9gmh chip. Pretty useful place for a thermistor I gotta say :)
 
I actually managed to put a 128meg stick of PC-133 in upside down and get the clips to shut..

It sparked and smoked a smidge when I turned the computer on ...huh ..image that ..

:p


[F]old|[H]ard
 
ThreeDee said:
I actually managed to put a 128meg stick of PC-133 in upside down and get the clips to shut..

It sparked and smoked a smidge when I turned the computer on ...huh ..image that ..

:p


[F]old|[H]ard
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lol upside down as in the pins pointed tits up?? How did it even go in?? Nice
 
Just now...cleaning out my PC, and after having disconnected my graphics card, and pulled it out to clean the fan, I put it back in, switched on my rig, and heard the most obnoxious whirring sound from within.

The monitor said 'Please check signal'. So I checked the connectors, they were in fine. I opened up my case while my comp was still on, to see if I could figure out where the sound was coming from. Sure enough I realized I FORGOT (!!!!!!) to connect my PCI-E connector from my PSU to my graphics card. Plugged it in, and everything was back to normal.

I felt so stupid... :p
 
DoomRulz said:
Just now...cleaning out my PC, and after having disconnected my graphics card, and pulled it out to clean the fan, I put it back in, switched on my rig, and heard the most obnoxious whirring sound from within.

The monitor said 'Please check signal'. So I checked the connectors, they were in fine. I opened up my case while my comp was still on, to see if I could figure out where the sound was coming from. Sure enough I realized I FORGOT (!!!!!!) to connect my PCI-E connector from my PSU to my graphics card. Plugged it in, and everything was back to normal.

I felt so stupid... :p
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but how does that explain the most obnoxious whirring sound from within??? Was the pcie plug stuck in a fan!??! What the!!!
 
Screwing in the screw on the 7800gt too tight messing up the PCB. in the end had to get a new card since my warrenty was out. But I did get a upgrade out of that mess up. heh.
 
Today I tried taking out my vid-card. I pulled and pulled not knowing I had to press that tab on the right side of the agp slot before it would come out. Check post titled "computer making noise" where its posted. I dodged a big bullet according to a poster.
 
ziddey said:
but how does that explain the most obnoxious whirring sound from within??? Was the pcie plug stuck in a fan!??! What the!!!
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lol take it ez

the card wasn't hooked up to the power...i guess the fan was struggling to spin or something
 
DoomRulz said:
lol take it ez

the card wasn't hooked up to the power...i guess the fan was struggling to spin or something
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ah haha. don't worry. I was taking it easy. I think I come off the wrong way sometimes ;)

Kind of interesting. I thought about the fan having too little power but didn't think that'd be it. Glad it's working again ;)
 
ziddey said:
lol upside down as in the pins pointed tits up?? How did it even go in?? Nice
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That would truly be something :p ..no , the pins were to the motherboard at least lol


[F]old|[H]ard
 
ThreeDee said:
That would truly be something :p ..no , the pins were to the motherboard at least lol


[F]old|[H]ard
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I, however, do know someone who did just that. A buddy of mine told me that his friend had just given him a stick of ram for his machine (that I had built for him). He told me that his friend installed it for him and everything. But... they turned on the computer and it wouldn't work. I told him to bring it to me and I would take a look.

To my total amazement, I found a stick of PC133 UPSIDE DOWN with the pins sticking straight up in a DDR slot. The clips were not clipped, but the ram was in there good enough that I had to really pull on it to get it out. When I did, I noticed a few chipped ram chips, and one of those little tiny chips on the top edge was floating around the case.

I just shook my head, got on newegg, and ordered another mobo.
 
Working at staples, a teenage girl came in asking for an s-video input card to do a school project. I hooked her up with a cheapie hauppauge and she was on her way..

A couple hours later she came back and said I fried her computer. I asked her what happened and she said the card wouldn't fit, so she ripped off the pci bracket and plugged it in backwards.. I laughed and laughed and laughed, then told her she was SOL.

Good times.
 
the dumbest thing i did back when i was a n00b ages ago playing starcraft...

someone said press alt+f4 to download the map faster.


yep..
 
Working with my Mom's new(ish) PC. I had to put some hardware from her old machine to her new one. After that was done, I installed Windows on it in my room. Brought it out to the dining room, hooked it all up, press the button, dick-all.

Of course, I go into 'rip the damn thing apart' mode. Then I discover that I hit the switch on the PSU :/
 
A guy in my dorm had recently knocked over his case, after which his computer failed to post. Much diagnosis later, we had determined that he was best off just ordering a whole new pc, with a few donor parts from the old one. His power supply and drives were all still good, so without thinking about the 20 vs. 24 pin issue, I went ahead and ordered all the parts. We get it there, I go to plug in the power supply to the motherboard... Jesus. I'm stupid. We had overclocking plans for it, so the adapter was right out the window, and we'd spent his max budget on the other parts. Two weeks later we split the bill for the new PSU.

In a fit of boredom, and I do mean extreme boredom (you know, where you can't sit still or do anything worthwhile) I decided to swap out the heatsink and fan on my x800GTO with an obviously much larger socket A sink and fan. I got as far as to remove the entire stock unit before realizing that there was no way in hell I'd get the socket A sink mounted without severe ghettoization. I had to think long and hard about how stupid I was after that. It should be noted that I did think about going the ghetto route and figuring out a way to mount it. Still wonder what the temps would be like.
 
dark_phantom36 said:
Forgot to plug in the processor fan. :eek:

Luckily I turned it off before it overheated.
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Ooh Ooh, I had that happen once with my machine. Except I didn't catch it immediately, but was like "why is it running so slow?" until I checked the My Computer properties, and saw the proc had throttled itself down to something like 200mhz.
 
Klintor said:
Ooh Ooh, I had that happen once with my machine. Except I didn't catch it immediately, but was like "why is it running so slow?" until I checked the My Computer properties, and saw the proc had throttled itself down to something like 200mhz.
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Haha.

And I forgot to mention that it was my dad's computer. I would've been in a mess if I fried it.
 
DoomRulz said:
lol take it ez

the card wasn't hooked up to the power...i guess the fan was struggling to spin or something
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its actualy a speaker on the card to tell you when you fuck up :p seriously :p it beeps VERY loudly lmao

i tried pluggin in a fan while the computer was running and pulled the SATA cable from my harddrive :D Hotswap FTW. no corruption :D nice big ol' BSOD though :D
 
Forgot to add this one:

I once used an air compressor (like you'd have in your garage) to blow the dust out of my MAIN computer at the time. Incase there's someone out there wondering why that's bad, here's why: when you compress air it forms condensation. So after using the air compressor over and over that condensation collects in the tank and little bits of water come out with the air when you use it.
For some reason (devine intervention perhaps), no water came out when I used it to blow out my computer. After that close call, I realised why there is such a thing as canned air ;)
 
At the computer repair shop I worked at, they had a special compressor that removed the moisture from the tank without removing the pressure. I don't remember much, except that it cost more than my car.

Anywhoo, I've got another one: never remove the battery from a laptop while it's plugged in. The transition isn't as...nice as one would think. It tends to corrupt HDDs :D
 
Lazarey said:
Forgot to add this one:

I once used an air compressor (like you'd have in your garage) to blow the dust out of my MAIN computer at the time. Incase there's someone out there wondering why that's bad, here's why: when you compress air it forms condensation. So after using the air compressor over and over that condensation collects in the tank and little bits of water come out with the air when you use it.
For some reason (devine intervention perhaps), no water came out when I used it to blow out my computer. After that close call, I realised why there is such a thing as canned air ;)
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Haha I hear ya. I was cleaning my rig just last night, and was using a can of compressed air. Was blowing out my PSU, and I could have SWORN I saw some water shoot in and was like :eek:

Luckily it didn't though. Plugged my rig back in, and nothing fried, so I guess I was hallucinating lol. But mind you, those cans aren't entirely fool-proof. If you spray too much too soon, the cans get really cold, and starts shooting out water.
 
dark_phantom36 said:
Forgot to plug in the processor fan. :eek:

Luckily I turned it off before it overheated.
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I actually did that the other day on my Athlon XP system.....I had to remove a bunch of components, one of them being disconnecting the CPU fan. I plugged it back in, ran for a little while, then it started beeping and shut off (automatic temperature shutdown). I wondered for a second "why is it doing that?" then opened the machine, touched the CPU heatsink, and it nearly burned my finger. Plugged it back in and everything was fine.

Among other things:
- Broke a CD-RW drive tray by resting my foot on the open tray by accident
- Dropped my laptop but thankfully it was only cosmetically damaged (minor cracks in plastic)
- Screwed up the D0 on my Xbox when modding it but thankfully I fixed it.
 
My first motheboard upgrade - I took out the old board and slung it onto a seat next to me. One of those nice bean bags seats full of static.... strange... the board never worked again.

Swapped the DVD player in my neighbours PC, but did it in a rush and shut up the box without a final check. Next day I found out that I a cable had jammed into the CPU fan.... so that cost me new M/B, CPU, PSU.... ouch.

Trying to fix a customer PC for 30 mins. Win98 would boot into safe mode fine, but when booting into "normal" windows would just hang with a wait cursor.... then I found the CD in the drive.... complete with teeth marks from where a small child had been eating it!!

Spotted a Network Card not fully installed inside a work PC. So gave it a little shove home. Trouble was PC was still on.... but the loud pop and smoke from the PSU didn't happen until a few minutes later.... :D

(Glad to say that most of the above are from the 1990's.... except for the Cables in the CPU which was last month.... Duh!!)
 
shuke said:
when i was 4 or 5 i unknowingly cleared the hard drive of a macintosh which had all of my dads documents work stuff etc etc. Since then its been pretty smooth running.
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LMFAO

digital_exhaust said:
Left an open beer right next to a machine with no side cover installed, with a five year old boy (my son) in the same room, unattended for about 45 seconds:eek:

You can figure the rest out.
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I figure your boy drank the beer? :D :D

For me...

-bent pins on a intel EE chip back when they were like 1k
-fried my psu cos a screw
-try to turn on my computer when the power isnt even plugged in lol
 
The dumbest thing I have ever done was I was reseating some ram chips and the small plastic tab found on some IDE cables got wedged inbetween the dimm and it's socket.

I didn't realize this until I turned the computer on and suddenly I had a small bonfire in my computer.

Nice 7" flame or so.

I think I ruined my boxers at that point :(
 
1. Installed AMD heatsink with blue plastic tape still covering the thermal paste
(loud pop within seconds, smoke, burning smell, dead XP 1700 cpu, sadness.)

2. plugged power cable into harddrive while the PC was running
(loud instant pop, smoke, burning smell, dead powersupply. oh yeah, and a big spark)
 
How about trying to fix a stuck pixel on a new Dell 2407WFP with a "gentle" massage then heard a crack. Later called Dell and said half of the screen went black just after a day, lucky they didn't ask why...
 
alg7_munif said:
How about trying to fix a stuck pixel on a new Dell 2407WFP with a "gentle" massage then heard a crack. Later called Dell and said half of the screen went black just after a day, lucky they didn't ask why...
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LMAO you must've shit your pants when you heard that crack
 
Not really but it was night and I can't really sleep until I called Dell the next day lol.
 
Last week I was redoing some of the wiring in my computer and decided to shorten the power cable for my hard drive. I removed the molex plug, shortened the wires, re-sleeved and put the molex back on, switching the 5V and 12V wires. (colorblindness + hurrying FTL :( )

No dramatic sparks or pops, just a dead drive. The new one should be here tomorrow.
 
alg7_munif said:
How about trying to fix a stuck pixel on a new Dell 2407WFP with a "gentle" massage then heard a crack. Later called Dell and said half of the screen went black just after a day, lucky they didn't ask why...
Click to expand...

LOL oh that must have been horrifing....
 
Story: I put my damaged Final Fantasy 7 PC disk in my computer to salvage the movie files.

Prologue: It had a small crack in it. It only corrupted two files though so I was fine. However, I just had to go and try to repair it. The disk fractured from edge to edge. So, I put my damaged Final Fantasy 7 PC disk into my CD drive to salvage the movie.

Epilogue: It shattered... SOUNDED LIKE A FREAKING GUNSHOT... I spend about half an hour dumping it out off my CD drive. I didn't think it would work anymore... bit it works fine. It sounded crunchy for a while but it works fine now.

Later I downloaded FF7 Ultima Edition for PC. I could finally race my Chocobos.

HAPPY ENDING!
 
I have a weird one.

I was sitting underneath my computer(was on the desk, i was on the floor), opened the CD tray and put a game CD in (I couldn`t really see what I was doing...)

My computer starts playing music.
WTF? I am sure I put my game in the drive...

Stood up, open the drive, out pops my game CD. Close the tray. Music plays again.
Eh??
Opened the drive, this time a music CD pops out.Wha...and my game disk was missing.

turned out I put my game CD on top of the music CD, and then my game CD fell down the back of the CD drive and was well and truly lost :D
 
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