Whats the worst mistake you made while building a computer?

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No one? Fine I'll go first...I once left the screws from a build in the tower and shorted out the whole system. I also had a friend screw his motherboard directly to the case....twice.
 
I have put a floppy drive power cable on incorrectly resulting in lots of acrid smoke, a quick lunge for the power switch, and a nicely charred and melted wire. The floppy drive worked fine after connecting it up properly.

I have also killed a motherboard and processor when removing a very tightly attached heat sink.
 
The very first build I did way back when I was first getting started in the wonderful world of PC's.......

Mounted mobo directly to chasis with no standoffs. Did not fry anything thankfully just made the computer unstable till I put the board on standoffs like it should have been.
 
Bought and used an Apevia PSU which ended up killing six hard drives and possibly the RAM as well. Never again.
 
Years ago, I built a system with a Cyrix processor and an M-Tech motherboard.

If you open the dictionary to "Unstable, buggy POS" you'll find a picture of this combo there.
 
This weekend - installing a 775 motherboard overtop a 939 system, without a fresh install.

Spent the whole weekend cleaning it up.
 
fooling with some wiring while the top fan on my antec 900 was spinning. my knuckle hit the fan which broke off one of the blades so then i was trying to stop the computer from wobbling off the desk and trying not to drip blood all over the case and the carpet. :p
 
Worked on a running PC with the side panel off.

Was a mistake cuz the crappy PSU required the positive pressure from the case fans for sufficient cooling. PSU didn't shut down when it got too hot and gave up the magic smoke. Took out EVERY component in the system!
 
Using the Upgrade option in new versions of Windows instead of a fresh install. Why do I keep doing that!?!

Never again..
 
Nothing out of the ordinary actually happened when building my first computer (Athlon XP 1600+ system). However when I was building my last desktop with an Athlon X2 6400+ BE, I forgot to connect the stock AMD heatsink's fan to the motherboard. So, I booted the computer up, went into BIOS, and sat there wondering why the CPU temperature was climbing the way it was, all the way up to around 70 degrees Celsius. I then looked in the case (through the windowed panel), saw the fan cable hanging there unplugged, and let loose a fury of expletives while lunging for the power button. All was good after the fan was plugged in.
 
Getting into building computers is the biggest mistake - Wallet is empty 365/24/7.
 
I once crafted a system so unspeakable I dont even want to talk specs. It was more of a can I do it type project. Anywhoo, I got the whole thing put together, pulled it in, jumped the mobo with a set of wires AND....nothing happened. It turned out that a screw was lodged in between the I/o shield and mobo and was causing it to short.
 
trying to remove the heatspredder from my fx-51(these were ceramic, and it was back in the day when IHS removal hadnt been perfected) and i put way too much downward pressure, cracking off a corner of pins entirely. it never worked after that
 
To often my miserly ways cause problems. I only do this on my own personal stuff, but I sometimes regret re-using old equipment.
 
Red_Star said:
Wow...nothing like some good old fashion brand hatin'.
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Like most of my "brand hatin", I can provide proof why I hate Apevia so much:
Apevia ATX-AS500W-BL
Apevia Warlock Power 900W
XQPack's Included 420W PSU
Aspire Beast 680W Power Supply

Coupled with my own experience, I've think I've provided enough proof why Apevia should be hated and not used at all.

Not all people have an irrational hatred of a brand you know. Some people actually have proof to backup their hatred of a particular brand
 
i'm sad to see that link to the bad review of the qpack psu. mine has been running great. thankfully its only running a celeron dual-core, 1hdd, 1 dvdromm, and a 7600gs.
 
Buying a DFI S939 board. :p It was the worst unfinished and buggy board I have ever used. It's also the only "working" motherboard I ever sent back to an online retailer, taking a restocking fee hit.

I <3 my Apevia 500W PSU. It was free after rebate and has run like a champ for two years powering an overclocked S939 system.
 
being to lazy to fully remove my water cooling reservoir from the case to fill it all the way up, and a little distilled water leaked onto my brand new gtx260, and not realizing it until the pc wouldnt boot video! Luckily the next day after plenty of time to dry it worked just fine. This was in my first watercool build so, im learning for the next one.
 
lol my first build in a long time, I forgot to put in the port cover...it sort of works out because my case works on positive pressure lol.
 
I once forgot to plug the processor fan into the motherboard header, and left it for 10 mins or so, using the computer until it crashed.... Then had to pop the processor in the freezer for a couple hours as it was so hot - lucky it was an Intel at the time and had the thermal cut out!
 
My step sister got mad at me and jumped into my open case, breaking everything except the sound card
 
Drakan290 said:
My step sister got mad at me and jumped into my open case, breaking everything except the sound card
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:eek::eek::eek:

I think the worst thing I ever did when I first started out was try and jam a heat-sink in the motherboard the wrong way.
 
I forgot that early 845e boards couldn't take older 3.3v AGP cards, but remembered at the last second. Despite all that, I STILL powered it on anyways, because I was too lazy to check, lol. Needless to say, the board was fried. This was like 6mo ago, so no big loss, lol. I was too lazy cuz a month before I was in the same situation, but it worked that time, haha.
 
I once trusted a friend that told me he backed up his computer before I reformatted and reinstalled. He lost about 2 years of photos.

I now make an image of every system before I do a reformat because people don't know #$%@ about backing up their data. Usually they are upgrading to a larger drive so I put the old system as a partition on the new drive and tell them that everything is there. Or I have them bring in an external drive to image it to.
 
Aren't AGP cards notched to prevent such mistakes? Unless you did the RAM trick of putting DDR RAM into SDRAM slots or similar...

My biggest *smashing head on desk* moment was when I used screws which were too long on an HSF, meaning that the HSF didn't contact the CPU die at all. Farewell, Athlon XP :(
 
I took a fan out of my computer for a new headsink. Had the computer running great, i set the fan on top of the case (Lian Li) and shorted out the MB.

Just baffles me it happened, got a good laugh and a hit to the wallet lol

I know try to pawn the "Death Fan" off on other people, no one wants it
 
Elledan said:
Aren't AGP cards notched to prevent such mistakes? Unless you did the RAM trick of putting DDR RAM into SDRAM slots or similar...

My biggest *smashing head on desk* moment was when I used screws which were too long on an HSF, meaning that the HSF didn't contact the CPU die at all. Farewell, Athlon XP :(
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lol okay now I remember an "almost worst mistake", but thanks to some common sense an an audible WTF from my bro:p I was okay. We were mounting the noctua U12P HS and I noticed it wasn't making contact, even after screwing it in most of the way. I looked at the picture/instructions again and noticed we had the components in the wrong order. That was close though lol.
 
Yeah, nowadays I check at least five times to make sure the HSF is on securely :)
 
My little bro did this one... He stuck a 486 DX2-66 CPU in the CPU the wrong way. When he powered it on, it shot flames from in between the CPU and the socket. We were sure the board and the CPU were fried, but we pried the CPU out of the socket and plugged it in the correct way. Much to our amazement it worked fine.

On my end, I once tightened down my home-made water block too tight onto an Athlon XP CPU and broke the CPU into 3 pieces.... bye bye $50... oh well. Then I had my little bro ask a guy at CompUSA if they could fix it - as a joke :)
 
Buying a Soyo motherboard....never doing that again, not that i could if i wanted to.
 
story background: i had built a few of my own pcs at this point.

A friend asked for help in his first build, to which I agreed... Everything arrived except the HSF, and I told him that it should be ok to boot it up to see if it worked w/o a HSF... about 1 second later we smelled that burnt electronics smell... and sure enough the CPU had fried itself.

I learned that lesson the hard way, out of my own pocket.
 
IceWeasel said:
story background: i had built a few of my own pcs at this point.

A friend asked for help in his first build, to which I agreed... Everything arrived except the HSF, and I told him that it should be ok to boot it up to see if it worked w/o a HSF... about 1 second later we smelled that burnt electronics smell... and sure enough the CPU had fried itself.

I learned that lesson the hard way, out of my own pocket.
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I had an Athlon 1500+ did that when I turned it on without HSF. It literally popped in like 2 seconds - I wouldn't think that possible, thought I did something weird - but I guess that happens.

Got to experience AMD's great warranty though!
 
Elledan said:
Aren't AGP cards notched to prevent such mistakes? Unless you did the RAM trick of putting DDR RAM into SDRAM slots or similar... ...
Click to expand...

Nope, not all of them are notched correctly, as I learned, lol.

jterp7 said:
lol okay now I remember an "almost worst mistake", but thanks to some common sense an an audible WTF from my bro:p I was okay. We were mounting the noctua U12P HS and I noticed it wasn't making contact, even after screwing it in most of the way. I looked at the picture/instructions again and noticed we had the components in the wrong order. That was close though lol.
Click to expand...

Newer CPUs should have a cutoff temp and will shutdown to prevent perm damage.

IceWeasel said:
story background: i had built a few of my own pcs at this point.

A friend asked for help in his first build, to which I agreed... Everything arrived except the HSF, and I told him that it should be ok to boot it up to see if it worked w/o a HSF... about 1 second later we smelled that burnt electronics smell... and sure enough the CPU had fried itself.

I learned that lesson the hard way, out of my own pocket.
Click to expand...

You can actually do this with Core2's, lol. However, just because you could, does NOT mean you should. ;)
 
this isnt really an mistake when i m building the computer but i would just like to share and i glad it didnt burn my house or kill my old rig! lol
had a AMD Athlon 2000+ 1.7GHz with 2 x 256MB DDR RAM and GeForce MX440 64MB AGP card
anywayz the cpu has been a total PITA the whole time since the first day it is up and running...
biggest problem was overheating... if i leave the chassis closed... after 40-60min of gaming... it will just restart itself...
being a retard, i removed the side panel and had a fan blow right into the chassis while i game. later i had this habit of lying my whole chassis flat on the ground instead of having it sit right up. and one night, after done my midnight gaming i just pass out at my bed... not knowing that i had a sock right above my stock AMD HSF. around 3-4hrs later i was waken up by this really strong smell of solder, then turn on the light... HOLY SHIT! i saw a burnt sock over my HSF and a small fire in between the HS and the fan! then i quickly shut the main power of the computer and remove the sock away. after putting out the fire and stuff... i found the fan was melted and was unable to spin at all... so i didnt bother try to turn the computer on until i got a new HSF... and suprising... after i changed the HSF... everything worked again!!! nothing was fried or dmg or anything... it was back to normal!
kinda scary and funny thing that happened to me lol
 
Put too much force onto a really stiff 72-pin SIMM socket back in day, cracked through the slot, the motherboard, and dented the case outward at the point where the standoff was.
 
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