Crazy Computer Stories

[fluxion]

bought a s754 3000+ newcastle....upgrading from a p4 emachine...was pretty stoked.

carefully set it down on the carpet on some anti-static wrap (i always build stuff on my carpet floor or bed...i know..dumb...but no incidents so far), hop in my computer chair to check something out online, and roll right over it with one of the wheels of the chair. bent half the pins. still worked once i bent them all back though

 

[darkking]

Let me add mine...

So i teach a few people things here and there and next thing you know they are considered experts to those who know even less then they do.
So "paul' wanted a new PC and asked "joe" who was dating his sister-in-law to help him.Joe helped him buy parts and was going to build it for him. I was glad,less work for me.
The parts come in and joe goes to pauls house after work to help him build the box.
About 1130pm im gaming and the phone rings..its paul..."can we come over with my box please look at it, im worried."
Sure is say and the next thing i know they are at my door.
Paul says "we plugged it in and a big arc of electricity shot across the case and a little smoke. We were afraid to touch it again, so i put on some oven mits and pulled the plug.
I look at the back panel and mention it looks a little off.
Joe tells me " the motherboard wouldn't fit right"
I take the box tell them i will get to it later and go finish my game..
About 1am i get the time and open the case to take a look..

the Motherboard was screwed directly into the tray!!
no spacers,no washers..No wonder the bitch arced..he grounded the whole thing and all the power off the psu went thru the case.

Another guy "Andy" insisted on installing his own CPU and thought he learned enought to overclock... Calls me the next day saying it wont work, the temp alarm keeps going off even at normal settings.
Problem? He bought artic silver and applied it...not a dab....the entire tube..leaking out from under the heatsink and across the MB....

OH I HAVE MORE

 

[soundguy]

please tell us...

they were so much better than mine...

 

[TheBluePill]

Let me add mine...

So i teach a few people things here and there and next thing you know they are considered experts to those who know even less then they do.
So "paul' wanted a new PC and asked "joe" who was dating his sister-in-law to help him.Joe helped him buy parts and was going to build it for him. I was glad,less work for me.
The parts come in and joe goes to pauls house after work to help him build the box.
About 1130pm im gaming and the phone rings..its paul..."can we come over with my box please look at it, im worried."
Sure is say and the next thing i know they are at my door.
Paul says "we plugged it in and a big arc of electricity shot across the case and a little smoke. We were afraid to touch it again, so i put on some oven mits and pulled the plug.
I look at the back panel and mention it looks a little off.
Joe tells me " the motherboard wouldn't fit right"
I take the box tell them i will get to it later and go finish my game..
About 1am i get the time and open the case to take a look..

the Motherboard was screwed directly into the tray!!
no spacers,no washers..No wonder the bitch arced..he grounded the whole thing and all the power off the psu went thru the case.

Another guy "Andy" insisted on installing his own CPU and thought he learned enought to overclock... Calls me the next day saying it wont work, the temp alarm keeps going off even at normal settings.
Problem? He bought artic silver and applied it...not a dab....the entire tube..leaking out from under the heatsink and across the MB....

OH I HAVE MORE

Ahahah.. That reminds me of the time my father-in-law tried to build his own PC.. It wouldnt boot for more than a few seconds.. After much searching, it turns out he left the Plastic Cover over the CPU Core on his A64, the heatsink was installed over that..

 

[hardnewbie]

Last night I took my HD2900Pro from 600/800 to 750/998 and ran it that way for 4 hrs. I removed the stock cooling and installed a Zalman Vf900 w/ heatsinks on the ram. Well in the middle of NFSMW the screen became a multi-colored rainbow. Crap! well, I let it cool off and sorry no luck. Had to go buy a new card sigh( Yeah!). Went with the 9600GT.

 

[Riftsaw]

Darkking you fking win. 'nuff said.

 

[Eagle156]

Mine isn't really crazy, but I was trying to stop a power supply fan from turning while it was running. I looked around but couldn't find any plastic paper clips, so I decided to use a metal paper clip thinking that I'd be careful. I stuck it in a bit, but nothing happened, so I stuck it a little bit further and a huge ass spark appeared in the psu. I don't know if I got shot, it didn't hurt, but I couldn't move my arm while it was there. The puta didn't turn on again, but luckily I had a spare. I was happy, the psu sacrificed itself to save the rest of the puta.

 

[MaXXimus]

Mine isn't really crazy, but I was trying to stop a power supply fan from turning while it was running. I looked around but couldn't find any plastic paper clips, so I decided to use a metal paper clip thinking that I'd be careful. I stuck it in a bit, but nothing happened, so I stuck it a little bit further and a huge ass spark appeared in the psu. I don't know if I got shot, it didn't hurt, but I couldn't move my arm while it was there. The puta didn't turn on again, but luckily I had a spare. I was happy, the psu sacrificed itself to save the rest of the puta.

LMFAO!!!

 

[wolf2009]

So one day back when I was a noob, I get a PC built for me at this local computer store. After 2 months, it stops working. It won't even post, no lights, no nothing. So I bring it to the store, they plug it in, press the power button, VOILA it works. I'm like WTF...!!1 Go back home with the machine (it was encased in one of those Antec 800 SOHO Server cases, heavy as hell), plug it in, boom, no post, no nothing.

In the end, I ended up taking it apart at home, replugging everything, and then it worked for awhile.

LOL , what was the problem in the end ?

 

[Kenai]

My nephew brought his computer over for me to look, because it would shut off sometimes.
So I picked it up and noticed a rattling sound, I looked everywhere and could find nothing loose or floating around. So I plugged it in and hit the on switch, the lights went dim in the room, and fire started shooting out of the back of the PSU. The actual power cord got so hot that one strand of copper melted through the jacket. I quickly pulled the plug from the wall, burning my hand on the melting power cable. The smoke from the fire shooting out the back set off the smoke alarms in my home. My wife was yelling, WTF! and I was running towards the sink to put my hand under water.

Come to find out that the 1 1/2 year old daughter thought the computer was a piggy-bank and decided to save her "special" penny in the "special" slot, which happened to be the PSU in the back of the computer. My rolling the box around finally wedged the loose penny onto the 110 leads.

After disassembling the half melted penny from the PSU and replacing the cord, the entire unit booted and had no problems at all. I did have to reset my breaker in the house though.

 

[darkking]

So i have another pal brad...used to love to watch me build.

Got in his head he could do it himself..
So i gave him the link to newegg and He bought parts, pretty good ones at that (for the time)

So he calls me in the office "my Stuff is coming in im building it tonight"
Great I tell him...call me and we will get online and game some so you can test it..

about 7pm my phone rings and its brad..."think you could come over?'
Why? i though we were gonna game I said
"I want to but i need your help."
Doing what?
Installing the cpu he says..
What wrong with it? i asked...
Nothing...(long pause) Im scared to do it...(I start laughing on the other end of the phone) It has all these pins and i spent all this money so im Scared...
So in turn i went over and installed it..and said lets boot it up.
He tells me ill find the book so we can set up the switches.
I pulled out a screwdriver and shorted the pins and started it up...
the boy almost fainted....

Now mind you several years later a member of this forum and has some good experence under his belt.
Dont worry pal, if you are reading this i wont post yer handle

 

[Rock&Roll]

Let me add mine...

So i teach a few people things here and there and next thing you know they are considered experts to those who know even less then they do.
So "paul' wanted a new PC and asked "joe" who was dating his sister-in-law to help him.Joe helped him buy parts and was going to build it for him. I was glad,less work for me.
The parts come in and joe goes to pauls house after work to help him build the box.
About 1130pm im gaming and the phone rings..its paul..."can we come over with my box please look at it, im worried."
Sure is say and the next thing i know they are at my door.
Paul says "we plugged it in and a big arc of electricity shot across the case and a little smoke. We were afraid to touch it again, so i put on some oven mits and pulled the plug.
I look at the back panel and mention it looks a little off.
Joe tells me " the motherboard wouldn't fit right"
I take the box tell them i will get to it later and go finish my game..
About 1am i get the time and open the case to take a look..

the Motherboard was screwed directly into the tray!!
no spacers,no washers..No wonder the bitch arced..he grounded the whole thing and all the power off the psu went thru the case.

Another guy "Andy" insisted on installing his own CPU and thought he learned enought to overclock... Calls me the next day saying it wont work, the temp alarm keeps going off even at normal settings.
Problem? He bought artic silver and applied it...not a dab....the entire tube..leaking out from under the heatsink and across the MB....

OH I HAVE MORE

I work in an IT department. One of my bosses in the IT dept was trying to screw the mobo to the case using the spacers as mobo fasteners instead of standoffs. I stopped him just in time. He was going to try and force the fit. It would have been a short life for his new Q6600 and pretty much everything else. He's a network admin though. I guess he doesn't get into the actual hardware very much.

 

[BIGJ]

so I have a short (and to most of you boring) story, 5 years ago I bought my first computer, thinking I knew everything there is to know about computers (I was 14) I picked myself out the cream of the crop ($600) compaq to do some "hard core" gaming on. So I discover (much to my dismay) that it can't handle such games as Half-Life 2, and COD2. So I go to the local Frys to buy a new graphics card and ask the guy "which one will work" and he replys to me, "any one will work" so being the big spender I was I got the best $100 graphics card they had and brought it home to install. Little did I know that there was 3 different kind of slots, I came home with an AGP card, not realizing that I only had a PCI slot. So I take the side panel out and try to install this thing and it won't fit, so Im like WTF?? So I decide it would be a good idea to take some pliers to the back and make a hole big enough for it to fit. After about 30 mins of cutting and hacking, i make a hole big enough for the card to stick out of the back and try to install it (still believing that "any card will work") and the thing won't fit into the slot, so at this point I am devistated and just give up for the night (feeling sick about what I had done), with a massive hole in the back of my pride and joy. So the next day I went to Frys and got someone to set me strait and get me a PCI card, so I return home and install it thinking everything will be ok, not realizing that I was walking around on carpet, with the computer on my bed, I had heard of the dangers of static, but never thought such a small charge could do any damage (remember i knew it all) so I go to install the card and ZAP, my finger makes contact witht the card and I think nothing of it, and try to install it. Once again the card wouldn't work and I could have puked, thinking that I had just waisted $850 (the monitor was one of those new LCDs!) b/c now i couldn't even get it to post! So again I make a trip to frys and get everything set strait, and I am currently posting this on that very same POS.

LOL, i guess I just took a very simple story and made it LONG, sorry about that, and thanks for anyone who actually read all that, lol

 

[athlon1.2]

I was replacing a motherboard on a Compaq SFF PC at work and there was a 2 pin cable and a 2 pin connector on the board... so plug it in right? I turn it on the the insulation on the wire catches fire. I notice this cable isn't supposed to be plugged in. Opps. I cut the cable and noone noticed.

 

[Red Falcon]

so I have a short (and to most of you boring) story, 3 years ago I bought my first computer, thinking I knew everything there is to know about computers (I was 14) I picked myself out the cream of the crop ($600) compaq to do some "hard core" gaming on. So I discover (much to my dismay) that it can't handle such games as Half-Life 2, and COD2. So I go to the local Frys to buy a new graphics card and ask the guy "which one will work" and he replys to me, "any one will work" so being the big spender I was I got the best $100 graphics card they had and brought it home to install. Little did I know that there was 3 different kind of slots, I came home with an AGP card, not realizing that I only had a PCI slot. So I take the side panel out and try to install this thing and it won't fit, so Im like WTF?? So I decide it would be a good idea to take some pliers to the back and make a hole big enough for it to fit. After about 30 mins of cutting and hacking, i make a hole big enough for the card to stick out of the back and try to install it (still believing that "any card will work") and the thing won't fit into the slot, so at this point I am devistated and just give up for the night (feeling sick about what I had done), with a massive hole in the back of my pride and joy. So the next day I went to Frys and got someone to set me strait and get me a PCI card, so I return home and install it thinking everything will be ok, not realizing that I was walking around on carpet, with the computer on my bed, I had heard of the dangers of static, but never thought such a small charge could do any damage (remember i knew it all) so I go to install the card and ZAP, my finger makes contact witht the card and I think nothing of it, and try to install it. Once again the card wouldn't work and I could have puked, thinking that I had just waisted $850 (the monitor was one of those new LCDs!) b/c now i couldn't even get it to post! So again I make a trip to frys and get everything set strait, and I am currently posting this on that very same POS.

LOL, i guess I just took a very simple story and made it LONG, sorry about that, and thanks for anyone who actually read all that, lol

LMAO!

I was about to post a VERY similar story to this. When I was 13 (about your age, heh, ages ago) back in '99, my uncle gave me his old 486 computer to learn on.

I installed Windows 95 (which was aging, even then) over the top of 3.1. Everything was good except for my sound. This thing was so weak it couldn't even play MP3 files (powerful for '89, weak for '99, and antique for '09 ). So I though, the sound card inside must be too old to play the files correctly. I did know the difference between 16-bit sound cards and 8-bit ones (yes, this was THAT old), so when I played an MP3 in Realplayer 7, I adjusted the audio to 8-bit and it ran better, but still crackly.

So I go down to my local computer store and buy a PCI sound card. Now, the card I bought was 32-bit (on the PCI slot, of course), but I thought it meant the sound processor itself was 32-bit. So I think, "hey, it must be REALLY powerful" (even thought it was only 16-bit).

I take it back to my machine, open it up, and I only find big black slots (ISA). I tried to force the card in, but it would just barely not fit. So I took a knife and cut out the middle divider on one of the ISA slots. I pop it in, turn on the machine, and watched the fireworks!

Smoke billowed out of the card slot and the motherboard.

I unplugged the machine and let the smoke fizzle down to where I could actually touch the board. I took the card out and turned the machine on. It did turn on, but I got nothing.

Every component was completely fried...except the sound card. Somehow, the soundcard still worked. The computer store took pity on me and gave me my money back without a restocking fee.

Then I wanted to work on my parents computer. They were like "LIKE HELL YOU'RE TOUCHING OUR MACHINE!!!!1!!!1!one!!"

So the moral of the story... don't cut sh!t out of your case unless you REALLY know what the freak you're doing.



Oh, on one of my other builds (back in late '05), I had a Ultra PSU 500 watt that overloaded (because it was a pos) and blew up like a gunshot. Apparently, the 12v rail (@34 amps) overloaded with a mobo, CPU, 512MB memory, PCI video card, 1 HDD, and 1 optical drive. Lame. That thing hit the trash bin like sh!t hitting a fan!


One time I stuck my finger in to stop the hsf of my old Socket A system. Little did I know how sharp the f*cking fan on that thing was. *SLICE* It damn near took a chunk out of my left index finger. The same finger that, when I was 12, got bit by a squirrel (yes a squirrel). My mom and I were walking around at the university (which I now attend) when I saw a squirrel ripping out garbage from a garbage can. I thought it was funny (yeah, REAL funny) when it hopped over to me. Those things were tame, except this one thought my finger was food. *CHOMP* I screamed and lifted my arm and finger up (with the squirrel still hanging on, rawr). I whipped my arm and chucked the squirrel about 10-15 feet. I had to go get a tetanus shot that evening. *POKE*

That same finger also had the flesh ripped off of it in '04. I was working on a road construction job waaaay back in no-man's-land 80 miles from the nearest paved road and another 20 miles from a hospital. I was unloading a semi-truck trailer. This one's front comes off, leaving the back 4/5 on the ground to unload the equipment. There are two big bolts and nuts (about the size of a fist) that hold these two pieces of the trailer together. Now, the driver got into the truck to drive ahead, which I thought the others knew I was still taking the bolt off. The driver pulled ahead when my hand was still between where the nut and the trailer were. The trailer and the nut literally “snapped” together with my left index finger and my thumb still there. It ripped off all of the flesh of the top side of my index finger exposing the bone (yes, the f*cking BONE... and joints) and tore a good chunk of meat from my thumb, though not entirely. Both finger nails were crushed, but my finger bones were undamaged (thank God). We had to drive about 100 miles to the first hospital then another 35 miles to a surgical center. There, I had a skin graft from my left arm put on my index finger.

Damn, that sucked.

Then I tought myself how to type again using only nine fingers!

 

[BIGJ]

LMAO!

I was about to post a VERY similar story to this. When I was 13 (about your age, heh, ages ago) back in '99, my uncle gave me his old 486 computer to learn on.

I installed Windows 95 (which was aging, even then) over the top of 3.1. Everything was good except for my sound. This thing was so weak it couldn't even play MP3 files (powerful for '89, weak for '99, and antique for '09 ). So I though, the sound card inside must be too old to play the files correctly. I did know the difference between 16-bit sound cards and 8-bit ones (yes, this was THAT old), so when I played an MP3 in Realplayer 7, I adjusted the audio to 8-bit and it ran better, but still crackly.

So I go down to my local computer store and buy a PCI sound card. Now, the card I bought was 32-bit (on the PCI slot, of course), but I thought it meant the sound processor itself was 32-bit. So I think, "hey, it must be REALLY powerful" (even thought it was only 16-bit).

I take it back to my machine, open it up, and I only find big black slots (ISA). I tried to force the card in, but it would just barely not fit. So I took a knife and cut out the middle divider on one of the ISA slots. I pop it in, turn on the machine, and watched the fireworks!

Smoke billowed out of the card slot and the motherboard.

I unplugged the machine and let the smoke fizzle down to where I could actually touch the board. I took the card out and turned the machine on. It did turn on, but I got nothing.

Every component was completely fried...except the sound card. Somehow, the soundcard still worked. The computer store took pity on me and gave me my money back without a restocking fee.

Then I wanted to work on my parents computer. They were like "LIKE HELL YOU'RE TOUCHING OUR MACHINE!!!!1!!!1!one!!"

So the moral of the story... don't cut sh!t out of your case unless you REALLY know what the freak you're doing.



Oh, on one of my other builds (back in late '05), I had a Ultra PSU 500 watt that overloaded (because it was a pos) and blew up like a gunshot. Apparently, the 12v rail (@34 amps) overloaded with a mobo, CPU, 512MB memory, PCI video card, 1 HDD, and 1 optical drive. Lame. That thing hit the trash bin like sh!t hitting a fan!


One time I stuck my finger in to stop the hsf of my old Socket A system. Little did I know how sharp the f*cking fan on that thing was. *SLICE* It damn near took a chunk out of my left index finger. The same finger that, when I was 12, got bit by a squirrel (yes a squirrel). My mom and I were walking around at the university (which I now attend) when I saw a squirrel ripping out garbage from a garbage can. I thought it was funny (yeah, REAL funny) when I hopped over to me. Those things were tame, except this one thought my finger was food. *CHOMP* I screamed and lifted my arm and finger up (with the squirrel still hanging on, rawr). I whipped my arm and chucked the squirrel about 10-15 feet. I had to go get a tetanus shot that evening. *POKE*

That same finger also had the flesh ripped off of it in '04. I was working on a road construction job waaaay back in no-man's-land 80 miles from the nearest paved road and another 20 miles from a hospital. I was unloading a semi-truck trailer. This one's front comes off, leaving the back 4/5 on the ground to unload the equipment. There are two big bolts and nuts (about the size of a fist) that hold these two pieces of the trailer together. Now, the driver got into the truck to drive ahead, which I thought the others knew I was still taking the bolt off. The driver pulled ahead when my hand was still between where the nut and the trailer were. The trailer and the nut literally “snapped” together with my left index finger and my thumb still there. It ripped off all of the flesh of the top side of my index finger exposing the bone (yes, the f*cking BONE... and joints) and tore a good chunk of meat from my thumb, though not entirely. Both finger nails were crushed, but my finger bones were undamaged (thank God). We had to drive about 100 miles to the first hospital then another 35 miles to a surgical center. There, I had a skin graft from my left are put on my index finger.

Damn, that sucked.

Then I tought myself how to type again using only nine fingers!

Thanks for making this thread, I have really enjoyed reading everyone's stories and look forward to reading more

 

[Red Falcon]

Thanks for making this thread, I have really enjoyed reading everyone's stories and look forward to reading more

Thanx! I'm happy I made this thread too. Reading all of the funny stories (well, some are funny now, but not so funny when they happened) is good for some laughs. Most of these stories... well, actually all of them, are classic!

Having some laughs and gaming is what these crazy machines are for!

 

[Obiwanshinobi900]

Craziest thing I can think of at this moment is I found a computer in the trash. It still had all its parts in it, plugged it in no post, nothing. I eventually came to the conclusion that the power supply was bad, put in this crappy PSU that came with a raidmax case I had purchased a while back. Still nothing, apparently the motherboard, cpu, and ram were all fubar. However the hard drive still worked (it was a 30gb) and it still had their stuff on it. It has business info, personal pictures all sorts of stuff. However being the good person I am I formatted it. Then I put that same spare psu back into my lan computer and all the lights in the apartment dimmed and I saw a bright white flash on the inside of the psu. And then every time I would plug it back in (just the psu) the lights would dim. Needless to say I threw it away.

 

[evolucion8]

Once I was using my PC and suddenly the screen went blank, I turned off and on several times, then I took the RAM sticks off, and put them back and voila!! It got fixed for no reason.

Also one day I plugged an 80mm fan in my old case, and suddenly I saw a bright orange light and when I looked, it was the cable of the fan which turn on fire and released smoke like crazy, I was unable to see inside of the case or around the PC cause of the smoke thickness, I turned the PC off as fast as I could, and removed the fan, nothing wrong happened hehe. Never use $5.00 80mm unknown brand fans, or your room will get smoked.!