How much hardware have you fried?

L

LstBrunnenG

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jun 3, 2003
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I'm just curious about how many bad experiences you guys have had. I know I've had my fair share of mishaps and hardware failures.

Fried due to careless mistakes (usually trying to plug in power while comp was running):
2x Floppy Drive
1x CD Burner (4x, it's probably worth $5 today)

Fried by unknown error:
2x Asus P4P800 motherboards (one of which burst into flames)
1x Maxtor 40 GB IDE HD
1x Western Digital 80 GB HD
 
2 gig western digital hard drive which I broke somehow, but not fried.
Fried one stick of RAM some time back.

That's it for me.
 
Fried hardware... Well let's start here

My first fried hardware was a celeron 350 that I overclocked to 550. It held out for about 2 months before it died and toke the FDD controller with it. When I popped open the case and tried to remove the heatsink it wouldn't come off. So I pulled and pulled some more and when i finally got the heatsink off about have of the processor came with it. Then I proceded to fry a western digital 80 GB hard drive (how? I don't know) then a fried a Geforce 2 mx 400 from overclocking the core so i can play unreal 1. Then I fried a Asus geforce 4 TI 4200 128 meg card. The ram was to high without Ram sinks. That is how I ended up with a geforce 4 TI 4200 64 meg card. Can you believe I fried a sound card?
What happen was I put my system together and well the audio cable that allows you to connect your sound card to your motherboard was cut in one spot and when I turned the system on Puff and choke the system went died. Open up the case (this is also why I only work with open case) and the wire was fried so I removed the sound card and tried to run teh system and well no go. So i guess i fried the sound card (which I tired to use later on and it didn't work) and motherboard at the same time. What I learnt from all this is that you can overclock and not check the cable like you should what you are going to end up with is a died system. but personnally I havn't learnt a dam thing :D ;)
 
....I get to fry hardware for a living at my company's expense.... :cool:

Not always intentional, but we do test our stuff over voltage and temperature extremes. I've seen some pretty dramatic failures.... :eek: I have a product hanging on the wall of my cube that flew out of the shock and vibration test fixture, and got pummeled between the test fixture and the bottom of the chamber. Not fried, but it sure starts some interesting conversations..... :D

Cheers - B.B.S.
 
two generic motherboards in my step dads pc, hahaha(the evil step son from hell) and his monitor with a magnent....... but yea, playing with jumpers and crossing wires(When you know what you are doing) can cause problems...... god i hate that man im glad he is gone.... haha
 
1 Maxtor hard drive, something on the bottom of it exploded don’t know how :rolleyes: but I got an RMA for it :D and in that process I convinced my parents that I took my CPU with it so I got a new CPU and mother board and a new PSU not a bad deal for one hard drive :D
 
Bio Hazord said:
1 Maxtor hard drive, something on the bottom of it exploded don?t know how :rolleyes: but I got an RMA for it :D and in that process I convinced my parents that I took my CPU with it so I got a new CPU and mother board and a new PSU not a bad deal for one hard drive :D
Click to expand...

I had a Maxtor do that not too long ago. Except mine did take a CPU with it. Still would like to know what caused it. Thats the only hardware I ever fried and I wasnt doing anything.
 
My anti-static leash slipped through the gating on my old power supply and that blew up....and i think i mighta killed 1 shocked a stick of ram once but it might have already been dead
 
Ok, this should be interesting. I'm a hardware klutz sometimes. Lol, watch out, here comes a whole history.

Well, first thing I ever fried was my first PC. The 286. The universal adaptor connected to my multimedia speakers touched the metal of the case and BAM. Nearly every single peice of hardware inside was fried. Never mind the fact that the speakers used something like 9V (maybe even only 6) and the biggest universal adaptor I've ever used for speakers was in the area of 500mA... I guess back then they didn't ground the cases at all. It even got the HD. *sigh* I miss that pretty Adlib card. Lol. ^_^

Next up, I had a 486/33. I fried the keyboard controller chip on it by using a keyboard lock on a system that wasn't meant for it. I had to replace the whole MB and CPU (you had to match those darned things up almost exactly the same.)

After that, with the 486/25 I replaced it with that was previously my mothers, I managed to fry my CD-ROM and somehow or other, in the process, managed to screw up the CPU (still don't know how I did that.)

I replaced that with a 486/66. I think I blacked out, all I know is there was nothing left but a very bad smelling steaming pile. d-: I think I kept the HD and soundcard out of that one.

Next up, a P90. I was trying to upgrade the memory or something and broke the stinking motherboard.

From there, my hardware killing streak began to pan off a bit. I went through 3 or 4 computers since then and they actually survived long enough for me to upgrade. However, just recently, I was trying to switch to a new motherboard and I managed to forget to flip the lever on the heatsink, so it wasn't properly contacting the CPU. Sans one CPU. While I was doing that, I also managed to poke a hole in a brand new motherboard in the exact right place to keep it from even posting (took out one of the lines going to the CPU.)

You know, fried CPU really really smells bad. GOD I lucked out on that one. Normally all our old systems end up given away or used to upgrade someone. I think my dad forgot about my old T-bird (and the motherboard too, but it was the same thing as this minus DDR mainly) so I was able to just put it back in. Thank god it's unlocked. I was able to get it to run at the same clock speed that I had my 1800+ oced to (which isn't bad considering it started more than 100MHz below the 1800+,) so the loss of speed is mostly not noticable.
 
None, thank God. The system in my sig is the first one I ever built, so I was assembling it with clinical precision.
 
2 power supplies

1x celeon 533

1x mobo for above celeron

i have raped several cases in mods gone bad but not really fried.
 
Surprisingly few things, given the amount of systems I build and how all of my personal systems get overclocked.

I watched as a friend fried my p3-550e (which was an awesome overclocker, I had it up to 792mhz) by using it to test his asus slocket card.

For stuff I personally killed...

As a kid, the floppy drive in our new Macintosh SE. I think that was probably the most expensive computer thing I've ever busted, though I can't recall how much it was to replace. That didn't stop my father from letting me play with all the computers --after all, he had no room to complain given that he'd fried the monitor on our Amiga 2000 :).

My KG7-Lite got partially toasted when some of the capacitors blew. It still functions but won't run anything much more than 1ghz, so I just have it decorating a wall.

I fried a ZIP-drive by plugging in the PSU molex while the system was powered up.

I broke the USB enclosure of a 4x CDRW drive. The drive itself still functioned, so I took it out of the enclosure and thereafter used it internally.

I've had one PSU go bad, but it didn't take anything with it. I generally buy quality PSU's, but this one was a generic junker that came in an incredibly cheap (30-40$ CDN I think) case.

I broke a 4gb hard drive by dropping it.

That's all I can think of. For probably a hundred systems built, not bad.

Erik
 
Dem said:
That's all I can think of. For probably a hundred systems built, not bad.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the way it seems to go. I alway fry stuff in my OWN computer, not anyone else's.
 
About the only thing I ever had die was a western digital 2gig. One day it was working fine the next the head was grinding the disk. It sounded like a dremel tool cutting metal :D


The first thing of mine that my brother killed was my ast 622, He plugged a tandy floppy drive into it blowing out the floppy and harddrive controller when I was asleep.
 
One AMD Duron (knocked a heatsink loose) never replace ram while drunk and lusting at client who go you drunk)

Two deathstars

1 Seagate 20 giger

One Fortron PWS

and the creme de la creme: Abit be6 R2 along with the ram and P3 cpu during installation no idea how and it was all replaced on warranty
 
BlindedByScience said:
....I get to fry hardware for a living at my company's expense.... :cool:

Not always intentional, but we do test our stuff over voltage and temperature extremes. I've seen some pretty dramatic failures.... :eek: I have a product hanging on the wall of my cube that flew out of the shock and vibration test fixture, and got pummeled between the test fixture and the bottom of the chamber. Not fried, but it sure starts some interesting conversations..... :D

Cheers - B.B.S.
Click to expand...


that rules ;)
 
Nothing.

I guess this means I haven't messed with enough hardware , but I am happy to keep my clean status.
 
I fried either my motherboard or my PSU, so I replaced both and now it works. I'm too lazy to test the PSU (Antec Smart 350), it's just collecting dust in a corner.

oh also, my HD fried (WD800JB). I have absolutely no idea how it went bad. I bought a Hitachi SATA 120GB 8MB to replace it, and besides being a little loud, it's a great drive.
 
had the heads get ripped off of a floppy drive once... rma'd.. lol.... IDE cables.. ripped part of the connector off... rma'd too...lol thats it.
 
Bugalaman said:
I fried either my motherboard or my PSU, so I replaced both and now it works. I'm too lazy to test the PSU (Antec Smart 350), it's just collecting dust in a corner.
Click to expand...
Heh, all you have to do is stick a wire between two terminals on the mobo connector.
 
a voodoo banshee and a tbirt 1.2ghz. Was trying to apply some artic silver to it when i accidentally pressed the on switch....3 seconds later i smelt it...the smell of a dead cpu that was burned alive while getting a new coating
 
33.6 Modem, due to lightning (power surge)
If you want to count video game consoles, I also fried a TurboGrafx 16 at the same time.

other than that, I just have tons of non-working computer parts that stopped working, God knows why, in a box that I've been meaning to throw away.
 
Some of this stuff was not actually fried by something I did or something I didn't do but fried nonetheless.

I killed two PCChips PII motherboards. One was from the heatsink falling off the processor which took out the motherboard and power supply. I probably could have prevented the death of at least one or two of those components considering I heard the heatsink fall into the bottom of the case, but I was a little busy doing something else at the time. Then again, that was what caused the heatsink and fan to fall off in the first place - the bed hit the wall a bit too hard. She did feel really bad afterwards since she was the reason I stayed in bed. It sucked not having a system for a few days, but I had ways to spend the time anyway. :D
I don't actually remember how the other PCChips board died, I think it just went on it's own. Luckily RMA took care of the motherboards and power supply. Had to buy a new CPU though.

Later on, I managed to fry my A7V133 once and took out a friend's A7V133 while trying to do a BIOS hotswap with mine.

The same A7V133 managed to survive a power supply frying while I was out of the house. I went downstairs to my room and noticed something that smelled like beans being cooked. Unfortunately, the closer I got to my computer the stronger the smell got. Luckily, I was able to grab a new power supply the next day and no other hardware was damaged.

I also fried a 4.3 gig SCSI-3 drive once time. My soda spilled on my desk and landed on one of the drives I had laying out next to the case (I didn't have enough room for 2 or 3 IDE hard drives and 3 SCSI drives in my case). Man, Mt Dew frying a SCSI drive is a terrible smell. Hopefully I'll never smell anything like it again. At least as long as I don't cause the problem and it's not my hardware.

For the most part, I don't think I have fried much of anything since then. I've had a couple of hard drives die and the power supply in my mom's system just wouldn't power on one day, but that's about it. One of the hard drives was an IBM Deathstar and the other was an old Quantum drive that had been good for about 5 years or so.
 
a Thunderbird-B 1100 that did 1466 at stock voltage on my A7V133

Sadly, when I put it on my KK266, I put in the standoffs for my Swiftech. I didn't need them.

She burnt up. I cried. (and had to run on a duron 750 for the next 6 months as I was broke)



Although, as far as things I've tried to fry, but was never successful....

I got a K6-233 system from a friend. came out of a packard bell.

I dropped the thing in a tub of water. I shorted pins on the CPU from the back.

The damned thing kept working. Killed the PSU, but the thing is still running to this day, despite all the torture it went through.
 
I've only fried old stuff, a couple of socket 7 including a nice abit one, a few 6 gb harddrives though I dont think that was my fault, a couple of weak 200 watt powersupplies, and an old s3 virge :).
 
My first computer I built had a ABIT KT7A board that I overclocked pretty decently but I had shit and wires all over the place with my fanbus. One day when I powered it up and something grounded out and "ZAP" shut down. No matter what I did, it would not power up. I found that if I pushed down on the northbridge, it actually booted but with no way to fix a NB, I knew I was screwed

Pissed off I bought a new mobo and simply stashed my old one not bothering with an RMA. A few months later the SAME THING happened again, this time I corrupted the CMOS chip. Desperate, I ripped out the CMOS from the old board and slapped it into the new one and prayed. It booted!!! I now to this day archieve all my old "dead" stuff, cause you never know.....

Killed a nice mouse with a static shock, that didn't make me to happy.

In march, working on my Shuttle system, I dropped my 80gig WD on the floor with a loud BANG. Powered it up and it made a gawdawful noise that made my ears ring. I sent it off to WD for RMA :D

Screwed up past case mods with my total impatience for painting. Painting and impatience do not mix. The results are ugly.

I used to plug shit in with the power ON on my old 233mhz P2 box years ago, and I wondered why I kept shutting down the system everytime I did it. Amazingly I didn't kill anything or my parents woulda killed me.:rolleyes:

Other then that, 'ive been real lucky.
 
2 mobos (KA266-R & K7VTA3)
1 stick of PC2100
1 CDRW

though the "fried" part wouldnt be accurate
reason for failure unknown probable latent defect
 
I did some custom wiring on a 450W PSU, made a careless mistake and wacked two 120GB SATA Drives and of course the PSU. Could have been much worse with the A64 3000+, 9800Pro and and XMS sticks in there I suppose :(

I was so pissed I didn't touch the thing for two weeks....
 
mines not that logn but its pretty expensive.

1x shuttle NFII Ultra motherboard
1x gateway generic PSU
1x 550 watt PSU canr remember the brand though
2x generic gateway motherboards-they fried them selves not my fault
2x barton 2500's dunno had them oc at good speeds and they just died even prime said they were stable
about 3 floppy drives although only one was an accident
2x cd rom drives dunno hwo either fo them went one was a 52x burner though
2x led fans, accidently ripped the wires lol
i think thats about it of course im always willing to break more shit
 
Only a Western Digital 3.2 GB HD. Was installing a new, roomy 20 GB HD into my old Slot I Celery 333 system, and was shortcutting data transfer from one drive to the other by not actually installing the drive in the case. The drive grounded out on something with a loud POP! and the whole system shut down. COuldn't get it to restart no way no how, until I discharged the board by unplugging it for a while. Plugged it back in, and it booted right up with the new drive. Luckily, all the data had transferred already. THAT woulda sucked.

Just had a stick of Mushkin RAM go bad recently, but was nothing I did (at least, not that I'm aware of).

BB
 
I've fried a PS by plugging in a fan while the pc is on, and fried a 40 gig maxtor by unplugging a HDD while the pc was on. Both on the same day. I've learnt.
 
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