What's the dumbest thing you've ever done to your computer?

couple months ago i accidentally removed the power connector from a floppy drive and tried to reconnect it while it was running. Can you say burnt floppy drive?
 
I have done this more than once, while running two computers off of the same monitor I have started typing on one of the keyboards (the one that isn’t hooked up to the monitor at that time), noticed that the keyboard isn’t working and traced the cable to the back of the PC to see that it is plugged in. I then slap myself when I remember that I am using the wrong keyboard. Once I had enough of an idiot moment that I got pissed turned off the computer and tore apart the keyboard, about half way through tearing it apart I remembered that it was the wrong keyboard. Gotta stop working on my comp with no sleep.

Another is when I plugged my power switch in wrong and tore apart the front of my case and the switch to find out why it wouldn’t work. Eventually found out that I had it plugged in incorrectly, I worked on the switch form about 2 hours (it’s a car ignition from Auto Zone) before I figured it out, again I probably shouldn’t have stayed up all night and started working on it at 6am.

I am sure that I will come up with more, just a start for now :D
 
this:

hilarity.jpg
 
At a LAN party I won a CCFL Sunbeam Fan but it didn't work. I was playing around with it to see what was the deal, and put my finger over the inverter contacts. Burn marks that have lasted a year (scars) and about 10 people around me complaining about the smell of burnt flesh :)
 
let's see..... dumbest thing I've ever done was....
-put my nose in my cpu fan when it was on, owch.
-forgot to plug in my cpu fan and started playing a game
-looked down at my motherboard for ten minutes stonedly( I wasn't though), and drooled all over the thing, not too smart.
-I also tried making my own memory cooler out of arctic silver and spare pci slot fillers, it didn't fit, and fucked my memory
-and my blowhole modd with a metal steak and a hammer, oh yeah!

did I mention none of these were intentional either?
 
I tried to hot plug an old hard drive that wasn't hot plugable, so when I did it fried the drive and the PSU - much to the laughter of my friends.
 
"um...i just pirated the windows xp-64 edition, mind if i use that serial number you got there?"
:)
Heh.......
 
CodeWaste said:
um...i just pirated the windows xp-64 edition, mind if i use that serial number you got there?
First off, discussion of illegal activites is a bannable offense. Pretty simple.

Second, that's not his S/N, it's the checksum / hash generated at the time of install. It's my understanding that it's not a trivial matter to get the S/N from that field.

Please keep things on topic, OK....??

Thanks - B.B.S.
 
BlindedByScience said:
First off, discussion of illegal activites is a bannable offense. Pretty simple.

Second, that's not his S/N, it's the checksum / hash generated at the time of install. It's my understanding that it's not a trivial matter to get the S/N from that field.

Please keep things on topic, OK....??

Thanks - B.B.S.

I know its not a serial number, all of xp's keys are 6 sets of 5 alpha-numeric numbers. It was a joke.

Geez you guys have been touchy lately
 
Well my dumbest thing was only a few days ago
I had my case open and for some reason wasa just too lazy to put the side case cover back on.
Anyways i boot my computer and wonder as soon as it loads windows XP it freezes

I turn the pc on and off and still the same thing, try starting safe mode still the same thing, then after half an hour or so i look down and the side cover of the case was leaning on my soundcard... take it off and my computer is fine so im lucky hehe.
 
yes u are luckey... i don't get that screenshow with the system properties... installing an old card on 64-bit xp? thats not dat bad lol
 
Thermite Paste said:
OMG he must have the X800XT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HA! dont insult the card like that, mine is like 10 times better than the X800XT PE, and 8 times better than the 6800 Super Mega Ultra OC!
 
OT as hell but nowhere else to post it since I am too broke/cheap to spring for the 5 bucks to post in the genmay section.

Last year I was working retail at a Gateway store, when sales were slow I would help out the service dept. This lady calls up and practically before I can get a word out of my mouth says to me...

<please read the following with ebonics in mind>

"Micro Word is broken, it tell me illegal operation, I paid myself for Micro Word so I knows it not illegal. I aint do nothin illegal with my computer, I paid for Micro Word with my own dollas."

She would not listen to a word I said, she kept interrupting me and saying how she paid for "micro Word" so it could not be an illegal operation. She informed me that she is not a thief about a dozen times, also, according to this prime example of our failing education system, " no ones in my family be thiefing this Micro Word"

It was an otherwise quiet night so I put this ghetto queen on speakerphone for the techs and good times were had by all.

The service manager finally told her to call information for "Micro Word's" phone number to complain. She never called back, thank god.
 
Installed Need for Speed: Underground using a smaller installation. It ran the CD non stop the entire time you play the game. CD rom broke while I was playing. Not a pretty sound.
 
I was working on my computer with the case open and while it was running I knocked a can of Sprite into the case. You can guess what happened next.
 
viper11885 said:
Installed Need for Speed: Underground using a smaller installation. It ran the CD non stop the entire time you play the game. CD rom broke while I was playing. Not a pretty sound.
That is the stupidest programming I've ever heard of. Ever.

"Warning: program may break your CD drive due to our intense stupidity." :rolleyes:

Why were you using the small installation anyway?
 
I think I've got a winner here
I did a little pci hot swapping with my old athlon 700 machine.
I took an old pci ati video card, opened my case up, stuck it in an empty pci slot while the machine was running, opened up the control panel (Windows ME), opened the add new hardware panel, told it to scan, it found the new video card, installed drivers, and then started up a desktop extention on it. I plugged a monitor into the card, and could move windows around on it and stuff. I wish I were lying about this. I'll have to try it again and take pictures.
 
tmarshall said:
Ebonics?
Ghetto Queen?

Should I remind you while you drove your mom's SUV to work at THE GATEWAY STORE that it was people like that fine lady that made your job possible?

Boy, I hope those are not undertones for racism.

AND YES, YOU ARE WAAAYY OFF TOPIC. :mad:
Chill
 
KarmaPolice said:
installed windows ME on it...

whoa..

that was a mistake..
Been there, I did that when I first built my system(which doesn't remotely resemble it's current incarnation). I even tried to run a cs server off it, at which piont it would lag everyone as soon as I switch to focus from hlds to any other program.
 
Was going to add an extra fan to my system, so I took it apart, but noticed the fan didn't have a connector on it. Couldn't find one anywhere to splice on to it, so I thought, no problem, I know I want to keep the fan in there, so I'll just hard wire it to the PSU. Spliced it right into the 12 volt line without a problem, twisting the wires together. Powered it up to test it before I screwed it and soldered the connections. Worked like a charm!

Then, a few seconds later, I started to smell a burning smell... Then I noticed smoke coming from the computer case... Turns out I forgot to put and electrical tape over the twisted connections, and they fell together in such a way that the 12 volt line was being shorted right to the ground... As soon as I figured out what was happening, I dove for the surge protector and hit the switch on it to shut everything off, and amazingly it's still working to this day without a problem. Kind of scary though, smoke is never good :D
 
tmarshall said:
Ebonics?
Ghetto Queen?

Should I remind you while you drove your mom's SUV to work at THE GATEWAY STORE that it was people like that fine lady that made your job possible?

Boy, I hope those are not undertones for racism.

AND YES, YOU ARE WAAAYY OFF TOPIC. :mad:

Funny, I laugh all the time when I hear ignorant people talk. Has nothing to do with racism... :rolleyes:
 
daphatgrant said:
I have done this more than once, while running two computers off of the same monitor I have started typing on one of the keyboards (the one that isn’t hooked up to the monitor at that time), noticed that the keyboard isn’t working and traced the cable to the back of the PC to see that it is plugged in. I then slap myself when I remember that I am using the wrong keyboard. Once I had enough of an idiot moment that I got pissed turned off the computer and tore apart the keyboard, about half way through tearing it apart I remembered that it was the wrong keyboard. Gotta stop working on my comp with no sleep.

DOH, I have that happen too often..

The dumbest thing i've done is using a magnetized screw driver to install a hdd:rolleyes: , it was really fubared after that

the next dumbest thing i did about 2 years ago was to take the top off of a 10gig hdd that had the click of death to have it start working :mad:
 
I would have to say the stupidest thing I have done so far was at a lan party in the winter in my friends garage, I turned my water chiller down to 32 degrees. That was fine until they closed the garage door and the damn thing started to heat up with about 20 machines in it..... well I kinda forgot the chiller was set to 32 and somewere right in the middle of COD, my screen turned white and all these colors started racing by. Turned my machine off and so much water had condensated on tubes running to the CPU and dripped on to the stock heatsink on back of my 5600 Ultra. it pooled up and ran off the heatsink on to the vid card. I was so lucky cause I dried it off started it up and after 2 tries the damn thing worked like a charm......This has happened twice...... god sometimes colder can really bite u in the ass :eek:

P.S. Vid card still works.... still can't figure that out since the last time I fried the bios on my mobo but not the vid card even though the vid card was the one to short because of condensation
 
Dumbest thing I ever did was this:

I had both side covers off of my hp desktop, this was back when I only was familiar with 486's and ancient hardware, so this new celeron system that I'm trying to put in a new agp card is pretty advanced to me. I'm about 15 years old at the time. I can't seem to get the new agp card to work, partly because I have integrated gfx that I can't figure out how to disable.

Anyways I just drove all the way to fairfax to buy this stuff, and this stupid HP piece of crap won't let it work! DAMNIT! So now I'm furious.

I then decide to punch it, right on the side where the motherboard is. My fist hits the frame though, the part that the motherboard is mounted to. I'm not thoroughly satisfied that it's harmed yet, so then I take a screwdriver and stab the motherboard a couple times.

Amazingly it doesnt crack, but there are a few scratches. I decide to cool down. I rip the powercord out and watch some tv so I dont break anything else.

I walk back to it the next morning and tear the videocard out so I can return it. Amazingly when I get home from the store, it still works!!!

Anyways, it was pretty dumb, but very fullfilling. That computer was by far the biggest pos I have ever used.
 
qb4ever said:
DOH, I have that happen too often..

The dumbest thing i've done is using a magnetized screw driver to install a hdd:rolleyes: , it was really fubared after that

the next dumbest thing i did about 2 years ago was to take the top off of a 10gig hdd that had the click of death to have it start working :mad:

That must have been an EXTREMELY pwoerful magnet to do that!
 
EvilGenesys said:
a 3000+ with 256 ram................




the dumbest thing.....hmmmmm.....

I bought a computer?
I dont think i have ever done somthing dumb to my computer

oh on my old case i thought i would drill a hole in the side for a button and when i was drilling i didnt have the side fastened down and it sput out of control and flew across the room....... hopfully there wasnt anyone home to laugh at me
 
qb4ever said:
DOH, I have that happen too often..

The dumbest thing i've done is using a magnetized screw driver to install a hdd:rolleyes: , it was really fubared after that

the next dumbest thing i did about 2 years ago was to take the top off of a 10gig hdd that had the click of death to have it start working :mad:


Magnetized screw drivers won't harm ANYTHING inside your computer.

Every single computer manufacturer, inlcuding the hardware manufactuers, and 99% ofthe smaller computer shops use magnetized screw drivers.

I have 3 of them, and I've never hurt any components. I'd be willing to bet it was ESD, not magntetism that screwed your drive.
 
SarverSystems said:
Magnetized screw drivers won't harm ANYTHING inside your computer.

Every single computer manufacturer, inlcuding the hardware manufactuers, and 99% ofthe smaller computer shops use magnetized screw drivers.

I have 3 of them, and I've never hurt any components. I'd be willing to bet it was ESD, not magntetism that screwed your drive.

Take a magnetized screwdriver and rub a stick of DDR with it.

It won't work, trust me. I've tried it.
 
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