Dummy of the year award goes to ME

[XMan]

So I decide I'm going to tidy up all the wires in my case . . . in the process, apparently I pinched the PCIe power connector in so doing.

Turn it on . . . nothing happens . . . wife says, "hey, what's that smell?"

:disgust:

Well, at least I have a modular power supply, so I can toss that particular PCIe cable, which now is missing about six inches of insulation in the middle of one of the wires.

Idiot!

Of course, even after I pull the cable my system won't boot. The fans come on, but it never posts. So I think, great, I killed the power supply. Get over to Circuit City, buy a power supply (and, luckily enough, a power supply tester.) New power supply - same problem. Huh. So I plug the old power supply into the tester . . . hmm, that's weird, it says it's ok. Check the voltages with my meter . . . looks okay.

So I start fiddling around, clear the CMOS on my board, and lo and behold, it works.

So the question is - the modular plug I had the PCIe connector plugged into is melted. The power supply is working okay, seemingly - should I go ahead and replace it? Or just not use the slightly melted plug?

 

[LOUISSSSS]

just dont use the melted plug...

 

[XMan]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
just dont use the melted plug...

Yeah, I figured that.

 

[w00t]

I'd say just get a new cable do not use a melted plug like stated above

Be more careful when inside your case I've heard and seen a lot of stupid mistakes people end up regretting.

 

[KarenMarie]

No, sorry, i got you beat...

I got a sexy new Thermaltake case and decided to mod out my expensive PSU.

So, I got all the blue sleeving and power ends and yada yada... and I spent hours and hour and hours... sleeving, replacing all the ends on the connectors and etc.

Turn it on and KAPOW!!!

I inadvertently switched two wires on one of the HDD connectors and blew the expensive power supply. Not only did I have to replace the power supply and the 320GB hard drive, but I wasted all those mod supplies and all that time.

 

[Skeeedunt]

That is admittedly sucky, but at least you didn't blow up your graphics card.

 

[DaveBC]

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
No, sorry, i got you beat...

I got a sexy new Thermaltake case and decided to mod out my expensive PSU.

So, I got all the blue sleeving and power ends and yada yada... and I spent hours and hour and hours... sleeving, replacing all the ends on the connectors and etc.

Turn it on and KAPOW!!!

I inadvertently switched two wires on one of the HDD connectors and blew the expensive power supply. Not only did I have to replace the power supply and the 320GB hard drive, but I wasted all those mod supplies and all that time.

Ow! :Q

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Since this is likely to end up being a stupid stuff done with computers thread...

I finally got my case (Enermax FS2300 -- 23 bay 100 pound sexy server case), my dual Xeon motherboard (Supermicro X5DAE), two 2.66GHz Xeon processors, a Enermax 660w 24-pin PSU (when 24pin was very rare), and all of the other required components. I'm hooking this thing up, nervous as hell around these processors, because damn those things were expensive. I get everything hooked up, I double and triple check to make sure all the cables are connected and tight so that I don't burn up anything. Hit the power button, and nothing turns on.

I went through everything I could think of, pulling the CPUs, putting them back on, checking mountings, ensuring RAM was seated correctly. Checking connections from the case to the motherboard, and nothing would make a fan spin.

After about an hour to two hours of doing this, I'm just exhuastied, and I lay down on the floor with my head facing the wall. And I'm thinking about all of this stuff in my head, trying to figure it out, when I get the idea that something doesn't look right. I'm sitting there between the computer and the wall, and something just doesn't seem to be right.

D'oh. Forgot to plug the damn cable into the wall. So I plug the cable from the PSU to the wall, hit the button, and she booted right up...

The machine, Fullmetal Chocobo, has been retired, but her are her latest pics and here are her specs at retirement

 

[XMan]

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
Since this is likely to end up being a stupid stuff done with computers thread...

I finally got my case (Enermax FS2300 -- 23 bay 100 pound sexy server case), my dual Xeon motherboard (Supermicro X5DAE), two 2.66GHz Xeon processors, a Enermax 660w 24-pin PSU (when 24pin was very rare), and all of the other required components. I'm hooking this thing up, nervous as hell around these processors, because damn those things were expensive. I get everything hooked up, I double and triple check to make sure all the cables are connected and tight so that I don't burn up anything. Hit the power button, and nothing turns on.

I went through everything I could think of, pulling the CPUs, putting them back on, checking mountings, ensuring RAM was seated correctly. Checking connections from the case to the motherboard, and nothing would make a fan spin.

After about an hour to two hours of doing this, I'm just exhuastied, and I lay down on the floor with my head facing the wall. And I'm thinking about all of this stuff in my head, trying to figure it out, when I get the idea that something doesn't look right. I'm sitting there between the computer and the wall, and something just doesn't seem to be right.

D'oh. Forgot to plug the damn cable into the wall. So I plug the cable from the PSU to the wall, hit the button, and she booted right up...

The machine, Fullmetal Chocobo, has been retired, but her are her latest pics and here are her specs at retirement

Oh, man. I've done that before, too.

 

[grohl]

Right after the 3500+ came out about three years ago I couldn't get it to post. I had tossed the mobo book and couldn't figure out the error code. I had no internet access because I had already given my computer away.

After a couple of hours and a several beers later in the middle of the night, I decided to tear the whole thing down and start over. I saved the CPU for last because the copper heatsink was such a bitch to put on...

I was about to reseat the CPU when I decided to just look at the pins. Let me tell you, when I saw I had bent 2 pins the first time around, I almost cried.

I recovered, straightened the pins with wife's tweezers, and it still runs to this day.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: XMan

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
Since this is likely to end up being a stupid stuff done with computers thread...

I finally got my case (Enermax FS2300 -- 23 bay 100 pound sexy server case), my dual Xeon motherboard (Supermicro X5DAE), two 2.66GHz Xeon processors, a Enermax 660w 24-pin PSU (when 24pin was very rare), and all of the other required components. I'm hooking this thing up, nervous as hell around these processors, because damn those things were expensive. I get everything hooked up, I double and triple check to make sure all the cables are connected and tight so that I don't burn up anything. Hit the power button, and nothing turns on.

I went through everything I could think of, pulling the CPUs, putting them back on, checking mountings, ensuring RAM was seated correctly. Checking connections from the case to the motherboard, and nothing would make a fan spin.

After about an hour to two hours of doing this, I'm just exhuastied, and I lay down on the floor with my head facing the wall. And I'm thinking about all of this stuff in my head, trying to figure it out, when I get the idea that something doesn't look right. I'm sitting there between the computer and the wall, and something just doesn't seem to be right.

D'oh. Forgot to plug the damn cable into the wall. So I plug the cable from the PSU to the wall, hit the button, and she booted right up...

The machine, Fullmetal Chocobo, has been retired, but her are her latest pics and here are her specs at retirement

Oh, man. I've done that before, too.

Oh man hahahahahaha. My personal favourite hate is the power switch on the back of the PSU. Seems any time I get a new PSU it doesn't have one if the previous one did, and vice-versa, so I always forget about them.

 

[HannibalX]

Back when I had a 486 DX66 (woot) I pulled the controller card before I powered the machine off (stupid). Anyway mobo/CPU never worked again.

On a separate occasion I miss assigned a floppy drive power cable and missed a pin (so only 2 of 3 pins were connected). Turn machine on - floppy drive bursts into flame. Ugh.

 

[Boyo]

Those are some pretty good stories......I think all of us home builders have one story to tell about a rig that they aren't necessarily proud of......

 

[XMan]

Back around the time when adding a bunch of fans to your case was becoming "cool", I got a couple of 12V fans from Radio Shack or somewhere like that. This was before you could easily go buy fans to plug into a Molex cable, so you had to wire up your own. I wired the front fan to a Molex plug with a splitter, plugged the other end of the splitter into a 2GB SCSI hard drive, plugged the other end into the power supply, and hit the switch.

Well, apparently two of the pins on the Molex plug had popped out and ground was touching 12V, because a spark shot out of the bottom of the hard drive circuit board. Dead drive. Luckily enough, I got another of the same model, swapped circuit boards, and recovered all of my data . . .

 

[ForumMaster]

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
Since this is likely to end up being a stupid stuff done with computers thread...

I finally got my case (Enermax FS2300 -- 23 bay 100 pound sexy server case), my dual Xeon motherboard (Supermicro X5DAE), two 2.66GHz Xeon processors, a Enermax 660w 24-pin PSU (when 24pin was very rare), and all of the other required components. I'm hooking this thing up, nervous as hell around these processors, because damn those things were expensive. I get everything hooked up, I double and triple check to make sure all the cables are connected and tight so that I don't burn up anything. Hit the power button, and nothing turns on.

I went through everything I could think of, pulling the CPUs, putting them back on, checking mountings, ensuring RAM was seated correctly. Checking connections from the case to the motherboard, and nothing would make a fan spin.

After about an hour to two hours of doing this, I'm just exhuastied, and I lay down on the floor with my head facing the wall. And I'm thinking about all of this stuff in my head, trying to figure it out, when I get the idea that something doesn't look right. I'm sitting there between the computer and the wall, and something just doesn't seem to be right.

D'oh. Forgot to plug the damn cable into the wall. So I plug the cable from the PSU to the wall, hit the button, and she booted right up...

The machine, Fullmetal Chocobo, has been retired, but her are her latest pics and here are her specs at retirement

my friends whom i hadn't seen in a long time complained that his computer didn't work. he planned on getting a new one. i checked it: he didn't use it for 6 MONTHS cause it wasn't plugged in!

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
Since this is likely to end up being a stupid stuff done with computers thread...
...
Hit the power button, and nothing turns on.
...
I went through everything I could think of, pulling the CPUs, putting them back on, checking mountings, ensuring RAM was seated correctly. Checking connections from the case to the motherboard, and nothing would make a fan spin.
...
Forgot to plug the damn cable into the wall. So I plug the cable from the PSU to the wall, hit the button, and she booted right up...

Haha!

My story is that I once had the reset and power switches crossed, meaning power switch was plugged into reset pins on motherboard. I always pre-test my boards outside of the case, and so was re-seating stuff and leaving drives unplugged in case something wasn't seated or was shorting out. Pulled the wires for the case switches/LEDs and shorted pins with a screwdriver, computer fired right up. Plugged back in, nothing. WTF, did my power switch break? Traced the wires - doh! Wrong ones.

 

[XMan]

Well, today I feel a little bit better about myself.

I got home, started putting my computer back together, and realized that I didn't pinch any wires - no, what I did was, was plug the PCIe power connector in BACKWARDS.

Why does this make me feel better? Because the connectors aren't color coded or anything, your only clue as to which end to plug into the power supply and which end goes to the video card is some white printing on one end that reads "PCIe".

So yeah, I made a mistake, but I definitely feel a lot better about the mistake now.