Question: what is the wrost thing you ever did while working on your computer?

[noninterleaved]

<< Reversed the AT power connectors on an AT mobo >>



I too am guilty of this one... took out the everything... video card, hdd, motherboard.

As a matter of fact, the motherboard had a huge black burn mark across the back... by far the worst I have ever done to a computer.

 

[Musicman6425]

Bare Your Souls

[bump]

 

[Ben]

My favorite:

<< Installed AOL >>

That was good.

Actually installing AOL isn't that bad, it's removing it that's f*cked.

Lesse, on my computer I had an experimental water cooler break while I was at work one day. The pump happily pumped 5 gallons of treated water into my computer. Somehow it turned on (ATX MB) after that too and sat there, on, in water, without any CPU cooling, for several hours. Real cool huh? By the time I got home the CPU's were so hot I literally couldn't touch them. I lost an ASUS P2B-DS, an ASUS V6800, two Voodoo2's, and a Linksys NIC. Somehow the CPU's, and my SBLive! survived. In fact I'm still using that same sound card right now. Expensive mistake though.

I also jacked up a CD-Writer once. I was having a REAL bad day and I got one coaster too many. I hit eject, took out the CD-R, and folded it in half until it shattered. Then I bent the door of the CD-Writer down until it touched the case, then back up until it touched the case, over and over again until the door snapped off. Then I stood up and kicked the front of the computer about 3 times until it turned off.

Sometimes you gotta show these things who's boss.

 

[MichaelD]

Note to self: Do not invite Ben for LAN party. JK! LOL dude! You got Primevil on that bad boy...poor PC; never saw it coming.

 

[Robor]

I powered on a P233MMX. Nothing special about that, right? Actually there is... It was a system that I wasn't using at the time (before the days of leaving all PC's on 24/7 for distributed computing - Join Team Anandtech!) and a few weeks before I removed the HSF to give to a buddy. The fried CPU is now pressed in my corkboard at work.

Another one? Oh, okay... This was a while back (in the days of DOS 5/Win3.1) and before I learned what &quot;directories&quot; were I used to install everything to the &quot;C Drive&quot; like my girlfriend told me. So, when I installed Wizardry, Kings Quest, and Might &amp; Magic, I installed them to &quot;C:\&quot;. Yes, DUH! Didn't take long before the PC was a mess and had to go to the computer shop where a very friendly and helpful tech gave me my first class in &quot;computers 101&quot;. The same guy installed the demo version of &quot;Doom&quot;. I was instantly hooked on computers and FPS's...

Rob

 

[BigToque]

Lets see here:

1. I once tried taking out a 56K modem while system was on. The card came out just fine, however when I went to put it back in (too lazy to reboot), I got a nice jolt and saw a little smoke. I'm thinking &quot;yay, I fried a PCI slot and ruined my modem&quot;. Boy was I happy when everything worked after

2. I couldn?t get my computer to recognize my hard drive, so after many shutdowns and reboots and unplugging IDE cables and power cables for about 30 minutes, I decided to start hot swapping. Apparently my hard drive got a bit moody when I hot swapped it with another drive and decided it didn't want to work anymore. WRRRRRRRRRR.... CLICK. WRRRRRRRR.... CLICK. god damnit

3. There is a reason why SDRAM slots are keyed to go in only one way. I managed to find a second way. I cried when I saw 128mb go up in smoke. I don't even know how I managed to force it in without even knowing it was backwards.

4. I forgot that the black ground wires on an AT PSU were supposed to face each other when plugged into an AT motherboard. Needless to say, there is a sweet black spot on the board now.

5. Ran my P2 266 @ 400 w/ no hs/f just to see how hot it would go. It got pretty hot. Its too big for a key chain though.

6. Spilled a 2L bottle of coke on my MS natural keyboard. That fried.

Well, that?s about it (that I can remember at least). The thing to remember is, you're not a true geek till you've fried something

Every computer junkie has a story to tell

 

[Stark]

I opened up an email with a virus just to see if my anti-virus program would stop it. It didn't. Had to reformat and start over from scratch. all my data was saved.

Stupid.

 

[Ben]

<< Note to self: Do not invite Ben for LAN party. >>


LOL!

 

[Budman]

the worse had to be FOR ME , i changed a pci card without turning off the pc,.

in my defence i was sure i turned off the pc,but it was not off.

 

[Vegeta99]

It's freon

 

[Finality]

Played with my hot swappable drives. No real problem there. Problem came from the CHEAP Y connectors one of the leads caught on fire. Managed to toast a $200 SCSI cable.

Its not even badly damamged just a bit melted. The last strand of the LVD cable to be exact.

That was a fun day.

 

[CrimsonWolf]

The only horrible thing I've done is I screwed up on fdisk the first time I used it. Doh.

Oh, and I actually paid $10 for a 200mhz IDT Winchip.

However, my friend really fvcked up his system about a year ago. Hehehe... he was going to move one of his hard drives from one bay to another while the computer was on. First mistake. Well, when he went to remove the drive, the screwdrive slipped and wedged itself into the molex power connector. Sparks flew everywhere and the screwdriver shot out of his hand and got stuck in the wall. In the meantime, his power supply blew, the computer shut down, and his floppy drive actually caught on fire! Fortunately for him, he only lost both his hard drives, his floppy drive, and his power supply. lol... I was laughing so hard I almost pissed myself when he told me the story.

 

[cvlegion]

I have never laughed so hard in my life (not at your misfortune). I haven't had too much misfortune, yet. Remember sh!t happens. My story:

I nicked my Ultra66 ribbon cable without noticing it. Then I turned on the computer and there was a pop and you know something is definitely wrong when you smell that acrid electrical burn smell. I looked on my Quantum plus LM and there is a diode with half of it blown off. I still have yet to RMA it.

Another thing. This was not my fault, it was just a POS generic power supply. One day I turned on my mom's computer and I hear this really loud pop and I smeel the same smell. I opened the PSU unit and one of those huge caps like 22000uF caps had seriously exploded and the black residue had covered the whole of the power supply.

Another thing. This was back maybe 4 years ago and we had this really old monitor one of the first color monitors and I plugged it into my new computer and the monitor started sparking and yes again the smell.

Well I haven't had anything too severe happen but maybe I might have a story to tell in a month because my mobo is starting to wig out on me because I have been running this BX at 150MHz for a full year now.

 

[freefoo]

My cat sneaked in my office and managed to powerup a computer while taking a nap on a keyboard (spacebar atx). Nothing harmless but the PC's cover was removed. The cat got somewhat interested in the humming sound of a 5000 rpm chrome orb and got its nose jammed. The cat ended up with a serious nose.

Same cat ate a mousecable of a newly purchased intellimouse explorer.

Same cat had a nasty experience with a shredder... also shredded the wrong documents a couple of times and this is very annoying.

We once had a broken HP 6L. Serviced it and techsupport found a lot of 'cat hairs' in the drum and other parts of the printer.

Same happened with a monitor, cats like hot places to nap on... monitor's ray gun got damaged and had to toss it away...

Same cat is now in a locked room if we're not home and isn't allowed in my office anymore...my advice: keep those damn furballs away from your computers!

Spilled some cola on a 2 month old Dell Lattitude, tossed some cofee on a MS Natural keyboard but I managed to save it.

Dropped a 20 year old IBM XT and damaged some tiles.

Messed up a very expensive Nokia 447Xpro with screencleaner.

Never smoke while you're typing, once fried a keyboard while smoking.

 

[azztec]

once i found this old monitor on the side of the road. i accidently brought it upstairs to the balcony and accidently threw it off. it wasnt as cool as i thought it would be but it still was in many many pieces.

 

[blueghost75]

well, this wasn't exactly a mistake, but two days ago I tied a 20&quot; trinitron to my trailer hitch and peeled out and drove around in the parking lot in circles for a few minutes. hehehehe

i can't count the number of times i have stuck my finger in a moving fan. it hurts.

 

[jcovercash]

ROFLMAOPIMP @ Ben, Dude that soundsx so much like me. I used to do the same thisng to the POS Pentium II 350 System my parents got me two years ago, I can't do that to the systemn that I payed for though.

 

[Linflas]

Removed a 3Com NIC from an ASUS P3B-F without unplugging the system first. The first indication of trouble was when I went to put it back in and heard that wonderful noise come from my speakers indicating I had just done something very stupid. Fortunately all that was toasted was the motherboard and my ego.

 

[Ben]

azztec, those kind of accidents happen around your house too?!?! What a coincidence!

 

[DietDrThunder]

People are walking by my cubical right now and staring at me because I appear to be laughing at nothing. You guys/gals are cracking me up. O.K. here is my worst:

I had just installed my new Voodoo3 3000 video card. I had the cover still off. My wife was telling me a joke when I was powering on the system. I had a mouth full of Dr. Pepper when she said the punch line and I accidently spit it back into the case while laughing. I shorted out the video card, motherboard, and the promise controller card.

 

[mk52]

I once connected a cable that came out of the PSU to a fan header, hey they had the same connectors, and fried my mobo. I even got to see some smoke action.

-MeliK

 

[satori]

Man, here's an OUUUCCCCHHHH for you guys that stuck a finger in a delta. I did that with one of the low-speed Panaflo's (must've only been turning at around 2000 RPMS) and my fingernail is still funky, after a month. I couldn't imagine what it'd be like doing with a delta (those are 6000+ RPMs, right?)

Anyways, nothing too special to add. Did the fdisk thing once. Another time, I didn't screw in the video card on my computer, and after repeated pluggings/unpluggings of the monitor cable, it came loose. Took me a while to figure out where that funky smell was coming from.

Oh, broke the &quot;J&quot; key on a keyboard a couple years back. Was playing a shareware mechwarrior game (dunno if anyone else remembers this one. Was in the early 90's, turned based, etc). Anyways, was playing with 2 friends, my mech missed an easy shot, got pissed, slammed hand on keyboard and then had to buy a new one the next day.

 

[geno]

Deleted the extra partition that drivespace creates (this was back in like 94), which ended up wiping out my entire drive

 

[Blayze]

so far I have somehow killed my Live Value, I still dont know how I did this.

broke a 4x cdrom by hitting the drive while the tray was out with my fist, Stupid Packard Bell.

I know there are others just can't think of them now.

 

[Webbed]

pull a card out while the machine is on. Toasted everything!