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

[Bignate603]

I know alot of people here are like me and like to mess with their computer. I've done my share of stupid things too. My worst was trying to plug in a fan with bare leads while the computer was running. I was holding the wires in my hand while i was sticking them in and blue sparks shot out of the connection. Computer died and refused to boot. I almost cried cause i thought i killed my computer. Lukily somebody here told me to let it sit and in a few hours i could start. I have a few other stupid storieslike tearing off one of the nubs the heatsink clip hooks in and stuff like that. Now, I've told my stupid accident, what's yours?

 

[Killbat]

Never done anything that dumb. Sorry. (I learned a lot about electronics before I got into computers, back in the day)

 

[Windogg]

Not being careful about using the right screws. I just dropped a VA6 into a case and fired it up.

*** SNIFF ***

/me turns to brother

Windogg: Are you soldering?
Brother: No why?
Windogg: I smell solder
Brother: OH SH!T

/me turn toward case and see smoke pouring out of it

I pulled the plug and it stopped. Boy did the apartment stink for a while. Turns out I used a screw that covered 2 traces and somehow caused a short. The amazing thing is the system still runs perfectly to this day. My brother reports the P3-550E run 100% stable @ 770Mhz.

Windogg

 

[ltk007]

Where should I start? Attempting to hot glue a heatsink on my video card (i didn't put the glue on the chip, i had thermal paste, but I glued the sides down)? Perhaps for getting the case mounts when I put in my mobo? Or maybe putting in my sblive value after post?

Note that none of these actually broke any parts of my computer, thankfully.

 

[prodigy]

This one time, at computer camp, I stuck my full tower up my.... :Q

 

[Doggiedog]

It's not really what I did to my computer.

I bought a Gateway and Dell.

Should have stuck with Micron.

Oh well, at least it was good training. Now I'll build my own PCs.

 

[Nutcase99]

Hmm... stupidest thing would have to be buying a Creative cdrom!!!


Then there was that time when my peltier died... that was like a week ago. Well the peltier didn't die the molex connector did (dont ask me how) I cut the wires for the molex connector with out unplugging the comp!


ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZSSSSSSSTTTTTTTT is all I heard .

REMEMBER ALWAYS UNPLUG YOUR COMPUTER!!

 

[GreenBeret]

LTK You left out the best one! Check my sig. <edit>nm. You need to expand a little on your explanations though. </edit>

The most Evan thing I have done is to use a screwdriver while attempting to install a heatsink on a BP6. It cut at least 8 traces near the CPUs.

 

[Bluga]

I slamed my computer once because i tried to fix it for a few days but it won't boot.

After smashing it actually worked!

 

[Harrald]

The stupidest thing?????

12 years ago reading about MUSH's and say &quot;Wow that sounds cool I need to buy a computer and try this&quot;

12 years later I'm still an addicted to this box. i don't MUSH anymore. I just read forums

 

[shiznut123]

i broke 2 of my k62 systems. cheap a$$ $hit broke while swapping hdrives

 

[ManSnake]

Burned over 3K on my first 486, all those money wasted :|

 

[Ulfwald]

Let's see, how about not removing the mobo from a case while modding the case witha dremel tool. Let's just say that MOBO+SMALL METAL FILINGS=LETTING OUT THE MAGIC SMOKE

 

[Mday]

what red said

 

[Bignate603]

Ouch. I remembered one more thing. At a small lan party we were running alot of computers in one room. Unfortunatly we had forgotten that the one room was all on one circuit. Now, we had about 15 computers on that circuit and each computer draws at least a constant 200 watts (They can pull much more starting up and also depending on the components). That's 3000 watts right there so roughly 30 amps of current for the computers not counting anything else thatwas running in the room (lights etc). most circuits can take 20 amps. That sucker went DOWN. Strange enough, it fried an old compaq when it went even though it had a surge suppressor.

 

[Pastore]

I was getting pissed off at a pci ethernet card that wouldnt work, so while the computer was still on, i ripped the damn thing right out of the slot, so, needless to say, that pci slot is no longer in use

 

[kami]

ahem...well...I once plugged the power connector for a floppy drive in upside down. upon turning on the computer, smoke was pouring out of it and it REEKED. I immediately pulled the plug and all of the plastic melted off that one power connector. Everything survived including the power supply The floppy died of course.

 

[sparkle]

letting the &quot;magic static&quot; fly out of my hands and trash an other-wise good mobo

 

[Bignate603]

that y youare called sparkle? lol

 

[Fatdog]

The dumbest thing I ever did was to stick one of those big magnetic pen/pencil holders right on the side of my case, right next to the drives.

 

[eyor]

bignate: The EXACT same thing happened to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[SirCampsALot]

A few years back, i was working on my 386 computer and I had the case open. I took a short break and started throwing a baseball up and down and catching it with my glove. The ball skipped off my glove and flew right onto my video card and pretty much broke it. That was very stupid of me.

 

[Azraele]

Installed Windows.

I know someone who accidently underclocked his sytem, which i found kinda humorous. It was the dumbest thing he's done to a system.

 

[Elledan]

Uhm... Well, let me just say: NEVER unplug the powercord of a CD-ROM drive while the PC is running...

Those sparks are nice to see, but you've a chance that the PSU will blow.

Although I really panicked after the PC shut down, I could turn it on again after about 20 minutes. No need to tell I felt relieved

 

[yakko]

Beside downloading and installing SUB7 because I wasn't paying attention I formatted a hard drive after trying everything that could be thought of except a different cpu. It was the cpu.