Whats the worst thing that happened to you when building your PC?

I bought a new CPU, drove home and stuck it in the PC, turns out it was a golden clocker so i ripped off my cooler to tell everyone on the forums what batch it was and im my haste i didnt realise the cooler was frozen to the CPU and i looked down to see the socket still have full of pins but no cpu

Few minor mishaps on different builds. But the worst was having a brand new seasonic PSU go bang the first time it was turned on.

Tough call between losing screws and 1 time shorting a motherboard because the screws ****ed up when fitting lol

I've had power supplies failed and ram fails, also cpu bent pins, but wouldn't say they were the worst.


I think losing screws or getting them stuck is.

ExoMale said:

I think losing screws or getting them stuck is.

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I kept losing screws in this case when i was fitting a rad, they kept dropping off the screwdriver and then just vanishing into gap, i think the case is just eating them.

Any more stories?

I had a PSU blow up once, during a test run before closing the case up. Luckily it never damaged anything else. It went fizz...bang! The fright I got.

I will admit to the no stand-offs mistake as well! knackered the board completely.

I've had a winpower (fail power) psu go bang on me when installing a proper graphics card.

Most recently I lost a 295x2 due to a water spillage. The worst feeling in the world is having warm water spraying down your leg whilst gaming. Then diving for the off switch. I'm always sure to test every single fitting is as tight as can be now when changing the loop.

If you're not making mistakes, you're not learning.

Actually, when I installed my recent PC, I did notice (although it was the first I had seen on a CPU cooler before) a 'remove before use' transparent sticker on the underside of my new CPU cooler.

I installed it with it in place, and then about 10 mins later remembered it was still on the cooler. I had to re-apply some more MX-2 thermal paste but hadn't fired up the PC, luckily.

I bought some ocz dd3 off the bay without checking the voltage. It was rated at 1.9v which of course slowly fried my other installed ram which was rated at 1.5.

Jamesyboyjim said:

Using a cheap case.

You know the ones, they cost under 40 quid and don't always look too terrible, but you have to bend and snap bits of metal to get things to fit.

You'd be safer putting your hand through a pane of glass!

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Oh I know the ones. They look fine in the pictures get hold of them though and they're about as substantial as a biscuit tin and bend and distort like one too.

Yeah, you find out about those really fast when you have a habit of lifting PCs by the top rail and find it just slices through your fingers as it slide past.

Had the usual EMI shielding (round IO shield and side panel edge) shorting stuff out.

Needed a SCSI connection and didn't have the correct cable available but I did have a collection of wires and convertors that took me from A to B. Chained them together and turned it on.....some of the wires glowed hot enough that they melted through the insulation and sagged free. Fun times. Surprisingly, nothing went bang and it all worked afterwards.

Most amusing one was probably a customer that got upset and through a computer through the front window of the shop I worked at, at the time.....or at least he would have if it hadn't been 3/4" thick plate glass. It bounced off, hit him in the face and floored him. Instant karma!

I never thought some stuff like this could happen but hey ho!

Your Mrs finds the invoices.

When I came to watercool my GPU I stripped the head of a screw holding on the stock cooler. Luckily borrowed a jewellers dremel type tool and could cut a new head in to it to get it undone. Still a very nervous time using a powertool on a few hundred pounds worth of GPU then having to wait a couple of weeks to find if it still worked.

Whilst installing an Nvidia 8800 GTS BFG edition (what a win as I got a tshirt with it) I crushed a capacitor due to a misjudged PCI bracket alignment.

Went to boot the PC - nothing at all.

Had spent all my money(poor student at the time) so couldn't afford to replace anything so got a bit of chewing gun wrapper (so stupid) and wrapped it around the stalk of the capacitor with the paper bit on the mobo.

Booted first time after that. It lasted me for a few years before it got retired, just needed to replace the chewing gum wrapper every few months and put it back when I knocked the PC by accident lol

I knew someone who not realising installed an Intel retail Heatsink with the plastic covering still on, naturally there was some smoke and a ruined CPU/Motherboard

PC wise the stupidest thing I've done is attach the power light connector the the reset switch header.

Not computer related but I was changing the bulb in a stage light without realizing that it was still plugged in. 650w halogen bulbs get hot very quickly, good job I had gloves on.

ExRayTed said:

Hmm..

Crushing a Thunderbird core with a ham-fisted attempt to attach the cooler resulting in smoke and dead motherboard and CPU.

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I did that with a Duron while building a machine for dad to use. The vendor recommended I bought a copper spacer to put between the Duron & the cooler. BIG mistake! it killed the Duron & I had to buy another one from the purple shirt place (before it merged with the indian food place ) as I needed it quickly.

Another one was I shorted a molex plug when I was trying out case fans when my PC was on. PSU didn't like it & a couple of frantic hours later my PC was OK. Can't say it did the PSU much good though.

Built expensive rig, all fine, a year later i discover i had plugged my speakers into the onboard audio, and not my £120 sound card !

jigger said:

Your Mrs finds the invoices.

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Scariest one yet by far!