The most unlucky/ annoying week of my life. Three systems all die within 3 days.

Hellsmk2 · 19 Dec 2006 at 23:14

My missus asked me to build her a PC for christmas. I had an old AT7 and XP1800 and enoughparts to build her a nice pc she could work on. I put it together and installed Win2k. The PC was working flawlessly. Absolutely perfect. Then I added a wireless adaptor bought from a local store. The wireless adaptor was faulty... BAM! It shorted every part of the PC. Completely dead. System one.

No worries I thought. I have an old MSI K7 Master and an Athlon 1400 plus enough bits to make another PC. I put it all together, powered it up... BAM. Posts for a second then goes haywire and dies. Completely dead. System two.

By this point I'm pretty miffed, but still no worries. I've just spent 800 quid today on some new components for a new PC for myself.... I'll just give her my current PC which has worked absolutely flawlessly since I built it 2 years ago: Abit AT7, XP 3400, 9800Pro 400 gigs of HDD. That'll be an awesome christmas present. BAM. Turned it on earlier tonight and it did nothing. No reassuring beep to tell me it was posting or where the problem might lie. Powers on, nothing happens. More testing later and it appears that this motherboard has died. Completely dead. System three.

Seriously... WTF? If something stupidly unlikely were to happen to me this week, why couldn't it have been winning the lottery? Instead I'm surrounded by completely dead PC's, with no present to give to the missus now and no more money to get any replacement parts.

I think when the new parts arrive for myself tommorrow I'll put them staight in the microwave and save myself a lot of time. I'll go cry myself to sleep now.

stuppy · 19 Dec 2006 at 23:21

The first one with the ropey card you bought, surely you can claim on some kind of insurance or take it up with the manufacturer for blowing your computer?

Hellsmk2 · 19 Dec 2006 at 23:25

We took it back and got a refund no problems but didn't take it any further because it was all relatively old parts and I knew I had enough to make a second PC anyhow. Just wrote it off as a one off. I was slightly wrong on that one.

I'm looking at socket 754 motherboards now. Would a micro ATX board fit a standard case? All the 754 boards I can find are all micro ATX

Phil99 · 19 Dec 2006 at 23:57

Yeah, mounting points etc are all the same, just not as many PCI slots so you end up with some free space at the bottom of the case.

Nomisf · 20 Dec 2006 at 02:26

All i can think is that there have been power issues on the grid in your area *shrug* i cant imagine why other than bad luck that would happen, one of your neighbours wasnt experimenting with a frankenstein microwave or sticking forks in the plugs were they ?.

If offer you one of my old boards for the cost of the postage but unfortunatly i just got rid of them

sorry man.

Rgds,
Nomisf

Combat squirrel · 20 Dec 2006 at 07:35

Have you been using the same plug and power cable to build them all, also were you earthed when building them, defo sounds like a power surge issue. If using same plug and wire, stop! lol, change plugs, make sure fuse is ok, see what happens again

Happened to me a while back, took out 2 pc's was surge in plug and a faulty power cable, fuse wouldn't break, got me one of those surge plugs, kept tripping when using this 1 power cable.

Hellsmk2 · 20 Dec 2006 at 08:01

I didn't use the same equipment twice. None of the PC's were even built in the same place: Chances of three seperate power surges are pretty slim

This really is just rotten luck. To top it off my new parts have been delayed and won't be around till after Christmas now. Urge to kill rising very very quickly.

Rroff · 20 Dec 2006 at 09:14

You must be really unlucky... coz I find it hard to believe a wireless adapter shorted out the entire PC...

have you tried mix and matching stuff i.e. the old AT7 with the newer XP 3400 to see if you can get anything working?

Hellsmk2 · 20 Dec 2006 at 10:53

Yup. Mixed and matched to my hearts content. That's the first thing I've done each time. All dead.

It was definately the adaptor that killed the first. The first time I popped it in, the PC wouldn't power on. Took it out and the PC powered on. I then popped it back in and it wouldn't power on. Repeat a couple of times trying different slots on the board with the same results each time before the PC refused to power on/ showed no signs of life or power.