Your best PC blunders.... *OOPS!*

I changed my fans to run at 5v by doing the molex mod. As security I taped up the 5v end so I couldn't accidentally plug anything in. All going well until it started getting hot in the summer where I swapped them over to a different 12v feed exposing the 5v molex, untaped. I proceeded to plug my backup HDD into it. Instant death. :(
 
when i was at college i had to rebuild a computer for my coursework and i managed to attach a psu fan cable to the jumpers on the graphics card... (it looked like it fit there :p) i got it checked over by the technician so i could turn it on and he said it's fine and to turn it on. it started humming very loudly and there was a lot of smoke :eek: that room never smelt the same for about 2 years.
 
My only real PC **** up was when I managed to set a shim incorrectly on an old Skt A motherboard... and fried my beloved T-Bird 1000 :(
 
Dropped a 17" CRT Monitor off a Mini-bus seat once (after a lan) it was hammering down with rain aswell, so not only did it hit the floor with a thud, it landed in a puddle! That's not all, I also proceeded to pick it up and shake it to see if its broke. :(

Lucky though it wasnt! :D
 
There is one I still shudder at.
At one time I was well known in the local PC community for knowing my stuff and I had to go to a rival to buy a motherboard.
There was no way this motherboard would come on and after a couple of hours I took it back.
The lads in the shop gave me one of those looks when I told them what was wrong and one of them just pulled a jumper off the motherboard and said "That will work now".
(For some reason motherboards had just come out with a jumper on them that killed the mobo until you took it off and there was an A4 notice in the instructions).

There was an incident with OCUK (or Millennium) who I still buy loads of stuff off.
Again it was a new power supply for a new type of motherboard and I couldn't make the mobo plug fit (too many pins).
The lad in OCUK just pulled the plug apart and I walked out with my head bowed.
 
Picking the wrong disk when doing a OS install, now I disconnect all the drives apart from the new one when I do a fresh install !

Lost a load of wedding photos and baby pics.... and yes I know I should have backed them up :s
 
peige said:
Picking the wrong disk when doing a OS install, now I disconnect all the drives apart from the new one when I do a fresh install !

Lost a load of wedding photos and baby pics.... and yes I know I should have backed them up :s
Click to expand...

GRIM! :(

*man-hug*

I can only imagine the flak you took for that off the misses.
 
Too many to remember, but a few off the top of my head:

Plugging a molex plug I'd modded for 7v (for a fan) in to a harddisk
Shorting out an old AT PSU with a case - bang and a bright white flash
Plugging a 16v PSU in to a 10Mbps hub that was expecting 12v (burnt capacitors don't smell nice :()
Slipping while installing my 6800GT and proceeding to knock off a capacitor, slice my hand up on the heatsink (bending the fins on the heatsink quite a bit). Amazingly this card still works.
 
Pretty sure we've all done the PSU voltage switch at one stage or another.

At least once I've forgotten to plug the CPU fan in and not realised the connection between how nice and quiet my new pc was and the reason why it kept freezing every 10 mins or so.

Also let the rabbit jump on the keyboard only to delete some precious videos downloaded via 56k.

edit:

Sliced a couple of my fingers up at the tips pushing the mobo back plate in on a server I built at work.
 
Ooops op!

My first blunder was not putting spacers behind the motherboard on the first PC I built, luckily a friend pointed it out after the pc kept cutting out on boot.

My last one was not connecting the CPU fan on my C2D, still haven't plugged it in yet but turned up the system fans. Should really sort that out...
 
I built a new pc the other month and after losing the pins that hold the fan onto the heatsink, I decided to buy a new one. Had to take the ram out to fit it and was then wondering for ages why the pc wouldn't boot up. Glanced across the desk and saw the ram still sitting where I took it out :(
 
Built a server up, put W2000 server on it and set it up, all nice, drive C was a little small, but thought nothing of it. Was about 10gig in size, enough for OS and some drivers, must be getting a RAID system in later for the data.. Powered it down, went home for the weekend.

Monday- turned the server on, blank, nothing on it, booted up the server with ws2K and sure enough drive c was empty, odd, not thinking right, before my 2nd coffee moment, rebuilt the server, on the network, users in, trained them up on the desktop pcs, server used only as a printserver and basic file server. Ran ok for the week. Weekend, turned it off.

Monday - aye you guessed it, Drive C blank, had to rebuild, but this time i was curious, 3 times it needs rebuilding, thats not right.

Checked the BIOS, noticed it had 16gig RAM but not showing a hdd.

Opened up the server to check the harddrive was ok, nothing there, just an empty spot..

Realised my error, on boot up the bios is told if no hdd, use 10gig of mem to make a virtual drive C LOL....

I will never forget the look on my bosses face when i told him the server he paid £20,000 for had no hdd and had to expalin how it had been working for a week with out one.

See, we all cockup now and again, its the fun way of learning.


also in no order done the following [only once though!]

Forgot i was using TS and 'shutdown' the server i was on.
Forgot i was using TS and did a ipconfig /release on the printer server lol.
Tried to install software on citrix without using the 'add/remove' button.
misread a PSU thinking it said 850 when it was really 350.
unplugged the wrong server power supply by getting the wires mixed up when trying to follow them, was over 60, thank god for UPS's.

<ColiN> show me a IT person who hasnt made any mistakes and i can show you a liar lol!

** Sliced a couple of my fingers up at the tips pushing the mobo back plate in on a server I built at work. ** +1

** My first blunder was not putting spacers behind the motherboard on the first PC I built, luckily a friend pointed it out after the pc kept cutting out on boot. ** +1

Anyone asked a new guy to copy down the details of 8 2gig ram sticks only for him to put them onto a photocopier and wipe them clean lol.. silly boy...

My favoruit one of all time, using Novell server, delete all users, this does what it says, including the ADMINSTRATOR account you happen to be using at the time. as far as i know, it still does this lol. had to download a disk to put the admin account back onto the server...
 
Last edited:
Installing a new MSI P65 Neo-F onto the backplate and forgot to add the rising screws first. :rolleyes:

Switched it on, the fans turned and then a spark with a bad smell of burning, followed by smoke and the mobo was dead. :(

I didnt think it was dead at the time and so changed the voltage switch and again there was flash bang and smoke from the PSU. :eek:

Needed new PSU, Ram, Mobo & GFX. CPU was still going thank god.

Edit: Also bought a nice, shiny 8800GT, slotted it in, powered the pc on and benchamarked. Absolutely crap score so re-installed drivers but still nothing. Flattened the HD and installed fresh OS and STILL crap scores. Looked in the PC and realised I had not plugged the power into the card. DOH!!!!
 
Last edited:
worst i have done was forget to flip my psu switch to off when i was messing about with memory.

got some nice pretty sparks and no damage to memory :)
 
First PC Build and I didnt realise I had to put risers under the motherboard to prevent it from contacting with the back plate......PC one....Motherboard Died.....oh well you live and learn!
 
I was trying to fix a HP4250N printer where the PSU had died. It was going to cost about £300 to fix it and PSU electronics are fairly simple, so I thought I'd give it a bash.

After opening it is and finally getting the power board out I saw what had happened. One of the power regulation chips had gone open circuit and blown a load of resistors, capacitors and a zener diode. The damage was limited, so I started getting values of the components to replace it. Unfortunately, the zener value was unreadable and I needed the reverse reference voltage. So, I thought I'd open up another of the working printers and stick a multimeter across the diode and see what voltage it was giving.

This was a bad idea for two main reasons. Firstly, I don't have the most steady hands. Secondly the power regulation chip has an input voltage of about 330v. The zener and this chip are very close together.

After shocking myself...twice (well I am determined), I managed to get a reading and fix the printer, but I can't help thinking maybe £300 wasn't a bad price.

BTW, 330v doesn't feel nice, don't try it at home.

Burnsy
 
I think my bigest blunder was with the Pentium 4 style Xeon processors. The thermal paste on the Intel stock coolers was more like epoxy, it even said in the manual to heat the paste to 50 degrees C before removing the cooling unit. Couldn't get the damn clips off before the paste cooled, end result: CPU came out stuck to the cooler :o
 
Trifid said:
I changed my fans to run at 5v by doing the molex mod. As security I taped up the 5v end so I couldn't accidentally plug anything in.
Click to expand...

Phil99 said:
Plugging a molex plug I'd modded for 7v (for a fan) in to a harddisk
Click to expand...

That's why it's best to mod the end connected to the fan and not the PSU, if it has a passthrough then you need to make sure you modify the other end as well so even though the colours are wrong the wires are still the same (either that or cut off the passthrough).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom