Your biggest hardware muck up

bemaniac · 13 Jun 2014 at 16:15

pastymuncher said:
Had a Hiper Type R 580w psu blow up (literally, smoke and flames, change of undies!!) and took out a 2 week old DFI socket 939 motherboard. So much for reviews back then saying it was a very good psu!!

Killed a E8500 when they first launched by giving it too much voltage trying to hit 4.5Ghz. Was used to pushing 1.45-1.5v through the previous 65nm cpu's. Unfortunately 45nm cpu's don't like that much.

This exact psu - those exact flames and that exact socket dfi lanparty 939 board also for me!!!! Hiper psus were lethal!

Josh · 13 Jun 2014 at 16:17

Thought that PSU cables were all inter changeable. Kept my SSD/HDD plugged into the Corsair PSU cables as the cable management was perfect and plugged it into my new 750W G2 EVGA unit.

Left with a bricked SSd and a bricked HDD - lovely people at OCZ and Seagate replaced them for me!

Lesson learnt.

james.miller · 13 Jun 2014 at 16:26

I chipped an athlon thoroughbred once by dropping a heating on it... I blew two drives and a raid controller up once as well, fan wire running across the motherboard, had a nick in the outer coat.. Zap, dead as a dodo.

IronWarrior · 13 Jun 2014 at 16:28

Don't think I ever broke any hardware, can't afford to replace it if I broke it.

But my biggest mistake was melting my on/off switch for my PC, I also believe I "snapped" it too when I was sleeving the wires.

My on and off switch for my PC is from that PC testing kit you can buy, I have since brought a replacement switch but I been far too lazy and don't have the tools to attach it to the wire.

So now I risk getting fryed and losing my fingers by putting my hand inside my PC under the fan of my GPU to press the switch on.

Power switch is inside there...

You could say modding my PC was the biggest screw up too, I have since given up finishing it because... I have way too many HDD's and wires to try to do any decent job of making it look neat and tidy.

Midlife Crisis · 13 Jun 2014 at 16:28

This is good stuff

Akagi · 13 Jun 2014 at 16:36

Oh I also flicked the PSU voltage switch from 230 to 110 on an SFF Dell workstation at school years ago, which caused a small explosion, smoke and a smell of burning electronics.

I quickly flicked the switch back to 230 again and claimed it had "just blown up".

Akagi · 13 Jun 2014 at 16:40

IronWarrior said:
So now I risk getting fryed and losing my fingers by putting my hand inside my PC under the fan of my GPU to press the switch on.

Cut the old power switch off, split the two sides of the wire apart and strip the ends to bare wire, then you can just touch them together to turn the PC on. I did that for a while. No danger to you whatsoever as no current runs through the wire really, it just completes a circuit which signals to the motherboard that its time to wake up.

Andygully · 13 Jun 2014 at 16:45

no major disasters here YET haha need to get my bro to post though he kills stuff regularly then bring them to me

thecremeegg · 13 Jun 2014 at 16:47

Acme said:
Oh I also flicked the PSU voltage switch from 230 to 110 on an SFF Dell workstation at school years ago, which caused a small explosion, smoke and a smell of burning electronics.

I quickly flicked the switch back to 230 again and claimed it had "just blown up".

I did this also, stupid place to put a switch!

Akagi · 13 Jun 2014 at 16:48

thecremeegg said:
I did this also, stupid place to put a switch!

On the back of the PSU, obscured by the power cable, with a plastic cover over it?

Which you then have to peel off, and find a pen to stick in the switch and drag it to the other side?

jasonmorris · 13 Jun 2014 at 17:01

Used a piece of tissue paper to test which way a fan was blowing and it sucked it into the case and shredded it. Confetti everywhere which then started to smoke. Hit the mains switch pretty quick.

Jumper118 · 13 Jun 2014 at 17:04

bought a gt610 and played crysis 2 at 15-20fps. then went back to playing gt5 on the ps3 for a while while my eyes recovered from 720p, low settings, dx9 slideshowness.

mightymouse · 13 Jun 2014 at 17:09

I was checking whether or not a case fan was working and managed to cut my finger. Got blood everywhere, luckily the pc was ok. It was one of those delta fans with high rpms. Never tested a fan like that again doh!

OCZxFTW · 13 Jun 2014 at 17:15

Tried to stop the fan on one of those amd stock heat sinks that have high rpms

And cut my finger in doing so, trust me it hurt lol

Akagi · 13 Jun 2014 at 17:19

OCZxFTW said:
Tried to stop the fan on one of those amd stock heat sinks that have high rpms

And cut my finger in doing so, trust me it hurt lol

I've stuck my finger in one of those before, can confirm that it hurts like hell. Didn't cut me though.

I went against my instincts. It sounded like it was spinning really fast and looked like it would hurt, but I told myself it will be fine, I stop fans all the time and it can't be going that fast. It was.

BluSky · 13 Jun 2014 at 17:23

I once replaced the RAM in a laptop. It wasnt until I opened the lid to switch it on for testing that I realised the laptop wasn't switched off - it was just asleep.

Akagi · 13 Jun 2014 at 17:32

BluSky said:
I once replaced the RAM in a laptop. It wasnt until I opened the lid to switch it on for testing that I realised the laptop wasn't switched off - it was just asleep.

How did that turn out? I have a feeling it was fine?

Jumper118 · 13 Jun 2014 at 18:34

mightymouse said:
I was checking whether or not a case fan was working and managed to cut my finger. Got blood everywhere, luckily the pc was ok. It was one of those delta fans with high rpms. Never tested a fan like that again doh!

i have done this but with my thumb. lets just say they had to stick the side of it back on with plasters, because there wasn't enough flesh let to stitch into

SeraphX · 13 Jun 2014 at 18:39

Buying an Asrock mobo when I went with Z77... Problems from the get go, should have got a GA or Asus tbh...

pandem0nium · 13 Jun 2014 at 18:47

valkia said:
Prior to OcUK when I was a hardware noob, screwed my motherboard directly onto my case without standoffs. It still booted haha

I did this too. I wasn't so lucky though