So I was playing around with my old Haswell system recently and my mind flashed back to an event last year which probably ranks as one of the dumbest in my PC enthusiast life. I now share this story with my fellow gurus. So, I had recently gotten a GeForce GTX 1080 FTW and was reconfiguring my loop for it. I had both the new card and my old GTX 780 in my system and proceeded to take them out, but while pulling out one of the cards I forgot to unlatch the PCIe slot. I couldn't see what was happening, but when I pulled a bit too hard I heard some tinkling noises, which puzzled me. It was only when I pulled the card out completely that I saw what had happened - I had pulled the plastic PCIe slot off the board! The tinkling noises were the bare wires rubbing up against each other. That was stupid thing #1 After getting over the initial shock, I decided to use my third PCIe slot (I had pulled out the second one) but there was a problem. The board layout + the case design made it so that there was only room for a single slot card for the third slot, and both my GPUs were dual-slot cards. For a while, I researched into the possibility of buying a single-slot GPU when I noticed something. My GTX 780 had a water block on it, which was thin enough to make it a single-slot card, but there was a solitary DVI port below the top ports, and this port was the only thing that prevented it from being a single-slot card. I really wanted to use both cards in my system, and in a moment of utter madness, I took a handsaw and sawed off the port! That was stupid thing #2 I don't know what went through my mind when I took a handsaw to my enormously expensive, previously high-end component (thinking back, just a sheer determination to use my third slot) and although it took a while, I eventually succeeded. I couldn't use the port plate anymore (and I wasn't going to saw that in half, as it would be too much effort) so I left it off, and placed the mutilated GPU on the bottom of the case and slid it into the slot. I used the PCIe bracket which I had pulled off as a wedge to keep it in place and put the rest of the system together. Despite everything, the second GPU actually worked (albeit in a 4x slot instead of 8x) and I was able to restore my dual-GPU system. So a happy ending, although a somewhat bittersweet one. (FYI, this GPU is still alive and kicking, as well as my Haswell system in general) Thinking back, it would probably have been wiser to buy a PCIe riser card to fix this problem. I think most enthusiasts would consider it heresy to hack off a part of any PC component, let alone an expensive GPU. Looking back further I should have taken more care when pulling out components. I'm now extra careful about that latch and I gently ease my GPUs out. Anyways, that about sums up the stupidest thing I've ever done with my PC. Anyone else have any similar stories? Feel free to share.
Oh boy yes, where to start... well I killed a CPU with delidding and the motherboard as well, trying to put the CPU back without the IHS for "maximum performance", which meant I had to remove the retention mechanism from the mobo socket... should have known by then at the latest that this isn't going to work... but as with your saw-off-the-port approach, once you start something you're reluctant to quit. Even if you really should. There are some similar DIY-genius-moments but think the above was the worst for me. Also a ton of such things while fixing cars
Hi there I wouldn't say its stupidest thing what you done with hand sawing the DVI port,I think Smicha over on Octane forum done that as well https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/630284-watercooled-7x-980ti-octane-render-workstation/ Hope this helps Thanks,Jura
