Your Fist PC Cock ups. . . How bad was it?

Discussion in 'General Hardware' started by biglonglenthman, Jan 28, 2008.

  1. lmimmfn

    lmimmfn Ancient Guru

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    I used Artic thermal paste all the time, but last year ran out and had to use Atric Aluminai or whatever its called, i used it on a new build, but put the CPU fan on the wrong way around( lol, too much rushing and i presumed you could reverse the fan direction, instructions didnt say anything about the tiny arrow on the fan for air direction ), took it apart, cleaned paste off cpu & heatsink, redid it all.

    The PC ran well for a few hours then would switch off, it kept doing this progressively getting worse. I took it all apart and noticed that the paste when i cleaned it leaked onto the mobo cpu pins. Cleaned it with a toothbrush and some alcohol and it was never the same again lol, RMA'd the mobo, luckily i got a new one

    Oh, and got really drunk one night, was leaning back in the office chair i use for gaming and fell back, pulled the keyboard and mouse, but i had my PC out from the desk( so it would cool better ), ended up pulling the whole PC down effectively knocking it over( its one of those huge towers ). Ended up messing up the USB connectors on the side, bending the USB on my keyboard and G5, bending USB pins, it now shorts if i plug anything into those USB ports lol, but luckily everything worked 100%( i thought i might have cracked the mobo ).

    Lessons learnt:
    1. Dont have your PC in a place where it can topple over
    2. Dont rush with system builds
     
  2. BorTriggerHappy

    BorTriggerHappy Master Guru

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    I dont remember the "Fist", but the most recent one was...
    When I put my old thermaltake Big Typhoon CPU cooler back on, I didn't tighten it on enough, anyway I was up ALL last night thinking "Why the **** is the temp so high", then I decided to crack open the case, and only to see the H/F not touching the CPU at all, although it was still cooling it as themps were only 45C Idle.

    And another time I "accidentally" submerged my computer (without case) in cooking oil.....
    And it continued working
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2008
  3. BlackZero

    BlackZero Guest

  4. biglonglenthman

    biglonglenthman Maha Guru

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    Thats an intresting video, does it really have any affect? i dont think it does to be honest.

    And it just shortens the life expectancy of your sh!t lol
     

  5. gmavignier

    gmavignier Ancient Guru

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    I updated from a Ti4800 SE to a FX 5500 without knowing anything about video cards.

    Also just last week I damaged a perfectly good ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe 939 mobo god knows how. Big mistake as it was going to my dad's rig and now I have to get HIM another one.
     
  6. Kon$olE

    Kon$olE Guest

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    Not really my fault, but still funny:

    My family had just moved to Singapore, and it was decided to put one of the first computers we ever owned in my room. Loose estimates put me at around 6 or 7 years old.
    I kept my dad company as he got it all set up, everything powered up, and booted to desktop. My dad then made the mistake of leaving to go do the dishes. The following conversation took place a minute or so afterwards:

    "Dad..."
    "Not now, I'm busy"
    "Dad!"
    "No!"
    "DAD!"
    "Just a minute!"
    "But dad..."
    "I said, just a minute!"
    "But dad, theres smoke coming out the back of the computer!"
    "WHAT!?! Turn it off, turn it off!"
     
  7. DSparil

    DSparil Guest

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    haha, this is a good idea for a thread. I made a major goof back when I was a complete overclocking noob. I had an Athlon XP 2500+ (skt A) and eventually decided I needed more horsepower. I went into the BIOS and started tweaking the FSB, multiplier, and Vcore up without really knowing how it was affecting things. It worked ok for a little while, but it didn't take long for my CPU to check out.

    lol, if anything good was to come of it, it was about time to upgrade anyway.... this just expedited the processs ;)
     
  8. wiskerbizkit

    wiskerbizkit Master Guru

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    fist and cocks huh? this thread is bound to be epic

    My first build from scratch was a motherboard cpu combo, i got to reading that there was a pencil trick and i went to take my heatsink off and two resistors came off with it.
     
  9. Scrumdiddly

    Scrumdiddly Active Member

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    Years ago when the 1.2Ghz Thunderbird processors were the shiznit, I had ordered a complete, custom build PC from California. I waited a week and a half for the package to come. It was January and I live in Cleveland. I hooked it up as fast as I could because I just wanted to use it. Not thinking it had been sitting on a frozen UPS truck for hours. I got to see the pretty screen for 3 minutes, then there was a pop, and my motherboard cracked down the center. Many things were broken, including my heart. Had to wait another 3 weeks.
     
  10. [Spitfire]

    [Spitfire] Master Guru

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    few years back, didn't know much about computers
    was in the market to get a new one and saw this dude playing NFS underground 1
    i got that pc cause i didn't know anything about hardware, i came home and i realised
    i had gotten a 1.8Ghz Celeron PC when 3Ghz Pentium 4's were out
     

  11. TroM

    TroM Ancient Guru

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    I drop kicked my monitor.
     
  12. inklimited

    inklimited Ancient Guru

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    No. You didn't. Press F1 to continue.

    Well, probably the worst mistake ever was to let my friend put his computer together (he is noob, but likes to learn). I told him to check the pins on the VGA cable, and don't force it in (it was my old monitor, so knew all it's quirks, like the bent pin). Well, he gives it a quick glance, and jams the f@cker in. Power on. No picture. Broken pin. And luckily I know what burning plastic smells like, so I dive on the switch. That new 64MB card had a nice new black line on it. These days, he is a little more gentle.

    The worst one I have done so far was scare the ****e outta myself whilst installing my brand new E6700. Power on. Nothing. OMFG. $600 worth of hardware gone.
    All it took was to jiggle the 20 pin. Happy.
     
  13. rogue71

    rogue71 Master Guru

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    way way back when you needed insulators between the mb and the screws i wasnt told you had to have them as insulators. i thought they were just so you didnt damage the board when you tightened the screws. lol........i had a pt job assembling at a small distributor. first 10 systems were all good. next 3 fried like chicken. i never was sure what the deal was.oh well. i found out they were pricks ripping people off so after i found that out i didnt feel so bad .
     
  14. Makalu

    Makalu Ancient Guru

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    Only one I recall is I overtightened the nuts on a heatsink and crushed an $80 peltier...but it was a long time ago and I feel much better now that I've had three whole days to forgive myself.
     
  15. Darkest

    Darkest Guest

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    I think the biggest cock up I ever made was a past thing, back when the 6800gt's and Ultras were the top dogs. I was away from the scene a little and allowed a friend to use a 6800nu I'd got ahold of, which was capable of unlocking all the pipes, and clocking to GT speeds with the right cooling (Case wise, that is). Was solid with its own cooler.

    I installed said card into the guys case, to give him a taste of why he should actually invest money in something decent, since he rarely ever did anything but spend most of his time playing PC games. After a few months I go to check on him and find out his PC is broken, and of course offer my services to check the thing out. Now bare in mind, I installed this thing myself, solid as a rock. Nothing wrong with it.

    I check the computer, nothing evident seems to be wrong, yet the thing wouldn't pass post. So I think to start removing components one by one. I start with the Graphics card, heatsink falls off in my hand, PC starts up straight away. No joke, I unplug the card and the heatsink literally just drops off. I ask him about it, he claims ignorance at first, then claims his father slamming the toilet door caused it (seriously, the door was way over the other side of the house. I about slapped him and walked out just at that). Then much later on admitted to kicking the PC because he kept losing at a game.

    Was the last time I ever let him use any hardware of mine, and I actually started charging him for any repairs I made on his computer, of which I've made many. I tried refitting the heatsink but the card was burned out. At the time it was still a damn good card, this was a little while before nvidia's 7' series came out.

    I think the thing that annoys me most is the fact they guy has his CCNA 1 and 2, and IT essentials 1 and upward. As well as several other IT related qualifications. It's horrible to think of him in charge of another persons computer when he takes such ill care of his own hardware, let alone loaned components from a friend.
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2008

  16. fischju

    fischju Ancient Guru

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    I was 10, the PSU died on one of my PCs. (Well, I thought that was the problem...) I took it apart, put it back together (For some reason that very often fixes things....) and accidentally switced it to the wrong voltage - tried to turn it on huge flash + smoke. I ran like hell.
     
  17. blairy

    blairy New Member

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    total disaster!

    I recently build myself a nice AMD system (no comment):
    Asus Crosshair
    AMD Athlon 64 x2 6000+
    2 gigs, Corsair 800Mhz 4-4-4-12
    XFX 8800GT 512Mb APLHA DOG EXTREME
    550Watts Corsair PSU

    As i was building this system I though, right ill do this properly, and ill read through all of the manuals, which i did...

    I then needed to remove the CPU cooler, as i did this it pulled the cpu out of the slot... which wonderfully bent all one half of the pins <3. i also sat for a prolonged time with a Stanley knife bending them back :stewpid:

    I then Installed the system fine, installed windows fine, however i had to reset the bios for some reason on each hard boot by using an onboard CMOS reset button. It then started to deteriorate. At this time I was using a 7600GT. As soon as I installed my 8800GT, BANG!

    Motherboard burnt out like crazy, took my system to a hardware store... I forgot to insert the standoffs onto the motherboard:bang: £130 motheboard died :(

    I bought a new motherboard, wacked my 8800GT in it, no response, I thought i fried that too. So i sent it back to the supplier, turns out i needed a bios update for the newer motherboard.

    I can say, i successfully screwed up my first pc!:banana:
     
  18. Barry J

    Barry J Ancient Guru

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    back in the days when i had a super fast 486 i remember going through and deleting all files i was not using which included all the .ini and .exe files strange that the pc would not work afterwards had to call tech support as i had no idea what was wrong?
     
  19. Ex4000

    Ex4000 Master Guru

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    spnding £300 on a iiyama tft had bad dead pixles
     
  20. biglonglenthman

    biglonglenthman Maha Guru

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    Now why would you do that? :p sounds good though lmao
     

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