Computer stupidities

[Tom41]

Just wondering, have any of you ever done something stupid with a computer? It can be hardware installation, software or even just something stupid while using the machine!

When I was putting together the new PC for someone at work, I decided to power up the motherboard just by itself (outside the case, no HDD, CDROM or floppy) to make sure it wasn't dead-on-arrival. With most BIOSes, provided the CPU, memory and graphics card is installed, it'll do a beep and then say something like "Disk boot failure" on the screen.
Well, the board powered up but nothing appeared on the screen. I checked everything... or so I thought. Finally I realized that the aux power connector (4-pin plug from ATX PSU) wasn't connected to the board!
After connecting it, the system went through POST fine and I was able to continue with the HDDs and installing the OS. But I can't believe I missed something that obvious...

Another time when I was moving a monitor from one room to another, the sales director came into my office and put the glare filter (which I'd left behind) on my desk. He declared "You forgot your screen saver"

Anyone else had similar stories of 'computer stupidities'? There are a ton on this website: http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/

[arneson]

Re: Computer stupidities

No no no I have Never done any stupid things. Ha Ha Ha,,,

[Topcat]

Re: Computer stupidities

My personal worst:
Was a Pentium Classic AT socket 7 board, Soyo or Asus (don't remember, this was back in like 1997). AT power connectors are supposed to be BLACK wires side by side on the dual plug power connector... I got them reversed, powered it up, and POOF, there came the smoke and burnt silicon smell! I knew immediately what I did...

[Rainbow]

Re: Computer stupidities

I burnt a 2.88MB floppy drive - really rare thing Forgot that there is no bottom cover and put it on a metal surface...

[Fatal0E]

Re: Computer stupidities

My two best moments are hookup up the front panel usb wires in backwards order instantly killing a board, and I managed to put a socket 754 sempron chip in the socket wrong. I did not notice that the chip did not fully go down into the socket, I clamped on the heatsink, which really was not difficult. When I hit the power button 2 of the fets blew out instantly. I dissected it and found the cpu, I managed to straighten the pins without breaking them and the cpu worked fine.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Computer stupidities

Well, i wanted to copy some Data from an 2,5" HDD. Plug this thing to a USB IDE Converter. Then i hooked it to the pc, as usb won`t be recognized by my dos disk.
Then the System freezed with blinking, refused to finishe bios chek.
I tooked the whole system apart, cleared cmos, changed HDD cables, vid card etc until i noticed, that i had left the USB /IDE controler without the HDD connected. This obvioulsy confused the USB Boot aware BIOS.

And of course, conecting a AT PSU the wrong way is something i have personall experience with.

[arneson]

Re: Computer stupidities

I have a rare combination of A.D.D. and dyslexia, but this only affects me when a customer is standing over my shoulder asking if I know what I'm doing.

[linuxguru]

Re: Computer stupidities

Yeah, the AT connector design was a disaster - ATX is a huge improvement. However, the original PC/XT connector is a single-piece 12-pin connector which did not have this problem.

Likewise, the lack of standardization of the USB header pinout on the mobo is another disaster. In particular, the two most common pinouts have Vcc and GND reversed on one side of the header. It's not rocket science to have a single USB header pinout.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Computer stupidities

Yea, and talk about the pinout for the front panel...

It's not exactly difficult to connect the reset switch to +5v and GND for example, while I have not done it I can imagine what would happen...

[larrymoencurly]

Re: Computer stupidities

I once plugged in the AT power connectors backwards like that, but for some reason nothing was harmed. The same happened when I plugged a BIOS chip in backwards.

A friend of mine managed to plug a PC100 or PC133 DIMM in backwards AND lock the socket levers. The DIMM got hot but was unharmed, unlike the PSU, which blew its +3.3V MOSFET (no diode). This PSU was so bad that PC Power & Cooling used to show the 300W version as an example of a bad PSU.

I had a monitor that was going dim, and I was going to open it up to adjust the screen pot on the flyback, but then I noticed that the CRT face was just really dusty. Another time I thought I was going deaf and was going to see my doctor, but the problem was just a bad capacitor in my TV's audio section.

[willawake]

Re: Computer stupidities

once i over estimated the quality of a client's crt. i set the computer to 800x600 85hz and he took it home and plugged it in. of course he did not immediately switch off the monitor when he saw the strange psychedelic lines. he left it on all evening until the monitor started smoking.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Computer stupidities

Regarding crt: i have a master slave box on my desk, i am conection all the stuff like usb hubs and thos wallplugs for auido etc. Some time i noticed that my crt had been some heavy flickering.
Well , my 21" crt is very old, so i started to calculate for a new one....But after some time i`ve noticed the wallplug of the audio was near the crt and this caused the flickering. And this hapned more than one time, and i alway had forgotten what the solution had been.

[UraBahn]

Re: Computer stupidities

Hmmm... well, one time as I was moving stuff around, I dropped a laptop hard drive off the table onto the concrete floor. It didn't shatter or anything, but when I plugged it back into the computer... "thunkety-click! clickety-chak! thunkety-click!" This also happened to an IBM Ultrastar SCSI drive I got from an old Pentium AT system.

One time I plugged in a ball-bearing CPU cooler fan backwards. Smoked up pretty good.

I've trashed several motherboards (including a hard-to-find Asus MEB) by scraping off traces or small surface-mount components as I was trying to remove the CPU heatsink.

One time I burned a trace on a slotket card because I forgot to set the voltage jumper. Good fun.

Finally, I dropped a brand-new Emachine T1150 on the very first day we got it. The bezel was all busted up and the CD-RW drive had to be replaced, but nothing else was damaged. The machine still ran fine after that, all I did for the case was tape the bezel together with duct tape.

[Rainbow]

Re: Computer stupidities

I've trashed several motherboards (including a hard-to-find Asus MEB) by scraping off traces or small surface-mount components as I was trying to remove the CPU heatsink.

I'm very careful with this - as I fixed some boards with this "problem".

[Shroomie]

Re: Computer stupidities

Yeah, UraBahn, I've done that too. Never killed one yet though *crosses fingers* With the 462s it's a matter of time...

I've plugged in one of those CD to sound card audio cables into the wrong header on my ECS K7SEMv3, burned the coating right off what was the ground wire. Used the cable for a while afterward though, and the board was fine. (In fact, I wrapped the cable in duct tape, plugged it in the wrong way again, and bubbled THAT...Not quite sure how I did that one.)

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Computer stupidities

My predecessor In Sun Micro's P/S group (in California) pulled a good one. The group had a home-grown ATE set-up - HP electronic loads, 3-Ph electronic AC source, 'scope and printer all controled by a SPARC 1 over an IEEE-488 bus. He was doing some testing in the 115VAC range and was noticing that the 'scope, a Tek 2430A, kept rebooting, but didn't investigate. Whe the AC source switched to the 230VAC range, he discovered the problem. Not only was the unit being tested plugged into the AC source, the 2430A was also, and didn't smell too good.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Computer stupidities

Erm, plugged in a fan to a Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, on the fan side the +12v cable had come loose, and shorted to ground, blew a hole in the Mosfet on the mobo that controls the voltage sent to the Fan (according to CPU temp)

Not really my fault but I still felt stupid since it was not my mobo but a friends...

The mobo still works fine, fan outputs are dead of course though....

[Galvanized]

Re: Computer stupidities

This is a learning thread(for me).

I smoked a Sunbeam Rheobus(fan controller) because the 4 pin shell is thin and the Molex is flipped from normal optical power ports. It had to be wiggled pretty good but I got'er connected, then the majic smoke was released.

Dropped two 120 Sanyo Denki fans to the floor=no more near silent running. Clicks, growls & howls were the end result. Dropped a new HDD to the floor=instant junk, as stated above. Lesson, never unpackage hardware over the floor, all hardware is now opened on a clean table by old butterfingers

I never throw away packaging material until the invoice is fully accounted for. Yep, did that too. Threw out stuff and feel like a fool dumping the trash can on the driveway.

[tiresias]

Re: Computer stupidities

Come on guys, you call accidentally not plugging in the +12v line a stupidity?

My favorite hardware mishaps (just the best, many more):

1999 - Opened a bottle of fizzy water far too close to a Dell Inspiron 7000 laptop. Within seconds, the machine displayed a number of random "keypresses", after which I immediately powered it down. After thorough drying, I turned it back on, to discover the system worked fine, save for the keyboard which appeared totally dead.

Sent it back to Dell on their next-day-warranty with "why, it just stopped working!". Came back repaired two weeks later with a message: "Replaced KB and MB."

2003 - Our youngest kid tries to turn off the PSU of his beat-up-old Compaq by flipping the BIG RED BUTTON of doom. Bang. I say "hey, no problem", it's probably just a blown fuse and a few interrupted MOVs. Yours truly proceeds to replace the fuse with a porky piece of wire, sets the switch back to its "230v" position, and powers on.

Result: firecracker-loud sparks and flashes are heard as a 5-inch high blue flame erupts from an unidentified location on the PCB and continues burning a few seconds after I manage to open the switch on the strip plug. Startled, I roll back with my chair and knock against a shaky cabinet, sending a large can of Air Duster plummeting onto my head.

[tiresias]

Re: Computer stupidities

I smoked a Sunbeam Rheobus(fan controller) because the 4 pin shell is thin and the Molex is flipped from normal optical power ports. It had to be wiggled pretty good but I got'er connected, then the majic smoke was released.

Fan connectors always offer a great opportunity to wreak havoc. Particularly deadly are those dodgy "molex to 3-pin" converters that come with Enermax-branded fans. Should one of those connectors come loose, the result is a male 3-pin connector with very exposed pins (which always wind up getting caught on some part of the motherboard) bearing a ground and a wonderfully lethal +12vdc line coming straight from the PSU.

I've always refused to use those "extensions" myself, and if I see anyone doing it, always recommend they wind a few rounds of tape around the connectors.

PS. Other favourites:

- Trying to be extremely careful in handling new hardware, and yet managing to flip a CPU across the room while opening the oyster-like packaging.

- Rule: any loose screws lurking in the case will always wind up under the motherboard and cause trouble when you least need it. Beware of the screws.