Retarded Mistakes we have all made

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PopCorn
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Retarded Mistakes we have all made

Post by PopCorn » Mon Dec 18, 2006 4:26 pm

this thread is about all the stupid things everyone has done ie: misinstalling parts...

here are some of the dumbest thing i have done

1) Installing hard drives in backwards (so sata ports where face to front of computer) and the layout of the case forced me to take out the mother board in order to flip it then i reinstalled every thing to realize my other hdd was in backward and had to do the same thing

2)Built a new system and forgot to put the cpu in but i put the heatsink on (was watching a football game and was distracted)

3) when i had a window case i put the side cover on the wrong side (common stupidy)

4) built a system for some one and when i tried to power it up can the and it would'nt after 3 and a half hours of trying to fix it realized i never hooked up the power switch jumpers

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Re: Retarded Mistakes we have all made

Post by Rusty075 » Mon Dec 18, 2006 6:25 pm

PopCorn wrote:4) built a system for some one and when i tried to power it up can the and it would'nt after 3 and a half hours of trying to fix it realized i never hooked up the power switch jumpers
I can top that...

Spent a frustrating hour and half trying to figure out why a system made of old parts just in a new case wouldn't post after reassembly. Checked every wire, every jumper, every pinout, swapped components, rearranged RAM, removed and reseated the CPU. Eventually decided that I must have done something horrible to the mobo when putting it into the new case. Pulled it out, and rebuilt the system completely. Still the same: the damn thing wouldn't even twitch when you hit the power button.

Then I realised I never plugged the PSU's cord into the wall.

:roll: :oops: :roll:

PopCorn
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Post by PopCorn » Mon Dec 18, 2006 7:11 pm

ok so i had just built a new system .... i made sure every thing was perfect.... when i put all the plugg on the back in and hit the power switch and it powered up gave me the normal beeps and evert thing.... i lookd at the screen cuz i want to getin to bios.... nothing on the screen.... i looked at the back of the comp making sure i plugged every thing in and it was so i reseated the video card ... same thing..... tried the on board vid.... same thing i tried every video card i had all did the same thing... i when to get a sip of my soda whitch was on my desk ... the soda was on top of my kvm.... i never switched it to number 2

m0l0t0v
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Post by m0l0t0v » Mon Dec 18, 2006 9:23 pm

bought a p4 mobo for my core2duo, I spent 2 days re-pluggin everything, fixing everything, then I decided to check if all my parts were fully compatible.. and they weren't!

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Post by hawkeye1 » Tue Dec 19, 2006 12:55 am

Here's something I have to take the blame for as the daddy, even though my son did it.

A few years back I got a nice shiny new Athlon chip as part of a new system build. Left the CPU pin-side up on my desk while I was putting some final touches on the motherboard, and when I turned around to install the CPU found my son had one of those little plastic men action figures and was trying to stick the pins into its feet. By the time I realized what he was doing multiple pins had been bent, and despite my best efforts I couldn't straighten them out well enough to fit into the socket. Oh, well, I'm sure that's not the biggest problem (or greatest expense) he'll cause me in his life!

Not to hijack the thread as all these stories are fun to read, but it'd also be interesting to hear how the children (or even pets) of others have "contributed" to our computer builds.

hawkeye

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Post by Bluefront » Tue Dec 19, 2006 3:54 am

I guess the toughest problem I ever caused myself.....installed a known good MB in a HP case. The mounts in the case were raised bumps with threaded inserts. Apparently one or more points was shorting something on the back side of the board....no post. After hours of work, including three MB reinstalls, I put some fiber spacers between the MB tray and the board. Fixed the problem and didn't hurt anything. I never could determine exactly where the board was shorting......

JaRoD
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Post by JaRoD » Wed Dec 20, 2006 10:56 am

I've put a motherboard spacer wrong and fried a motherboard...

Tested a cheap mouse to see if it was broken or not, fried the motherboard...

Dropped a hdd from about 1 meter onto hard floor...

Luckily none of those were mine, I work at a computerstore :roll: Then there's also all those forgetting to turn psu on, installing hdd the wrong way. Forgetting to install memory in the computer and lots of other stupid stuff that I can't remember.

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Post by monkiman » Wed Dec 20, 2006 11:34 am

JaRoD wrote: Luckily none of those were mine, I work at a computerstore :roll: Then there's also all those forgetting to turn psu on, installing hdd the wrong way. Forgetting to install memory in the computer and lots of other stupid stuff that I can't remember.
Inspires confidence :lol:

and explains why we build our own.

[F]bernZ
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Post by [F]bernZ » Wed Dec 20, 2006 12:21 pm

:lol: :lol: :lol:

My best experience is probably

a) Forgetting to plug in the 4pinP4 connector [and then troubleshooting for hours, swapping ram, hard drive, cpu, video]

b) This is actually a genuine mistake, took me eons to figure out.

I plugged the front panel in incorrectly - the reset switch was at the power, and power switch was at the reset. I wondered why I couldn't turn my computer off my just holding the power button.. it almost let into an RMA procedure of the case. :lol:

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Post by derekva » Wed Dec 20, 2006 12:25 pm

Computer-wise, there are too many to mention.

However, the biggest one I can think of is allowing my wife to talk me out of buying a backup generator for the house. Guess what we're buying this summer?

-Derek
(Puget Sound, WA - just got power back yesterday after 4 days w/out)

nici
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Post by nici » Wed Dec 20, 2006 12:31 pm

Im perfec.

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Post by qviri » Wed Dec 20, 2006 1:57 pm

[F]bernZ wrote:a) Forgetting to plug in the 4pinP4 connector [and then troubleshooting for hours, swapping ram, hard drive, cpu, video]
I've done this too, inadvertly. This was the first motherboard I bought, in a combo with a CPU. I was upgrading from a socket 7 system. A friend told something that I understood meant "socket A systems do not need the square 12V CPU connector." I didn't have a decent PSU yet, it was in the mail, so I was hooking the board up to whichever old unit I had on hand. It would not boot the board. I double-checked every connection available - it would not work.

I took the combo to the store. (Thankfully three minutes by bike...) They booted it fine. I also bought the RAM from them the day before. They had me bring in the memory, thinking maybe that was dud. Nope, booted into BIOS fine as well. I went to the back of the store, where it was happily running... with the square 12 V plug in.

Couple days later, the computer was running happily on my Seasonic PSU.

I can only guess that my friend actually said "socket A boards that don't have the connector don't need it."
[F]bernZ wrote:b) This is actually a genuine mistake, took me eons to figure out.

I plugged the front panel in incorrectly - the reset switch was at the power, and power switch was at the reset. I wondered why I couldn't turn my computer off my just holding the power button.. it almost let into an RMA procedure of the case. :lol:
Again, I've done something similar, and I've got a forum thread to prove it. I connected (shorted) the hard drive LED pinout and the case speaker pinout using the power LED plug. Apparently this fed voltage into the onboard speaker and caused a chirping sound whenever the hard drive was accessed (and the LED should have lit up). I haven't been able to beat that achievement since.

Bories36
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Post by Bories36 » Wed Dec 20, 2006 2:22 pm

bought a dell

qviri
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Post by qviri » Wed Dec 20, 2006 2:34 pm

Bories36 wrote:bought a dell
You win the internets.

spookmineer
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Post by spookmineer » Wed Dec 20, 2006 2:55 pm

Similar to the first 2 posts:

Installed a new PSU, double checking everything, put all the cables in the back. Left the side panel off to check if fans are working. Plugged PSU power cord into the net, flipped the switch of the PSU... nothing...

Darn... unhooked everything, check eveything again, reconnecting a lot of cables. Hook everything up again, flip the switch...
Oh... there's also a PC power switch... :oops:

I couldn't believe it, this is the one thing everyone of us does whenever they use the PC. And I completely forgot about it.

Ozkar
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Post by Ozkar » Wed Dec 20, 2006 5:47 pm

Tried to install a RAM stick backwards. It didn't fit so I pushed even harder. Burned the MB and the RAM. By the way, the PC was plugged into the AC outlet, but it wasn't on, obviously..

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Post by jackylman » Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:35 am

Was trying to do the 7V trick with a case fan cheaply. I was using a 3-pin fan header to Molex converter. I didn't feel like messing around with the Molex connector (i.e. swapping ground and 5V wires), so I just took my trusty wire cutters, cut off the Molex connector and stripped some insulation from the leads. I then shoved them into a PSU Molex connector. This was only meant to be a temporary thing, but it somehow became permanent :roll:

About a month later, I had just set up my brand new WD Scorpio notebook drive and was trying to determine where to place the drive for optimum noise suppression. I had my PC on and the case open to try placing the drive in various locations. During this process, I ended up knocking one of the bare wires of my ghetto fan adapter out of the connector. I hastily shoved it back in the PSU molex connector, not realizing that a few strands wouldn't cooperate and worked themselves into the neighboring pin. My reward for such stupidity was a large spark as the system turned off.

I tidied everything up and restarted the system. All of the components were okay except my brand new hard disk. To make matters worse, the replacement I received wasn't quite as good of a sample noise-wise as the original (although it still beats even the quietest 3.5" drives).

Chris Chan
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Post by Chris Chan » Thu Dec 21, 2006 7:09 am

qviri, you win the cake for discovering an awesome prank. My stupidest mistake... would have to be hot-plugging a SATA HDD into an ICH5 southbridge. Didn't fry anything (never fried anything yet...) but wasn't recognised.

Cerberus
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Post by Cerberus » Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:54 pm

I once purchased a Seagate HDD (80-gig) from a computer shop; it was an OEM version, packed in a layer of bubble wrap. While walking out of the computer shop, I managed to whack the drive against a concrete-filled guardrail support post. :lol:

It's working without a hitch as I speak, fortunately!

kstich
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Post by kstich » Thu Dec 21, 2006 9:46 pm

OK, this one may take the cake...

One time when I was installing extra RAM in my case I realized how dusty the computer actually was on the inside, especially the heatsink which was nearly clogged. I figured this was the reason for the high temps I was having previously so became determined to fix the problem. To fix the dust problem I vacuumed the heatsink and case without even thinking twice.

Needless to say, the CPU and motherboard were both fried. When I tried to turn it on the next time it smoked from multiple locations, including the CPU. Darn static electricity!

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Post by Lawrence Lee » Thu Dec 21, 2006 10:22 pm

1. I bought a Zalman FB123 fan bracket and I was eye-balling where it would be oriented over my CPU, checking to see which PCI slot/bracket would be best for installation. Of course I was doing this with the system running and I edged a little bit forward and the metal on the bracket shorted out my video card. It was a TI4200 that cost me like $230 back in the day.

2. Put in RAM backwards. The board and RAM actually still worked afterwards amazingly. Abit IS7 + generic DDR400.

3. Tried using the smoke from incense to determine the airflow in my case. Hand wavered and oops, melted a hole in the front of my Antec Lanboy. Looked like a nostril.

4. Troubleshooting a drive with a NTDLR problem... Tried to repair XP, didn't work. Different hard drive, didn't work. Swapped RAM and PSU, nothing. Updated BIOS, nada. Finally with a stroke of inspiration, I swapped out the cheap generic rounded IDE cable. Voila. Only took me a day and a half to figure out... now it's one of the first things I check.

5. Had all my fans hooked up to a Sunbeam Rheobus. While trying to determine which fan was making the most noise, I got distracted by a phone call. I snapped out of it just in time to hear a popping sound and my system shutting down. I had turned off both power supply fans and it overheated. Touched the back and it was blazing hot. Luckily after I let it cool down, I started it back up and it was no worse for wear. Antec TruePower 480W.

kater
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Post by kater » Fri Dec 22, 2006 12:26 am

ok, here goes

back in the times of 25mhz cpus and math coprocessors (sx and dx and stuff) i bought a smokin' vobis brand machine (german brand, still respected across europe, poland too) for big bucks. main reason i got it was it had a strikingly beautiful huge tower case designed by colani himself (dude also designed cars and some futuristic stuff).
well, all cases in these times had these little key locks (and snazzy lcd displays showing "25mhz" and those "turbo" keys). so, i bought the machine, checked if OK at the store, brought it home, unpacked, drooled over the shiny new ivory plastic, and switched it on. but i could do nothing - the computer booted up, screen stayed black with the blinking cursor, but there was not response - i pressed every key, checked if the keyobard was connected, in general i did what little i could do. well, packed the computer, went back to the store.

you just needed to turn this damn lock on - otherwise the keyboard refused to work :twisted:

the beautiful case (by colani, mind you 8) ) still worked a year ago - my bro modded it into atx and enjoyed it, even tho it was dark yellow color

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Post by teejay » Fri Dec 22, 2006 1:54 am

PopCorn wrote:i tried every video card ... kvm ... i never switched it to number 2
Ha! I can top that... after modding my video card with an VF700 cooler: black screen. Re-installed stock cooler: black screen. This was a few hours before going to a LAN party, so I was panicking a little. I tried the card in another PC (same cable)... nothing. Rushed into town, bought an overpriced new card at a local store, installed, did a quick check on my test setup, everything worked, modded the cooler, everything A-OK. LAN party was great, came home, hooked up PC: black screen.

It wasn't until then that I realized that I had bought a KVM a few weeks earlier... doh! Couldn't return the card (modded) so in the end I sold my then-not-so-old X800XL...

Apart from that, the usual: installing a NIC with the machine running (how's that for Plug 'n Play), bending pins on IDE connectors & CPUs, hooking up the internal speaker to the hdd LED connector, frying everything in a system including mouse + keyboard by refusing to buy an A-brand PSU, scratching up a new Lian Li panel by stepping on it... oh, overclocking everything including the SATA bus in really big & bold steps leading to massive data loss... the list seems endless :shock:

But hey, we learn the most from our mistakes, right? I certainly hope so...

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Post by IsaacKuo » Fri Dec 22, 2006 7:06 am

I've fried a RAM stick after jamming it in backwards. The motherboard didn't die, fortunately.

My dumbest mistake was trying to test POST a motherboard, with the motherboard resting on top of the PSU. I kept powering it on and off, and getting nothing but the fans whirring. Eventually, it occured to me that the metal of the PSU was obviously causing shorts between numerous pins on the underside of the motherboard.

Miraculously, neither the PSU nor motherboard were fried by this abuse.

OmegaZero
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Post by OmegaZero » Fri Dec 22, 2006 1:31 pm

There's a great older thread along these lines here...
OmegaZero wrote: Right before I moved I was trying to decide what to do with all of my spare parts. After selling off what I could I found that I had a machine's worth of spare parts left, so of course I set to putting it together....

"Decent MSI mobo, an old 1.7 GHz Celeron, 512MB RAM, Enermax 350W PSU, GeForce MX4000, and a Zalman 7000b - Not bad a'tall!"

"Damn. No mounting screws for the Zalman."

"Great, I have some with the right thread in the toolbox!"

"Doesn't seem to tighten all the way though."

"Eh, it's solid. Good contact and all - no worries."

"All put together. Turn it on."

"Hmmm. No POST."

"Try again. Still no POST."

"Try once more just for good measure."

ZAP! :shock:

As it turns out (and you may have guessed), the screws I found to mount the 7000b were too long; they made contact with the system bus just outside the processor socket. The result was some impressive sparks accompanied by a rather unpleasant burning smell. Unfortunately I never got ANY of the parts that were in that system to work again - even the fan on the 7000b was dead.

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Post by qviri » Fri Dec 22, 2006 3:23 pm

OmegaZero wrote:There's a great older thread along these lines here...
Ah, yes. I believe that my dead link contained a description of an interesting incident involving white flames and black smoke escaping from an electronic device I was powering from a floppy header. I still have no clue why that happened...

wpb
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Post by wpb » Fri Dec 22, 2006 8:54 pm

Just recently I installed my 2 case fans and CPU fans backwards! I didn't realize it until I looked closely at a few pictures in the Gallery here.

In my first build about 5 years ago (case fans were already installed) I decided that the MB standoff screws were not necessary. I turned on the computer and heard a loud snap sound. Bye, bye motherboard.

Slaugh
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Post by Slaugh » Fri Dec 22, 2006 9:52 pm

Two days ago, I spent a good 30 minutes to figure out why the Internet was not working... This computer was infected and I had to manually clean it outside Windows. When I tried to go on the Internet after the system was cleaned, it didn't work... Thinking that I've missed something, I ran WinsockXPFix, LSPFix, HijackThis, checked the TCP/IP settings and the registry... until I realized that the ethernet cable wasn't plugged to the computer... Doh! :roll:

theyangster
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Post by theyangster » Fri Dec 22, 2006 11:11 pm

Slaugh wrote:Two days ago, I spent a good 30 minutes to figure out why the Internet was not working... This computer was infected and I had to manually clean it outside Windows. When I tried to go on the Internet after the system was cleaned, it didn't work... Thinking that I've missed something, I ran WinsockXPFix, LSPFix, HijackThis, checked the TCP/IP settings and the registry... until I realized that the ethernet cable wasn't plugged to the computer... Doh! :roll:
done that before....

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Post by b3nbranch » Sat Dec 23, 2006 9:20 am

Let's see ... quite a few years ago I plugged in a floppy connector
with the correct orientation, but one pin too far to the right (open
connector w/out plastic box), motherboard never booted again.

Wondered why the video wasn't working, finally discovered that
I'd plugged the monitor into the (disabled) on-board video, not
the add-on card.

After upgrading the OS on my laptop, sound wouldn't work.
Spent hours researching the problem on wikis and user
bulletin boards, but no luck. Then I realized that the wheel
thingy on the front of the laptop had the volume turned
all the way down.

And of course, installed fans backwards more than once.

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