What's the dumbest thing you did when you..

[The VTech]

put your PC together for the first time or the last one you built even??

For me?? I put the clear plastic light reflector for the HDD LED case on the back of the motherboard, thinking it was a non-metalic support. Then I opened the front of the case and went, how come there is only one HDD LED reflector??
DOH!!! Oh ya, it's still on the back of the board.

Second dumbest?? Putting the OLD DDR RAM in to My Soyo Dragon KT333 and getting mad when it booted up funny and with almost no RAM showing. Took me 3 boots before I noticed the NEW DDR RAM still sitting on my desk!

[phungilax]

I plugged in my floppy drive wrong once. THe cable can connect either way...i had it backwards.

[The VTech]

Did that once myself on my very fist PC. I think just about everyone I know has done the backwards cable thing at least ONCE in thier PC building days.

[Johnny Knoxville]

i put on arctic silver without removing that thermad pad from the hsf, i got temperatures of 100 Celcius :cool:

[JML]

I was helping a friend build his first machine (I had never built one before either), and we thought, "Hey I thought thunderbirds have a 200FSB, this motherboard only has 100 and 133......lets set it to 133, that's closest" So we accidently overclocked his tbird w/ stock cooling and fried it. Whoopsies!

[Breadfan]

Originally posted by phungilax
I plugged in my floppy drive wrong once. THe cable can connect either way...i had it backwards.

LOL, I still do that all the time. Every time I think I got it right, I turn the system on and the stupid floppy light stays on. I was glad I didn't do the build the box thingy at the AMD tour (which I didn't even go to, so...) beucase I heard if you had the floppy cable reversed you'd automatically lose...lol, and knowing my luck...

As for my experiences...

One time at work I was testing an AMD board with a 1.1 200fsb Tbird, and I had put the junky stock coolermaster fan back on, but it was a really bad clip. Well, I figured it was on good, powered up the system. It booted fine, went to BIOS, so I was like "well its 745am, I need coffee". Came back 5 minutes later, the screen was blank and the system smelled bad.

Turned out the stupid coolermaster unit hadn't mounted correclty, and the cpu fried... :( Luckily it was at work though, I told them it was a faulty heatsink that cuase me to kill it, they were ok with it but I felt bad so I ordered myself a Duron instead.

[Guero]

I built a new PC and could not figure out why it would not post. Fans spun but no beeps. The very last thing I check is the PSU, it was on 220, not 115v! Must have come shipped that way and I never thought to check!

Last week I put together a PC in haste and had trouble figuring out why it was not posting. I would get one beep, then two beeps, then one beep. Did not correspond to any beep codes. My KVM switch was set to a different rig that I had to steal the video card out of. Doh! I usually have the KVM full and was absent-minded.

[Frodo Baggins]

floppy drive cable wrong:( And dunno how I did it, but I burnt out that stupid floppy drive (ah well, it was made in like 1980s)

nothing major...yet...

[john240sx]

when i built my first computer i completely forgot to get ram, the bad part is i didn't notice until i tried to start the computer.

i have a few more but i can only laugh at my self for so long until it get's aggrevating :)

[EluSiOn]

first time... I try to boot a k6-2 350mhz without heatsink.... end up frying it.

second time... I forgot that I need to open the socket and rase the actuation lever.... I just put the cpu in... and force the hsf mount on it... of course.. the computer wont boot... after spend hours... and I found my mistake.. it was amd althon 800... and miraculously.... it still work until today....

..............

last time I build my computer.... I tried to fill up water in my resevior.... However... I fill it up too fast without realizing it was full.... I spill water all over my mobo and GF3 card... after spending 30 drying out my mobo and gf3 card.. the machine boots... however.. after 3 days... that GF3 die.. but the mobo and cpu still alive today... (my resevior is right above cpu socket)

[DAGO]

Having had to wait some time before I could afford a 1.4 TBird, I only had the thing in my trembling hands for an hour before I did the unthinkable and cracked the core. Nothing like that sickening sound to really ruin your day: "Cra-a-a-a-a-k!!"
Death by AX-7 was the final verdict...OUCH. :cry:

[cryogen97]

First computer I built from scratch I got a case and the PSU that came with it said 'P4 ready'. So I didn't give it a second thought but could never get the thing to boot. It gave out a wierd beep code sometimes. After playing with ram, video card, everything I could think of, I had a friend come over and look at it. Turned out my 'P4 ready' PSU, wasn't. It didn't have all the right mobo connectors. I spent a month and a half kicking that thing around before the problem was identified.

[DaBigJ]

When I built my AthlonXP (see sig) I somehow missed the setting in the bios for memory clock speed. It was running at 100 mhz (ddr) instead of 133 for months. Apparently, my memory was unstable at that speed (umderclocked!?), because my WinXP registry kept getting corrupted. I reinstalled windows so many times I memorized my cd key. And then I learned how to restore the registry from the "recovery console". Finally, I figured out what was wrong and set my memory at 133 mhz. (During this time I learned a LOT about my computer, as you can imagine)

[Malpine Walis]

The first time I built a computer, I had the case up on my kitchen counter. Because of the upper cabinet, I could not just swing the case around but had to tilt it a little bit to change the angle that I was working from.

Now at one point I had put the HSF up on top of the power supply, thinking that that was a nice, out of the way place to put it.

After I had mounted the mobo to the tray, I had to turn the case to put the tray up and screw it in. Forgetting where the heatsink was, I tipped the box over and BAM!

Mr Swiftec, allow me to introduce you to Mr Southbridge.

Two pounds of copper falling two feet to the mother board makes a scary sound. Fortunately, no real damage was done and the patient survived the operation. Even so, it was a pretty boneheded thing to do.

[Auri87]

tried to put in my cd rom drives from the inside-out and messed up when plugging in my floppy

[nealric]

I forgot to open the valves on my wc setup the first time I turned it on. THe proc was at 70c before I got in to bios :eek:

[Captain Slug]

I've built SO many machines it's kind of hard to remember all of my foibles. I think the worst was when I was working on a Socket 7 machines and a screw got lodged inbetween the motherboard and the motherboard tray. Turn it on, and it turn itself off. It was instantly dead and resetting the CMOS didn't help at all.

But the DUMBEST thing I've done is being too lazy to lay down my machine before attempting to install the CHrome Orb in my first machine (or you could count the fact that I was using a Chrome Orb as being stupid too). I got frustrated that It was turning itself off after 5 seconds, so instead of checking the innards I turned it back on two or three times until I smelled something really awful.

That's when I noticed the heatsink, which wasn't even touching the core. I removed the CPU, which burned me in anger. After examining the back of it I noticed that it had carmelized the glue underneath the label which has the serial number on it. That mistake cost me $70. I've been far more careful and methodical with my parts since then.

[stopdrpnro]

this 1 is pretty bad but it wasn't on my first system it was closer to my 5th. i got a shim i a plastic bad and it says make sure to take off the plistic linning and i'm like what idiot would put the shim on in the plastic bag so i install it . the next time i took my sink off the was plastic lining all shivireled up on the copper shim. i'm such an iddiot

[skou]

I built an IT7 rig for my brother, about 3 months ago. Yesterday, while we were on the phone, he said " my floppy doesn't work". I told him to pull off the side panel, and look at the connections on the back of the floppy. Some moron forgot to put the ribbon cable in, I left it out completely. I talked him through installing it, and everything is fine ( he put it in backwards the first time too). D'oh.

Why is it that most of the time the IDE cable for a floppy, gets plugged in backwards? The law if averages says it should only be wrong 50% of the time.

steve

[Oni]

Shortly after I got my brand-spankin' new (and I mean, this board had been out for like, a month) Asus A7V266-E RAID, I picked myself up an Alpha PAL 8045 to go w/ it. I also picked up a box of Krispy Kreme donuts (they had just arrived in Canada). Cut to me, w/ my computer's innards on the diningroom table, trying to get these standoffs on w/ a pair of needle-nosed plyers. I ended up scratching traces on the backside of the motherboard in my eagerness, and the fact that I had about 10 sugary donuts in me didn't help. RIP 1 A7V266-E RAID :(

[Mr B]

On the floppy cable thing... One thing I've noticed over the years, is that, while some floppy drives have the power lead on the left, and some on the right, every one of them has had the cable plugged into the drive so that the red wire/edge (#1) faced towards the motherboard.

My biggie was building my first rig, and getting the power lead to the floppy FUBARRED. There's four pins...I had it on three (offset by one). No boot, beeps, or even fans spinning. And being my first rig (and not even a member here yet), I was totally clueless on what the problem was.

I've yet to fry anything....*knocks on wood*

My latest and greatest...I've got both my main and server rigs on a KVM. Last night, I decided to get adventurous and replace the useless little Blorb on my Ti4200 (glued on) with ThermalTake's G4-VGA Copper Cooler (TT P/N A1349). It's got the same dweeby fan on it, but it's mounted on a big chunk of copper, instead of this tiny piece of blue anodized aluminum foil.

I got the card all set to go, hit the switch on the back of the PSU, hit the hot key for the KVM to change between the server and the main (which has the Ti in it), and hit the power button.

And I waited for the light on the monitor to change from yellow to green. when it didn't after about ten seconds, I looked over at the rig. In my haste to get the thing fired up again, I didn't reconnect the cable from the monitor to the vid card... :rolleyes:

B.

[Mr. $T$]

Originally posted by The VTech
Did that once myself on my very fist PC. I think just about everyone I know has done the backwards cable thing at least ONCE in thier PC building days.

Never.. :D

I have Put a heatsink on backwards, Fried Two T-Birds, One MotherBoard, VidCard, CD-Burner, 3 HDD and few Fans.

But nothing within a year.. ;)

All the Damage seems to be going to my Car, I have already burned up 2 Cluches. :rolleyes:

[DocClock aka MadClocker]

I can't realy remember any stupid thing I did while building, except to forget to plug in the comp..
Now about the floppy..I have a sony that has the connector backwards..Pin 1 sets away from the power connector, and if you use a "keyed" cable, then it will be backwards....some idiot at sony put the keyed plastic connector in wrong, so with that, I have to either use a non keyed cable, or cut the key off.
talk about stupid mistakes.

Come to think of it, I do remember 1 big mistake..trying to load win98 on a laptop with only 8mb ram..fubar

[Malpine Walis]

I just thought of another dumb thing I did.

When I put together this rig (same as the one I mentioned before), I had purchased what was then one of the best heat sinks money could buy, the Swiftech MC 462. For those who are not familiar with the mounting system, it has aluminum standoffs for mounting to the motherboard holes and nylon nuts that go on the back of the mobo. Now nylon is not exactly known as the beefiest of materials and I managed to strip the threads on a couple of the nuts.

So I headed out to my local hardware store with one of the standoffs in my wallet and bought four steel nuts that matched along with some insulating washers. The washers were probably overkill as I have the grounding rings on my mobo mounting holes but there is no reason on god’s green planet to ground a heat sink so why not. When I got home, I remounted my heat sink. With no possibility of stripping the threads this time, I got the thing tightened up nicely. A bit too tight it seems as those dinky pieces of aluminum cannot take a whole lot of torque and I snapped the male end off of the body.

Thank god for laptops. I was still able to get to the forums and learned that sidewinder.com has the mounting kit I needed for $5. Fortunately, sidewinder offers shipping via the post office so I did not have to take a major hit for a small plastic bag but even so, I did not want to spend $2 to ship a $5 item, so I ordered a better fan for my heat sink and dual digital thermometer that mounts in a drive bay. So even though I pulled a boneheaded stunt that could have killed a brand new XP 1700, I managed to improve my cooling a little bit (about 4c).

[JetMech]

Two days ago I was troubleshooting a system that was booting but would not show on the monitor. Was going nuts before I realized that I was on the wrong position on the kvm switch. I had only rmoved and reseated the video card about 8 or 9 times.

[Johnny Knoxville]

I spilt some aftershave on the motherboard, while it was running, i heard some zaps, but it's working fine and with a better smell :D

[CrystalMethod]

I can't count on two hands the number of times I'm still half a sleep at work and end up plugging in the floppy cable backwards. Mr.B is right, all drives are connected with the red side of the cable towards the MB. Even armed with this knowledge, I still end up not looking at the cable every once in a while, and plug it in backwards. I'm also notorious for plugging either the HDD led, or the power led in backwards. On really special occasions I'll plug them both in backwards. :)

[v8vega350]

1 plugged in a hard drive when i though i shut down my comp. and i actually pressed restart so when the mon. light turned color i plugged it in and fried it was about 5 hours past my bed time and i was in a hurry
2 though i could get away with applying as2 on the cpu then locking it down then removing the hsf to see if it had coverd properly then putting the hsf back on without reappling as2 the cpu made a really cool wining noise to let me know something wasnt right
3 tried to start it like that 4 or 5 times but it all survived
4 did it multipal times to the same processor

[Salmon Dream]

Just did the floppy thing.... except with my ide hard drive....

Was all stressed out.... my new athlon wasn't posting. read this thread to cheer me up. out of nowhere, i diecided to look at the hard drive and guess what! the ide was in upside down

[Breadfan]

Originally posted by Frodo Baggins
floppy drive cable wrong:( And dunno how I did it, but I burnt out that stupid floppy drive (ah well, it was made in like 1980s)


One day at work I managed to kill 4 floppy drives in one day...it really freaked me out actually. It was on like 2 seperate systems too. Three older TEACs and one 2 month of Matsu****a...

I'm pretty sure it wasn't messed up cables...the drives just gave up I guess. It was strange though, kinda like a bad omen. But, I ended up pulling 2 out of some old 486 SX's that were waiting for the trash...strangely, those drives worked great and my little floppy drive killing spree was over...

[Commander_Kang]

Too much artic silver + bad heat sink = artic silver shorting bridges on friends brand new 1.2 t-bird.

[AMD'er]

here are some examples of more dumb things we all have done http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=143995&perpage=30&highlight=dumbest&pagenumber=1

[subconcept]

I got my lian li and was moving the real estate from one case to my new one. When I booted it didnt post. I found out that it was the cpu. Inspected it, looked fine no damage what so every. Not sure what had happened. Then I called amd to arrange a rma and as im talking to the lady I dropped the cpu from my hands and I bent a pin hehe. luckily it was on the carpet so i just carfully straightend out the pin. My heart almost stopped when I dropped it tho (thats a tight budget for you).

[XyKo]

forgot to plug the floppy drive in correctly and have to bring it to the shop to have them fix it which cost $30!!!!!

****ing I was Dumb!!! now i know how it goes.