What's the most stupid thing you've ever done to your computer?

[speed bump]

I plugged a OCZ DDR booster into a DFI NF2 infinity and managed to fry the vreg circuits.

Had a DFI 250gb die after some water leaked on it before I started it and it was even dried before I tried it.

Had a uncovered 3700+ sandy die for no explainable reason although that could of been the motherboard which might of broke when I tried to install the DD maze 4 chipset that one of the tabs broke off of while I was trying to install it.

 

[schnikies79]

pulled out a video card while the computer was running. this was back in the days of pci video cards so it wasn't a huge deal.

cost me around $40 to move up to an agp card. a rage IIc if I recall correctly.

 

[Fathom1990]

I sometimes come up with ideas in my head for modding my case that I think will be really cool, but I never spend enough time planning properly. So several of my past cases had to put up with large drill holes, dodgy painting and attempts to rectify my errors.

Oh, I've also done stupid things with molex connectors, specifically, trying to plug a fan (with no proper plug on it) into a molex connector while my PC was running.

 

[SolidxSnake]

Oh, I've also done stupid things with molex connectors, specifically, trying to plug a fan (with no proper plug on it) into a molex connector while my PC was running.

I do that constantly as well. Only problems I get is my hard drive clicking, and locking up the rig. Nothing the restart button can't fix.

Once though, I was putting my radiator RCA fan jack back into it's hole (I run an external rad with dual 120mm fans, and there's a female RCA jack there which i use to connect the fans to the PSU). I missed and i touched the case. The CA was wired +12v inside, GND outside. That sounds messed up (GND touching case, nothing will happen), but I was running 7v. So the GND was actually a +5, and it touched the GND. Just sparked, fired up right after. My fortron is awesome

 

[RED Hot Machine]

While putting my water cooling in my case I forgot to unplug it from the mains. I managed to put my thumb across the circuit board for my relay that turned my pump on when my psu came on. I put my finger across the 12volt line from the psu and the 270v line from the mains aswell. I got one hell of a shock from that.

I also slippped one day and put my finger into a 120mm Ystech (100cfm version). I broke 2 of the fins off the fan, amazingly not a mark on my finger.

 

[Agashka]

isshh ouch, i areally broked my pentium 4 cooling that way, it was spinning near 5000rpm and got my NAIL hit by that thing, i bleeded alot and it was hell alot of pain

 

[Arca_ex]

Well my scariest moment was right after I popped in my new Extreme Edition 965, hit the power button and nothing. Resultush Power Button again, maybe once more, uhh, another time for good measure... then me screaming at the top of my lungs while doing the classic hit every button you can find on the computer move... "Post you son of a b****!!!!"


Turns out I hadn't switched on the main power switch on the PSU, lol.

 

[gt24]

Two... Both were of old rigs at the time so this didn't cost much of anything at all.

First off... want to use a functional video card... a Tyan Trinity I think (although I might be really wrong... didn't use it for more than a day). First use, plug in the monitor... well, the monitor plug is fussy... but I push it in really good. Switch on computer, bad smell instantly, power down, pull out video plug... learned that I bent a pin backwards pushing it in. The video card was blown.. and I don't think the monitor was too happy either...

Next was an out of case rig... just for testing, and a 486 board. Putting cards in wasn't easy because the cards went lower than the motherboard... so I asked my sister to get a book to put under the motherboard temporarily. She got an equivalent item (notebook) and put it underneath. Turned on the computer, not really seeing the notebook all that well... no boot and sparks and smoke and flames later... the metal spiral notebook had significantly less metal for the spiral and was pretty charred. The computer... didn't have a problem, it booted just fine after that and since... once a NON CONDUCTIVE item was under the motherboard.

I don't know who was moreso to blame for the second story issue though...

 

[mrgreenjeans]

Front and center.

I was in such a hurry to get the rig in my sig booted up on that hot new A8N32-SLi board (this was we were all in line at multiple vendors to be the 'first on the block'), that I plugged the modular connections to my psu in.....backwards. Fried both my DVD players, and a cd-Rom, which I was able to replace. I was able to RMA both drives ( I didn't discover the source of the problem to much later), however, one contained the play disk for Doom3 and the other my Halo disk! So two games shot. And when the new drive came in, it still wouldn't boot, so I RMA'd the board, which was came back damaged, the nifty looking heat sink was bent and the hold down clips busted, so RMA again. It was three weeks later that I finally was able to reassemble and in the process of double checking my connections discovered the ease with which the modular plugs can be reversed on the silverstone and deducted that it was probably the source of my troubles all along!

The moral of this story is most problems can be avoided I slow down and take my time!

 

[bobthemoo]

Rewired a fan and plugged it in whilst the machine was running Sparks flew but my baby lives on


Also, on my birthday a couple of months ago I had all the windows open (my desk is under the windows) and it started raining really heavily. I came upstairs and let it dry, but it was all good luckily.

 

[redrumy3]

i made 1 just 1 mistake when i first put together my pc....



forgot the spacer's on my motherboard...


fried my board...


that was 6 years ago lol

 

[grumperfish]

..Shipped it via UPS.

my poor old case

 

[Captain Slug]

1. Thought a Socket 7 machine would be a "nice easy build" for a first timer. Oh the horror... It took me another 3 years to finally learn how to build and configure Socket 7 hardware.
2. Forgot to ensure that the thermaltake orb was securely clipped onto my Duron 700.
3. Flashed the wrong image to the BIOS of my Dell Dimension XPS T266 (Slot 1). Thankfully the board had hardware image recovery from floppy, which was a nerve-racking experience itself since you had to put an image on the floppy, change the CMOS jumper, then turn the machine on and wait 10 minutes for the "Finished" beep code.

Putting a 1.5V AGP card into an older unkeyed 3.3V AGP slot is always fun to see as well.