Did you ever stupidly damage your IT stuff?

[Ergroilnin]

Heya,

 

so I just managed to brick my mech keyboard (like 80 euros give or take) and damage my monitor (around 450 euros).

 

I have a strict policy of not eating or drinking near my PC at all, well guess what, the one time I break it and bring a sugary drink there, I immediately manage to tip the cup over in a way, that the liquid hits whatever was in front of me, which obviously was my keyboard and main monitor.

 

The keyboard at first only left me with fully functioning keys but only left half of the keyboard still lit with RGB, after immeadiate disconnect, 24 hours of letting it dry and then cleaning it with isopropyl alcohol, it just died. No RGB, sure, but not even any keystrike recognition. Ouch.

 

Now the monitor did function properly for few hours (also turned it off as fast as I could and leave it off for more than a day to dry off (though not cleaning it, as dissasebly of monitor is way more work etc.), but two days after, it developed two vertical lines that are always red/blue respectively.

 

I hate myself so much right now. And I have noone but myself to blame.

 

But that is life I guess and I will learn from my mistake, though it will cost me a lot of money (I know that, give or take, 100 euros is not THAT much, it will still hurt my wallet... I will keep the monitor for now, since I was at least lucky enough, that the vertical lines are not near the center of the screen, so it is usable enough for me...)

 

The reason why I am not typing this as a status update is because I would like to know if any of you have some similiar experiences, what happened and how did you react to it, both immeadiately and over the time  .

[Trinopoty]

Well one time, I put my laptop on my boss' table with the back facing him and went away from it for 5 minutes. I left my earphones lying on the keyboard.

While I was away, someone else came into his room and he closed the lid with the earphones still lying on the keyboard (he couldn't see it from the back).

I came back and saw that and immediately knew what to expect. Opened the lid and there was a big crack right in the center of the screen, could only see the white backlight and a pool of liquid swirling around.

I had the screen replaced the same day and my company paid for it.

[Applefreak]

Yes, many keyboards but far less expensive on their own. I've never done a Linus but I had water drip from old tubing onto a GTX 590 before, for some reason the card survived while the motherboard got fried, even though the card was soaked. Just was lazy and used old tubing I had previously thrown out because it was starting to leak but again because I was lazy, I hadn't marked it as bad. I mean I've kicked over an old big tower while running before but for some reason it did nothing but dent the steel side panel a little.

 

[Lurick]

I know someone who damaged a bunch of Cisco Nexus 7000 linecards and a Nexus 7010 chassis which, at the time, were probably worth around $500K list price all said and done. I've not personally made an colossally stupid mistakes such as that but probably my most "recent" mistake was a couple years back where I built a hardline tube PC without testing the parts first only to find out that the one stick of RAM I couldn't easily remove was the bad stick of ram so I had to completely tear it apart to swap a single stick of RAM

[burh4n]

I posted this story in another thread just the other day:
 

I got a hand-me-down PSU a while back from a buddy. Worked fine, but it was older and non-name cheap PSU. A (different) friend of mine was having issues with a new GPU on his system, so he asked if I could test it for him on mine. I agreed and hooked it up and started testing.

 

Everything was fine, until I got the GPU running at full capacity, then my PC shutdown (no blue screen, no error, just off). I went to see if it would boot quick by hitting the power button, but nothing, so I went to unplug and remove the GPU. 

 

When I reached to the back of my PC to unplug it, the fireworks started. Several flashes and a loud, gun-fire like crackling came from the power supply; followed shortly by the smell of burnt electronics. At that point I figured my system was completely cooked, but more worrisome I thought I had cooked my buddy's new $400 GPU... I was extremely lucky however, only the PSU was shot, everything else survived.

Another one similar to @Trinopoty

 

I worked as a service tech, and one day had to remove a heavy piece of equipment from a client's home to take in for service. I brought it into the cab of my work van and placed it on end between the driver and passenger seats. I had stupidly also placed my backpack with my laptop on the floor next to it (the backpack had no padding for electronics). Going around a turn, the equipment tipped forward and smacked my backpack right were the laptop was and cracked the screen. 

 

Similarly I once put a small metal box in my backpack with my laptop and Kindle DX (10" e-ink reader). My bag was pretty full, but I had to carry several things while leaving another job-site and this made it so I didn't have to make a second trip. Well that small metal box (think it was a mini-amplifier) got pushed up against the e-ink screen when I put on my backpack and the screen was completely destroyed...I hate this so much, because it's impossible to find replacement screens and the device itself is no longer for sale (used ones are VERY expensive), and new large display e-readers are $400 or more. I still have my Kindle DX, in hopes that someday I'll be able to find and buy a replacement screen to fix it, but for now it's just sitting on a shelf, sad and broken....

[Guest willies leg]

I remember years ago (1990's) moving a rack of servers from one side of the room to the other, we thought we could do it all live since the ethernet lines were long enough and everything had dual power supplies. So we unplugged one side of the power and started rolling the rack carefully, and thwooomp! the server on the bottom (a Sun E450) just rolled partway out of the rack! Apparently Sun mounted those servers on wheels, and the "rack kit" was just a tray to put the whole thing on. Well, someone never got the rack kit, but just threw the server in the rack and didn't even lock the wheels! So, anyway, there the server was, still running, half in the rack, half on the floor, at about a 40 degree angle. So the two of us lifted the server (it was pretty heavy) and shoved it back into the rack, then of course, it thwooomped out the front of the rack. Same deal, just the front. So then we decided to be careful and do it slowly, then lock the wheels. Continued moving the whole rack, not even a hiccup. BTW this was the main internet web server, the firewall infrastructure (Sun Screen SPF firewalls), the Windows 3.11 management console and a bunch of Cisco gear. Gotta love the old days, 9GB hard drives, memory measured in MB....and you haven't lived until you've had to run a Java GUI on Windows 3.11!

[paddy-stone]

Worst I've done was approx 20 years back.

 

I was moving some stuff around in the attic, and at the time the electrics came in through the bedroom beneath via a multi-plug/5-gang extension. Anyway, so disconnected everything, and the 5-gang was being obsoleted, so no need for it anymore... so cut through the cable, and BANG! nearly shit myself   It blew a hole around 5mm across out of the knife... I thought I had disconnected it  from the outlet, but hadn't. That was embarrassing and highly dangerous.

 

It was one of those times when you're sure you did something, but hadn't in fact. It certainly made me double and triple check everything from then on for sure. Didn't lose anything, except my dignity, luckily.

[Lurick]

2 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

Worst I've done was approx 20 years back.

 

I was moving some stuff around in the attic, and at the time the electrics came in through the bedroom beneath via a multi-plug/5-gang extension. Anyway, so disconnected everything, and the 5-gang was being obsoleted, so no need for it anymore... so cut through the cable, and BANG! nearly shit myself   It blew a hole around 5mm across out of the knife... I thought I had disconnected it  from the outlet, but hadn't. That was embarrassing and highly dangerous.

 

It was one of those times when you're sure you did something, but hadn't in fact. It certainly made me double and triple check everything from then on for sure. Didn't lose anything, except my dignity, luckily.

I had a similar experience with electricity when I started after being an intern/co-op. I had to work with a different lab team for a few weeks and help the newer people out and one of the tasks we got assigned to was to tear down a bunch of old gear and get it out. Well I hadn't worked with DC before but since we were told to tear it all down I assumed, incorrectly, that the transformer for the one piece of DC gear had been disconnected. This was an old CRS chassis and the wires were pretty stiff, sure enough I pull the second wire out and BOOM, two snap together, a big bright flash blinds me for a moment, and the breaker tripped. Thankfully nobody was hurt or anything damaged but that scared the hell out of me!

[paddy-stone]

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

I had a similar experience with electricity when I started after being an intern/co-op. I had to work with a different lab team for a few weeks and help the newer people out and one of the tasks we got assigned to was to tear down a bunch of old gear and get it out. Well I hadn't worked with DC before but since we were told to tear it all down I assumed, incorrectly, that the transformer for the one piece of DC gear had been disconnected. This was an old CRS chassis and the wires were pretty stiff, sure enough I pull the second wire out and BOOM, two snap together, a big bright flash blinds me for a moment, and the breaker tripped. Thankfully nobody was hurt or anything damaged but that scared the hell out of me!

Yeah, it certainly reminds you of your mortality, if nothing else

 

In all honesty that scared me worse than when I was run over by a car... or more accurately bounced up and over the car.

[TetraSky]

I once washed my keyboard under the faucet when I was like, 12.
It still worked! But had to completely disassemble it, separate the flexible PCBs and have it all dry up properly.

 

My biggest failure, was changing the thermal paste of my CPU on my brand new system(barely had it for a month) because temps weren't that great... And for some reason I decided it would be a good idea to take the CPU out of the socket to clean it properly.

Upon re-insertion, my brain lagged and I shoved the CPU side way into the pins. I legit don't think I was all there mentally, dunno what happened exactly, I just... did it and came to my sense right away.

Killed that $200 intel motherboard and had to buy a new, dirt cheap one locally... But that PC still ended up lasting me 9 years after that, goes to show that an expensive motherboard isn't really needed.

[Guest willies leg]

1 hour ago, paddy-stone said:

Worst I've done was approx 20 years back.

 

I was moving some stuff around in the attic, and at the time the electrics came in through the bedroom beneath via a multi-plug/5-gang extension. Anyway, so disconnected everything, and the 5-gang was being obsoleted, so no need for it anymore... so cut through the cable, and BANG! nearly shit myself   It blew a hole around 5mm across out of the knife... I thought I had disconnected it  from the outlet, but hadn't. That was embarrassing and highly dangerous.

 

It was one of those times when you're sure you did something, but hadn't in fact. It certainly made me double and triple check everything from then on for sure. Didn't lose anything, except my dignity, luckily.

 

Fun with electricity! I remember plugging a surge suppressor into a battery-backup UPS unit and seeing a shower of sparks come out. Kicked it out in a jiffy! Never figured out why.

Another fun story (boy was I destructive), back in the day plugged a Hayes 2400 baud modem into a server rack, the plug was the regular style but it was 220. Back then stuff didn't autosense. So blew that thing out since it was expecting 110...

[duncannah]

Punched a laptop repeatedly after a dozen freezes when I was young, had to get the hard drive replaced

Thankfully I value my possessions better today, I'm too poor for that either way

[Marbo]

I decided I would replace the original caps on my Speccy. As someone who had never soldered electronics before I should have practiced on an old circuit board first. 

 

But I'd watched a couple of YouTube vids got myself the cheapest iron possible and compleatly butchered a number of pcb traces. 

 

Then ended up but another with faulty memory. Got it really cheap because of the faults thinking I could use the other for spares. Sort of learnt my lesson I managed to recap this one with no problems. Them messed up a load of traces on that desoldering the faulty memory. It does work with the aid of a few bridges. 

 

Still not content I've found a brand new recreated pcb. Plan is to build what will be not far from a brand new Speccy. Will probably be about 90% brand new with a handful of doner parts from the first mess.

[FeIIex]

I killed my first GPU after upgrading it by putting it in the anti-static bag my current 1070 came in, RIP. (Plugged it into friend's pc, wouldn't post with it, fans did not spin. PSU was 750w) He has since bought a 1070 and it works just fine.

 

It was just before the bitcoin craze too, I could have gotten over 100 for that old 280x.

[paddy-stone]

17 hours ago, willies leg said:

 

Fun with electricity! I remember plugging a surge suppressor into a battery-backup UPS unit and seeing a shower of sparks come out. Kicked it out in a jiffy! Never figured out why.

Another fun story (boy was I destructive), back in the day plugged a Hayes 2400 baud modem into a server rack, the plug was the regular style but it was 220. Back then stuff didn't autosense. So blew that thing out since it was expecting 110...

Yeah, this is one reason I am grateful to be English, with 230V AC being the norm for consumer electronics.

[spendog8]

managed to drop my i7 6700 and in my panic to grab it before it hit the floor(a nice soft carpet i might add) i managed to backhand it into my wall. not my proudest achievement.

 

[Addnan]

41 minutes ago, spendog8 said:

managed to drop my i7 6700 and in my panic to grab it before it hit the floor(a nice soft carpet i might add) i managed to backhand it into my wall. not my proudest achievement.

 

Now that's a story worthy of this site.

[TrainFan475]

Back when I was getting into model trains, I was stupid and liked to take them apart and mess with the circuit boards inside. I managed to completely brick a dcc decoder, destroy the sound functionality on another, and literally fry a third one by plugging it in when the track power was on.

[zogthegreat]

Way back in the day, I was working on a IBM PC 386DX. I forgot to pull the power plug and I dropped a screw on the motherboard. Some how or other, the screw landed on a hot circuit line and a ground. Completely fried the motherboard. You could see where the circuit lines had fried and pulled away from the PCB of the motherboard.

 

Sigh, where was Linus Tech Tips back in '89? Sadly, I had to learn how not to mess up my hardware the hard way!

[CommanderAlex]

One day last July, I was playing Battlefield V. As stupid as the game is, I was getting really pissed off and I slammed my left fist into the spacebar of my Corsair Strafe RGB Cherry MX Silent Keyboard. It still appeared to function after that and later that night, I went to bed. I woke up and tried to type in google chrome and the spacebar was not working... I suspected the spacebar broke and immediately began the search for another keyboard. I now use a Logitech G513 Carbon with their clicky switches and I love this keyboard more than my old corsair. I later disassembled the Corsair keyboard and found one of the diodes that are involved with the circuitry of the spacebar to be completely sheared in half with the other half of the diode nowhere to be found. I was thinking about repairing it myself but I'd have to remove a large aluminum backplate on the board that is physically impossible to get to. 

 

Then in August, I got my MSI Optix MAG271CQR at my local Micro Center. I was in the process of cleaning my desktop out and I had my desktop set parallel with my new monitor. Once I removed the screws from that side panel that is facing towards the monitor, the side panel kicked out and landed on my desk and the top corner of the panel hit the monitor's screen. After cleaning and starting the computer back up, I killed a couple pixels in the spot the panel hit. 

 

Another story was with an Acer laptop that was your average $300-500 laptop about seven years ago. I was playing World of Tanks at the time and I cranked the settings up quite a bit and the laptop began to run hot. After many gaming sessions and BSODs, the laptop cut out from the game once and never turned back on. 

 

 

I can go on and on about the crazy crap I did. Another time was I removed the cover of an old HDD to see what the inside was. (I was curious how things worked when I was little ). 

[Curious Pineapple]

About 3 years ago I dropped my Note 2 and cracked the screen, shortly after I decided to rage-quit on it's ass (shit was hitting the fan and I had an actual rage moment), and snapped it in half.

[PlayStation 2]

The USB 3.0 header on my motherboard is busted because the case connector for it got stuck in the motherboard. I had to remove the fucker using a pair of pliers and that portion of the board is literally useless.

[Tedstonegenious]

Well, I've caused a few head crashes through impatience. But I remember breaking my Chromebook once. We were being forced to do a study session during our free time (I was in the Upward Bound summer program (Basically a program that makes going to college easier) and people (not me) were not turning in their S***) I was angry. So I closed my Chromebook, and slapped my face with the Chromebook. My face was fine. But someone from eBay got $35 from me for a replacement panel. Surprisingly easy to replace too. On my model at least.

[Roswell]

14 hours ago, Curious Pineapple said:

About 3 years ago I dropped my Note 2 and cracked the screen, shortly after I decided to rage-quit on it's ass (shit was hitting the fan and I had an actual rage moment), and snapped it in half.

Please be careful with things that have lithium batteries. They can easily explode if bent and cause seriously bad injuries or death if you catch on fire.

[Arika]

Accidental and sudden liquid cooling of a laptop, where the reservoir was a can of pepsi