Worst Tech mistake you have ever made?

[flibberdipper]

My cousin and I were having an airsoft gun "war", and I shot his computer so much about half of the paint was gone and then it started to rust like crazy... Don't hide behind your computer in an airsoft war with me, in other words.

[seekthetablet]

One build I did quickly for my sister; motherboard died after a day or two and I looked in the back and one of the I/O shield prongs was nicely jammed into a USB port

[NARAKU_KAT]

After cleaning my heatsink (laptop) i forgot i had to put some good thermal paste on it, so i just pressed the heatsink as hard as i could over the cpu "to help it take all the heat coming up" and took me almost a month to feel like buying the thermal paste. Fan was like blowing air full blast all the time right after turning it up.

[DaRk0]

I managed to break piece of plastic on my 8 pin connector (Asus GTX780)' but it's working so yeah. Lol, that's the biggest computing mistake I ever made.

[FlamingMetalHorse]

When I was about 4(?) years old, I would use one of my dad's PCs. One day I was just looking at the spinning fan, and was apparently intrigued. I saw a screwdriver next to the case. I was wondering what would happen if I were to put the screw driver into the fan, and so I put the screwdriver into the fan as it was running, and it broke a couple of the blades and made a horribly loud buzzing sound. My parents came to check and see if I was alright, and I was. Being an ignorant child, I quickly tried to put the blame on the screwdriver, as I exclaimed "Stupid screwdriver!" I thought that case fans were some of the most vital parts of a PC (Like the PC would explode if they weren't replaced or something), and that it would be expensive to replace. Considering that I had absolutely no knowledge of PCs whatsoever, I freaked out and thought I was going to be severely punished or something for what I did. I wasn't and it was an inexpensive replacement that my dad and I joke about nowadays.

 

The first time I applied thermal compound to a CPU (On November of 2013, when I was first REALLY starting to get into computers), I knew about proper method (Line method/pea method) of doing so, but I didn't know that it WAS the proper method of doing so, and somehow I got it in my head that using the "Business card" method was a correct method of applying thermal compound, so I proceeded to use that method. I decided to use thermal adhesive because I didn't know that I had arctic silver 5 laying around somewhere. I put WAY too much thermal adhesive on the CPU and it was just an absolute disaster. The computer would start but wouldn't display, which could have actually been a RAM error (because the RAM I was using wasn't guaranteed to work because I just found it laying around in a giant pile of spare parts [Although they did work when long ago when my computer used them; They were 2x1 gb of Gskill DDR2 RAM], and the sticks were possibly in the wrong slot). I took the heatsink off and there was a mess of thermal crap everywhere, and some of it even got on the pins of the socket. I eventually gave up on this project, though.

 

My first time overclocking. I should have OGREclocked instead, man. I don't know how in the flaming horse nipple that I thought it would work, but I went into AMD overdrive and set all of the sliders to maximum and clicked apply. My computer almost INSTANTLY crashed. WHY did I think that was a good idea? Looks like I should have checked myself before I Shreked myself.

 

My sister's PC had been crashing all the time and would sometimes break out in immense lag. It was very gradual and the symptoms of the problem seemed extremely random, but it eventually made the PC unusable. Today, we have the problem solved (It was a faulty Intel Core 2 Duo e8600 CPU which I replaced with my e7500 CPU that ran very stable in my computer before I replaced it with an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 that I found laying in the carcass of an Acer Veriton 6900Pro or something like that). But now I shall take you through a journey of the things that I tried to do to fix her PC. I thought it might be her motherboard, and so I replaced her motherboard (Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P) with my motherboard (Gigabyte G41MT-S2PT), and used a Biostar T-series TP45HP for mine (which I found in a box that my mom was about to throw in the trash.) and it had a couple bent pins which I straightened out. Once I got our computers assembled again, both would flash a bluescreen in the middle of the process of which Windows loads (Where it says "Windows" and the little colorful things start flying around the Windows logo) before restarting so fast that there was no time to read the bluescreen. Looking back now, I think that might have been something to do with either the switch to new chipsets on both of our ends, or something to do with the BIOS of the motherboards not liking the new hard drives that they detected. Also, my computer with the Biostar motherboard wouldn't even start up some times. I'm guessing that it had something to do with the bent pins, but I am not sure.

 

I REALLY wanted to use that Biostar motherboard and crossfire the two 5770s that I had, but there was only one kit of DDR2 memory, which was for my sister's original motherboard, and the memory for my original motherboard was DDR3, so we ended up switching back to our original motherboards. I reassembled my computer, and eventually reassembled her's using the e7500, and I was able to crossfire the 5770 with the 5750 in her computer, which I would have done with mine, but I only have one PCIe 16x slot on a Micro ATX motherboard so that wouldn't have worked at all. It all ended well, though, as I was able to swap out my old crappy CPU heatsink with a Thermaltake V1, and she was able to get a 5770 crossfired with a 5750, as opposed to just one 5750. Also, as a sidenote, both 5770s are ASUS EAH5770s with Zalman VF1000 heatsinks installed on them, as opposed to the stock heatsinks. I could use that Biostar motherboard if I could get DDR2 memory, but it's way too darn expensive.

[lamine0uali]

mine is pretty much everyone's on planet earth, complete formatting with granted loss of information... that way at least, NSA would probably leave me alone !!!

[Faz592]

My worst mistake? It was before I even started! Buying a fm2+ board and a a8 6600k. Definately would have went intel if I knew how bad apu's perform..blue screens and games stopping. noob mistake gonna cost me a new board and cpu

[terrytek]

Well, one of my mistakes is leaving a computer near the window of the second story. Again. I left my brother sleeping on the floor, then I opened my window early in the morning to get some fresh air. Then I realized I had move my computer upstairs into my room. I carried my computer up into my room, but I forgot my brother was on the floor. I didn't see him, because the computer obstructed my view. I tripped over my brother, let go out the computer, but it was more of a chuck it thing with the computer. It went so far, it actually landed on the street. Bye bye $6000 PC!

[Tech_Dreamer]

earlier days(ide data ribbon cable times) i was plugging the power connector, wait for it........  upside down on a hard drive, there was a distinct sound and a little puff  of brown smoke! ouch!  fried the PCB!

 

 

 

a ninja knows how to swim underwater

[flibberdipper]

earlier days(ide data ribbon cable times) i was plugging the power connector, wait for it........  upside down on a hard drive, there was a distinct sound and a little puff  of brown smoke! ouch!  fried the PCB!

 

 

 

a ninja knows how to swim underwater

I did something similar, just my PCB caught on fire. And all of my important data is on it. And this happened a few months ago is the worst part.

[Tech_Dreamer]

I did something similar, just my PCB caught on fire. And all of my important data is on it. And this happened a few months ago is the worst part.

ouch! that's gotta hurt, :mellow:  so you've replaced the PCB on drive yet?

 

 

 

a ninja uses smoke to distract his enemies

[flibberdipper]

ouch! that's gotta hurt, :mellow:  so you've replaced the PCB on drive yet?

 

 

 

a ninja uses smoke to distract his enemies

Nope. I'm trying to get a radio, and that would take about $10 out of the funds, and even then there's no guarantee that it will work.

[Rashy]

doing calculations on mind in front of a computer. with a calculator pinned to taskbar. how could i miss that

[terrytek]

Well, now I know not to leave my brother on the floor sleeping.

[techswede]

i dont think it's dead... But yet another one of my keyboards has gotten a coffee bath.... Poor k95

I unplugged faster than light but i won't know if there is any damage until it's completely dry

 

Damn it...

[lani100]

I put a ddr2 stick in a ddr board, Computer started smoking but it's running fine for years after i put a ddr stick back in it ofcourse.

[PsychoticEpisode]

I tried to overclock once and ended up killing my CPU, never again!

[Ruostunut kokis]

i dont think it's dead... But yet another one of my keyboards has gotten a coffee bath.... Poor k95

I unplugged faster than light but i won't know if there is any damage until it's completely dry

 

[K95 that had too much coffee]

Damn it...

How many keyboards have had a taste of you coffee by now?

 

Also how does one spill drinks onto one's keyboard / other stuff on a computer desk? I've spilled quite a dew drinks onto my desk over few years and none of them got onto my monitor / keyboard / mouse.

[techswede]

How many keyboards have had a taste of you coffee by now?

 

Also how does one spill drinks onto one's keyboard / other stuff on a computer desk? I've spilled quite a dew drinks onto my desk over few years and none of them got onto my monitor / keyboard / mouse.

At the moment of writing this. A Logitech G11, 2 Dell membranes, A Blackwidow 2012 ultimate, Qpad MK-50 (i think it was), And this K95.....

It's all about the angle.. 

[jdsb52]

Accidently brushing the top of a MB capacitor while doing some routine maintenance, was like years ago thou, but still quite a shock!  :blink:

[AllstaRawR]

Tea and computers don't mix. :angry:

 

Weirdly enough, it doesn't even stop running if you spill vodka. It just leaves really curious stains ALL over your motherboard (I used to remember a time when my 990FXA-UD7 wasn't brown).

[The Crazed Child]

Well, one of my mistakes is leaving a computer near the window of the second story. Again. I left my brother sleeping on the floor, then I opened my window early in the morning to get some fresh air. Then I realized I had move my computer upstairs into my room. I carried my computer up into my room, but I forgot my brother was on the floor. I didn't see him, because the computer obstructed my view. I tripped over my brother, let go out the computer, but it was more of a chuck it thing with the computer. It went so far, it actually landed on the street. Bye bye $6000 PC!

Was it your PC or someone elses? 

[terrytek]

Was it your PC or someone elses? 

Mine.

[dev893]

hmm well once when I first started messing with computers I didn't have all the screws holding the motherboard in place and I think one rolled under it and it shorted out the motherboard. Oh and when I was trouble shooting my old laptop I must have accidently turned it back on (cause like an idiot I didn't unplug it or take out the battery) and when I pulled out the HDD it fried it

[Ryan Leech]

Buying my 770