Worst Tech mistake you have ever made?

[ZoZubin]

Not using a condom... Sorry son.

[Lanx]

Adding a 120mm fan to my second PC (prebuilt my father bought me and I knew nothing about PC's at the time), I connected it to 3 random pins... When I tried to turn on the PC, it powered for 1 second and turned off. In panic I pressed the power button 20 times and "BANG!!!"... the motherboard blew up... And then I ran like hell away from my father  

[HikageMaru]

My little brother told me a story as confirmed by a college friend. This was back in 1998 or 1999. His mouse wasn't working correctly, so my brother, who talks like he knows everything when he really doesn't, completely took his computer apart, "cleaned" each component with a pencil eraser (WTF??), and attempted to reassemble it. He then plugged in the power supply and tried to turn it on. The computer made a "vvvvvvvpppt!" sound and smoke began pouring out of the back of his machine. Suffice it to say the computer was ruined.

He says he didn't know what he plugged in wrong that caused his computer to fry. I think his first mistake was trying to mess with it at all.

BTW, is cleaning a computer with a pencil eraser a real thing?

Edit: my college buddy told me this story and my brother (and another college buddy) confirmed it.

[Praesi]

BTW, is cleaning a computer with a pencil eraser a real thing?

 

Maybe if you write with a pencil on all your components, yes why not. Otherwise its one of the mosts tupid things i´ve heard.

[klh2000]

I had an old battery operated radio and thought it would be a good idea to see how it copes with 240v from the mains when I was about 14, it didn't cope well lol

I used to do that all the time! Although I would blow up GPUs and routers.

[soup]

BTW, is cleaning a computer with a pencil eraser a real thing?

 

Ish. The contacts(fingers) on ends of cables(Pci-E extension etc), ram sticks etc may become tarnished[1] and so a GENTLE stroking with an eraser should help retore the contacts to full conductivity. TBH I have never done this myself, but have heard of others doing so usually with positive results.  I have never heard of anyone bricking their components as long as the rub is GENTLE.

 

[1] Not really the correct word (Gold does not corrode in the normal way) but covered in crap wouldn't fit so...

[ThinkWithPortals]

Biggest tech mistake? Buying an Apple Magic Mouse for gaming on my old MBP about 3 years back.

 

Seriously.

[ThinkWithPortals]

Is it magic? 

No, it's a piece of crap. Ergonomic nightmare.

EDIT: 200th post, woo hoo

[cjunit]

What was the worst computer you ever had to overcome, wether it was your computer, phone, tablet, or someone els's tech?

 

Mine would had to been my motherboard breaking on me 3 times. All three motherboards I had and have in my PC are the same model, and 2 of them had the same problem ( just had it replaced recently) which was audio problems. Since I am a college student I don't have the money to replace my motherboard, and processor. As you know its a pain in the ass claiming the warranty on your motherboard because you haft to take your PC apart and then leave them apart for about 2 weeks.

[Swndlr]

My FX4's pins bent Worst thing ever, that thing was a work horse

[B@ttery]

Back when i was starting this hobby. I was trying to solve all of the issues own my own. Like i can't ask advice any one else. And then i had a LGA 775 socket motherboard. And man is was very stubborn and didn't like any ram that i suggest her. So i frustrated and just toss it away and bought market PC.  But now i have build all of my rig's my own. I interested again when the socket AM3+ was new on market. 

[don_svetlio]

Weird loud noises from cheap CM PSU

[Chris_R.]

Got a bad set of Corsair DDR-3 16Gb kit (4GB * 4sticks) lasted for over a year before it started failing. RMA'd the kit. Kit I got back was also bad. RMA'd that kit and it FINALLY worked.

 

Only replaced:

New motherboard

Ripped the whole computer apart to diagnose every issue possible

RMA'd the processor

 

lasted for over 3 months............yeeaeaeaeah

[Shinrin_Cole]

The worse computer I had to over come would probably be my 2003 Intel Celeron 2.0 ghz that i bought for cheap due to being low on cash and a fussy mom.

 

I had the computer for a few years, then I blew it up by playing this online game. It would litterally take 30+ minutes to load into the game after the login screen, but would play fine when i got in. But that loading did a number on the computer and well yeah, i blew it up. So yeah, that's what happens when you try to game on a non gaming computer.

 

It's the only computer i've blown up too, the one after it, my dad messed up with a vaccum cleaner and it sucking up a jumper or two off it. But yeah never had a problem for me after blowing up the Craperon.

[Tsuki]

recently trying to build a <$300 computer for my nephew, and having it not boot at all.. ran around the house for half an hour looking for a paperclip to test the psu, turns out the mobo(the only one that was within budget) was DOA, went to return it, accidently gave them back all the mounting hardware too that came with the case. so i had to back again to get it back.. damn thing was a pain in the ass..

[hk29]

never having enough money to build what i want

[ChineseChef]

Was at a LAN party back in high school (like 15 years ago).  Someone's pepsi rolled off the table, landed on something that punctured the side, and it sprayed right up the side air vents on my case.  Got all over my mobo.  Amazingly, that thing was a beast and just kept running.  Then one of the cpu heatsink fans (dual cpu, I was ballin) stopped working.  Didn't know it until my system became unstable an hour later while we were playing CS.  On reboot, I noticed the one cpu temp was triple what the other one was.  Damn near shat myself.  Replaced the fan on the heatsink, and it kept running. 

 

Had a buddy who had is ultra cheap power supply catch fire while at a LAN party, black smoke and flames shooting out the back of his computer.  I will never forget the look of shock and "WTF DO I DO?" that was all over his face.  Had another friend who wanted a cool case, couldn't afford it.  Decided he would wrap his computer in tinfoil.  It looked kind of cool the way he did it, until it overheated everything and started smoking out the back.  He also freaked out and just stood there watching it asking what he should do. 

 

Fun days at those old LAN parties, lol.

[minibois]

My motherboard died about 2-3 years ago. Apparently the southbridge died, because heat

[TetraSky]

AMD and their HyperTransport sync flood error.

I tried 3 motherboard, 2 CPUs with different stepping, 2 ramkit(g.skill and the one I still have right now)... nothing ever worked.

 

http://www.gskill.us/forum/showthread.php?t=4829

I even tried to work it out with G.skill tech on their forum, because apparently that error was a memory issue... (even though memtest reported no errors at all after like 2 days)

 

I used to be a AMD fanboy, I really tried hard to like it and make it work, for months, but that was just an abusive relationship and I needed out. Even the AMD support wasn't helpful, unlike what the G.skill tech said. (read the thread if you want to know more)

 

My solution? Got rid of AMD for good. I'm just done with AMD CPUs, made me lose so much money... While with Intel, everything just WORKED from the get go.

[ChineseChef]

I used to be a AMD fanboy, I really tried hard to like it and make it work, for months, but that was just an abusive relationship and I needed out.

 

I was right there with you man.  Used to be hardcore AMD.  But started having too many problems with AMD, all while my Intel friends didn't, and AMD started falling behind.  I had to jump ship.  Same with AMD/ATI vs Nvidia for me.  Really hard to tell your friends that your parts are actually better and faster, when theirs works and yours doesn't.

[Speakerator]

RMA'ing my Uni Laptop, an UX302LA. Sometimes it wouldn't post, sometimes it would, sometimes it'd wake from sleep, sometimes not. Then it persisted. Support told me to reset the hardware which fixed the problem... for a single startup. Then it returned on staying dark, while still hitting the CPU and causing the fan to start spinning. And the only visible sign of any change was the hard drive led rhytmically flashing and laughing in my face, mocking my inability to do anything.... I sometimes can hear it in my dreams... whispering... giggling.. 

 

 

 

Sent it in yesterday, let's see if "Let me repair", Asus service agency in germany can work its magic..

[TetraSky]

I was right there with you man.  Used to be hardcore AMD.  But started having too many problems with AMD, all while my Intel friends didn't, and AMD started falling behind.  I had to jump ship.  Same with AMD/ATI vs Nvidia for me.  Really hard to tell your friends that your parts are actually better and faster, when theirs works and yours doesn't.

As far as GPU goes, they are still somewhat competitive, price to performances is generally well balanced with what Nvidia has to offer.

It's mostly their CPUs that's severely lagging behind, some people think their new Zen CPUs will save AMD.. I think it's just going to be more of the same they've been making for the past 10 years, where they are barely even competing with the lowest end i5 from Intel.

[App4that]

Cockroaches in my Xbox, which is kind of a computer. That was not a fun time.

[mc141]

bending the damn acrylic freehand and figuring out that windows wasnt booting  after secure boot messing up  because of eufi reset to factory presets

[BOT Edward]

The worst problem i've had is at my work, the chief's laptop (he is like the bosses of all bosses at my company) had malware running on it that rekt the registry, he had a bunch of sensitive data that could not be lost, and I had the mission to attempt to recover everything when the malware crypto-locked the entire drive.

 

Never in my life have I been under so much pressure not to f*ck up and to outperform my duties at work...