Worst Tech mistake you have ever made?

[terrytek]

Well then hats off to you, sir   I still wouldn't consider it one of the "good" windows releases, but if you got it working, that's great.

Yeah, I mean, I don't srsly get why so many people hate Vista. It was a great little OS, until 7 took over and mashed it into bits. The day Vista was overtaken by 7 was the day I felt like extirpating myself.

[Ganthos]

not buying an i7 when i had the chance

I bought an i7 in 09 during the first releases. I love it actually but I kind of wish I held off one more year at least. 

[Ganthos]

putting a GTX 770 and a 600 W PSU into an old Compaq computer with a core 2 duo and noname motherboard. It booted, then went *poof* and both the 770 and the motherboard where dead.

Did the 770 overpower the PSU? I am running 650w so now I am kinda scared for mine if that is the case. 

[flibberdipper]

Well then hats off to you, sir   I still wouldn't consider it one of the "good" windows releases, but if you got it working, that's great.

It works better than Windows 7 on my rig.

 

Yeah, I mean, I don't srsly get why so many people hate Vista. It was a great little OS, until 7 took over and mashed it into bits. The day Vista was overtaken by 7 was the day I felt like extirpating myself.

Loud and proud Vista user here.

[terrytek]

It works better than Windows 7 on my rig.

 

Loud and proud Vista user here.

So? I actually hate 7. Was too unstable on my system. Too many lockups, BSODs, update fails, and the list is like hell, neverending.

[Ganthos]

It works better than Windows 7 on my rig.

 

Loud and proud Vista user here.

I had to wipe many a Vista OS off computers because they wouldn't update properly to new SPs. The OS was installed by Gateway if that gives any headway. Glad someone got a good bunch. 

[flibberdipper]

So? I actually hate 7. Was too unstable on my system. Too many lockups, BSODs, update fails, and the list is like hell, neverending.

I like 7, but (on a personal level) I think Vista smashes it to bits. I wish DX 12 would come out on Vista though.

[terrytek]

I like 7, but (on a personal level) I think Vista smashes it to bits. I wish DX 12 would come out on Vista though.

Same here. Exactly.

[Chuck Norris]

I touched system 32, lol

 

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[matin94]

using a sock to clean the thermal paste of the CPU> i damaged the pins and had to get it repair

[Hyp0xia]

I once managed to get superglue on one of the Cherry MX red switches of a Max Keyboard Nighthawk X9 keyboard (don't ask). After making my best effort to remove the glue, the switch, while loosened from the glue, no longer functioned. The entire keyboard became a $150 paperweight, but it wasn't the first keyboard I had rendered worthless. My first ever mechanical keyboard was a Razer BlackWidow Ultimate before I learnt how crappy Razer products are. I had updated the firmware on the keyboard and I did not like some of the changes Razer had made. I went to roll the firmware back and bricked the keyboard in the process. I damaged a third mechanical keyboard when I attempted to tighten what appeared to be a loose screw on the back only to discover that the screw was made of plastic, so overtightening caused the screw to snap. To my credit, it has been some time since I have harmed any innocent keyboards and I take much greater care these days.

[DEA]

pulling out a usb drive without safely removing it 

Ehm done it so many times only when I accidently did it on my xbox 360 with all my xbox saves and stuff it stopped working. Had to fix it with my stephbrothers computer for it to work for some reason.

[rhodestech]

My worst mistake was overclocking some Corsair XMS2 DDR2 ram from 800mhz to 900mhz a few years ago and in the process blew one of the RAM sticks.

[terrytek]

My worst mistake was overclocking some Corsair XMS2 DDR2 ram from 800mhz to 900mhz a few years ago and in the process blew one of the RAM sticks.

What, explosions and stuff? Sweet!

[TAK]

I don't think I've made too many huge mistakes, considering I've been using PCs for about 20 years. Nothing has died due to fault of my own and anything that has died has been under warranty still, so no losses.

 

However, I did make a mistake for my current build, which is that I bought the BitFenix Phenom M (mATX) and should've really gotten the FD Arc Mini r2 right away, oh well, ~$100 here or there is not huge, I work for a living after all.

[nj4ck]

Yeah, I mean, I don't srsly get why so many people hate Vista. It was a great little OS, until 7 took over and mashed it into bits. The day Vista was overtaken by 7 was the day I felt like extirpating myself.

My guess is that to many people it felt like a downgrade from XP... because it was slower and less stable, at least for most users.

[nj4ck]

Did the 770 overpower the PSU? I am running 650w so now I am kinda scared for mine if that is the case. 

No need to worry, I am running an overclocked system with a 4670k at 1.36V and an overclocked R9 290 on a Corsair 650W PSU, stress testing the entire system for several hours straight didn't even result in my PSU warming up. As long as you're not running one of those cheap chinese ones, you'll be more than fine.

 

I think the problem that I had was the crappy no-name motherboard not being able to handle the load, not the PSU.

[MrCthuntoo]

Disassembling a laptop and ripping out the keyboard with the ribbon still connected

[Toggle]

I let my brother near an old family computer that my dad and I were taking apart. We had removed the old hard drive from the computer and I had put it on the floor behind me. After a few minutes I had noticed it was missing. When I looked up my brother had it in his hand and was attempting to force pieces of the data transfer cable port apart with a screwdriver. Let's just say that I have a new coaster with several thousand files and photos on it from years of my families using it.

[marioo1182]

The worst one I have made was when I was upgrading my 2500k to a 3770k.

I removed my 212+, cleaned the thermal paste off everything, put the new 3770k in, new thermal, reattached cooler, and then, wouldn't boot.

Not even a bios  

I forgot to upgrade my BIOS to support Ivy Bridge CPU's. Did the removal process again, cleaned thermal paste, reinstalled older one, upgrade

Then repeated AGAIN to install the 3770k a second time.

Finally it worked but I'm so thankful that I didn't have water cooling at least haha. :lol:

[MrCthuntoo]

I let my brother near an old family computer that my dad and I were taking apart. We had removed the old hard drive from the computer and I had put it on the floor behind me. After a few minutes I had noticed it was missing. When I looked up my brother had it in his hand and was attempting to force pieces of the data transfer cable port apart with a screwdriver. Let's just say that I have a new coaster with several thousand files and photos on it from years of my families using it.

 

If you can get your hands on a same model hard drive, you could try swapping the PCB with your broken drive.

 

Might be a bit difficult though as if it has not got the same firmware installed, it may not be compatible.

[Toggle]

If you can get your hands on a same model hard drive, you could try swapping the PCB with your broken drive.

Might be a bit difficult though as if it's not got the same firmware installed, it may not be compatible.

Unfortunately the entirety of the data transfer area of the drive is absolutely destroyed. There is literally no way for it to transfer any sort of data in the state it is in. It's rather unfortunate as well because of how much of my family's valuable data was on it when it was ruined. Ugh, sometimes younger siblings need to learn what is okay to break and what isn't.

[Guest]

Erasing my hard drive, erasing my BootMgr and messing with diskpart, why?

[MrCthuntoo]

Unfortunately the entirety of the data transfer area of the drive is absolutely destroyed. There is literally no way for it to transfer any sort of data in the state it is in. It's rather unfortunate as well because of how much of my family's valuable data was on it when it was ruined. Ugh, sometimes younger siblings need to learn what is okay to break and what isn't.

 

I take it you mean the Sata connector? If so, it should be attached to the PCB.

[bcredeur97]

my worst mistake has to be getting addicted to pulling off cherry MX key caps off my G710+ a couple of key caps are broken now.

 

thankfully, I managed to get rid of the habit before anything else broke. I just need some replacement key caps now anyone know where I can find some key caps that are the same font as the one on the G710?