Worst Tech mistake you have ever made?

[chau]

Was Screwing In A Graphics Card Into A Running System..Card Was Installed Before Boot Up...And My Screw Driver Tip Fell Out And Landed On The Mobo And Shorted It Out.... Magnetic Screw Driver Was A Fail That Day..And So Was i

[MathijsZ77]

Are you talking about one of those stupid ones where on the back of the case you have to pull a little lever down and the side panel basically falls off? I did the same thing with one before. At least a good 5-10 minutes were spent trying to get the darn thing off. It had me sweating!

That damn thing my friend! The Optiplex 760 Small Tower if I recall correctly. I also tried to open it from the other side since I was trying to take it as a whole apart. No succes.

 

Oh yeah, one other thing. I tried to install a different version of Android on my Samsung Galaxy, also no succes. Still don't get the process. I end up with two 1/2 Android phones... 

[xmx1024]

Once upon a time, I allowed an old Pentium D to run continuously for around 1-2 years, with a Bestec power supply (with good caps), ran well, but then decided to use the old Caviar SE HDD (SATA I) in my new build! I loaded it up with all my things. click, click, click. It failed. Also, removing the Northbridge heatsink on that machine, and touching the northbridge.

[PartyHat]

Had an old dying rig built from scrap in my closet while I got the parts for my actual rig, which I'm now using.

Thing had a pentium 4 3ghz with HT, 512mb of ram, 6300 which I literally brute forced a fan on to keep temps ice cold as it was passively cooled, kinda neat except it lacked some ram.

Long story short, I put different ram than what the motherboard used, forced it on, it bent and I didn't notice, turned it on and a spark, pop and a fizz, one of the mosfets fried.

[mckynetic]

My  worst experience was forgetting to put the thermal compound on and my i5 2500k which was OC'd before installing my new cooler XD I bought a new cooler that day and it had an included thermal paste. I remembered cleaning up the residue of the CPU but failed to put a new one on. As a result, as I launched Skyrim, a sudden BSOD came out! I panicked and quickly unplugged the AVR of the computer. I think it happened 3 times again before I tried to remove anything that might have caused the problem. And then I realized I wasn't able to apply the thermal paste. But I was still fortunate enough to have salvaged my processor :D

 

Also, and probably my worst, my nephew was using my computer and my monitor was an Asus VH242H LCD monitor. Me, being as sinister as I can, directed him to play that maze thingy were in the end, that horrible looking creature matched with a scream comes out (forgot the name of the game. my memory is pretty sketchy aotm). My nephew, scared as hell, cried and smashed the monitor with his metal toy truck and completely destroyed my monitor. So in lighter sense, a sinister plan totally backfired right in my face. And it took me 2 more months to replace that monitor. Good thing I had a tube monitor that I was still able to use :(

[Sir Walrus]

On my first build I couldn't get it to boot up, so I checked all connections, and decided it was the PSU. I unplugged everything from a working PC, and plugged everything from the other power supply in. I turned the power supply on, and nothing happened. About an hour later I realized I didn't actually try turning on the PC. I unplugged everything, and plugged the power supply back into the PC, and boom. It worked. I unplugged the PSU, and rebuilt the whole test boot, and it wouldn't start.

Turns out the RAM was InThe wrong slots....

[Chriz6097]

I bought some 400R 5.25 front panel grills for my 650D and when I found out it didn't fit I immediately took a dremmel tool and slowly destroyed my case...

[jem90]

Worst mistake hands down was keeping the stock cooler...it does justice, but I would like cooler temps for higher overlocks

[MathijsZ77]

I bought some 400R 5.25 front panel grills for my 650D and when I found out it didn't fit I immediately took a dremmel tool and slowly destroyed my case...

 

You foolish man!

[Sundanc3]

Was upgrading the graphics card on my Hackintosh from a GT 520 to a GTX 550ti. The box was severely damaged when it arrived, with a lot of water damage. The computer was not producing any images on screen, and I assumed the card was broken. I was just about to send it back when I realized I had forgot the pcie power cable....Everything worked fine after that.

[Eric1024]

Not me but a friend of a friend left his bios open on his computer and his little brother changed the Vcore of his 3770k to 2.3V, because more volts = faster right?

 

That friend is now 330$ and very upset at his younger brother...

[TomWeston]

When I was a little kid, I forced a MiniDisk inside a Floppy Disk-sized case into the Floppy Drive of our hand-me-down Windows 95 PC. We never got that out, even after years of trying.

[Bomb3rM4n]

Upgrading the ram while the computer was in hibernate mode and not completely off like I thought it was. Also, I applied way too much arctic 5 thermal paste on one of my 1st builds and it was conductive so eventually some got on the board and shorted it out.

[Godlygamer23]

Mine was almost bricking my Maximus V Formula by trying to update the Bios using AI Suite II :( I struggled for 2 days before finally fixing it with a 5 dollar usb stick LOL

I'm not really a fan of AI Suite II. I went to update some of the stuff I have installed through it, and it bricked Windows. Had to restore from a backup. Let this be a lesson towards everyone. Backup your computer...automatically too.

[XiaoPigs]

I'm not really a fan of AI Suite II. I went to update some of the stuff I have installed through it, and it bricked Windows. Had to restore from a backup. Let this be a lesson towards everyone. Backup your computer...automatically too.

I bricked my bios actually :p But luckily there's USB Bios Flashback(thank god). I would never trust AI Suite II ever.

[KaRiM_BoNd]

Back when I had a PC, the case had ventilation holes in the top and I got a bottom mounted PSU with its fan facing up ... I was cleaning a laptop on the same desk and the case was on the floor next to me and I dropped a screw ... It fell down the ventilation holes to the PSU struggled with the fan a bit then hit the PCB .. It was not pretty 

[MickJuice]

Using my old shitty iMac G5 and in an attempt of sorting applications in a better manner than mac OS comes in, I accidentally deleted half of my stock applications that is vital to the computer functioning. I took that piece of sh*t, sold it to my sister and got a mac mini, which was also a stupid idea because it has to be the most underpowered piece of shit in existence... After being fed up with the mac operating system, I sold my mac mini to my sister and got a core i7 2600k with a gtx 560ti and here I am.

[Wolf0202]

I broke my CPU fan trying to remove it for cleaning. It turned for the best cause i bought a new CPU Heatsink and i even got a better overclock

[kirashi]

Ironically, getting a power cable from the PSU stuck in its' own fan... The PSU committed suicide.

[Wolf0202]

I just remember the worst and more stupid.!! I was trying to config a WiFi network to my Laptop and i was like 12 so the thing didnt work and i got so mad that i tossed the laptop only to find in the pieces a front switch that had the label "WiFi On/Off"...and it was Off...i broke my laptop for nothing.

[Matman24]

When I initially put my first rig together, I just plugged everything in and let it run like that for about a day or so, and everything was just fine. However the next day, when I got around to doing some cable management, and I routed everything to where I wanted it, whenever I would turn on my machine, my monitor would turn on for a split second and turn right back off. I spent a good half-hour trying to figure out what the hell I did wrong. After taking a more careful look in my machine however, I realized that my CPU power cable was inserted backwards... *facepalm*

[jwarner.atl]

In 1983, when I was in the fifth grade, I learned what "format" means. I used the Apple II-C I was working with to format the 5 1/4 inch floppy on which was stored our entire school newspaper. It was almost finished. Then, I had to walk out onto the playground and explain to my teacher what I had done. 

 

Ah! Good times...

[_ASSASSIN_]

putting my motherboard on the antistatic wrap, and then putting the thermal compound wrong

[n3rdf1ght3r]

I dropped a desktop on my foot...that was not a fun experience...

[Beskamir]

once when i was flashing my bios, my computer was lagging durring it so i shut my computer down:( lets just say i'm glad that my motherboard's bios chip is removable....

next: before i knew much about compters i tried putting a pci card in my system thinking that it was for my controller when in actuallity it was for wifi.

oh and recently i learn that one of my fans was backwards, i realized that thanks to one of linus's recent unboxings. so i corrected my mistake and cleaned my pc with compressed air since it was REALLY dusty. well at least i learned a few things from my past problems....