Worst Tech mistake you have ever made?

[DigitalHermit]

Faster? My MS Pro Duo 8 Gigs in my PSP Street is like slower than a class 10 SD.

One of the few differences is the write protection MagicGate.

 

Weird... must be my reader... (a cheapo cdr-king sd card reader)

[CurlyCucumber]

Yes and you say it was a mistake to buy that product?

i am telling you thats not a mistake even good brands can deliver products broken

 

getting at the fact that your blaming the product instead of the occurrence that product was not a mistake to buy

I understand that. I said the power supply was bad. It was a mistake to buy it. I'm sure there are plenty of people running thermaltake's psus in their build. Mine was bad. OP asked for biggest mistake I've bought, and that was the PSU. I'm "blaming the product" because mine sucked. lol.

[Trik'Stari]

Buying a GT 520 to put in my moms pre-built HP to play SWTOR and a few other games. Card was absolute crap because it was a GT and not GTX

[LogicalDrm]

Trying to force CPU socket cover to its place. 6 bent pins, two maybe even broken. 1 month till warranty on board expires I just have to hope CPU is ok and get new(used) mobo.

[kipper]

AMD ASUS motherboards.

[hak4fun]

upgraded from 3770k to 4770k

 

ever got a k variant since ive never overclocked lol

 

upgraded from a 670 to a 780

 

bought a hx 650wv2

 

bought a h80

 

bought a monitor without knowing about them (have a tn, i was young )

TN isn't all that bad. UNLESS you need color accuracy, then your screwed.

[NOHOW]

Ceap psu... almost fried my system :unsure:

[Rasbutin]

EVERYONE! 

 

I CHANGED THAT SWITCH ON THE BACK OF THE POWER SUPPLY TO 250 WATTS AND WHEN I TUNRED IT ON IT SPARKED AND NEARLY BLEW UP. I LOST POWER IN MY HOUSE AND HAD TO FLIP THE BREAKER. 

 

What could i have damaged? I see that the fuse is blown. Hopefully thats all. 

[79wjd]

EVERYONE! 

 

I CHANGED THAT SWITCH ON THE BACK OF THE POWER SUPPLY TO 250 WATTS AND WHEN I TUNRED IT ON IT SPARKED AND NEARLY BLEW UP. I LOST POWER IN MY HOUSE AND HAD TO FLIP THE BREAKER. 

 

What could i have damaged? I see that the fuse is blown. Hopefully thats all. 

I assume you mean 220/240v not 250w. 

[Ptopman]

Honestly it would have to be upgrading from my gtx480 to a gtx670. but that was my first computer upgrade and was still getting into it. I should have saved the money and waited for the gtx7xx or the gtx 9xx.

[hiddenjumprope]

Hmm, I haven't built my first computer yet but I've had a few with my laptops:

 

I spilled half of my full glass (which was a big cup) of water onto my only-a-couple months old macbook pro. Had it drying out for a week, still works 6 years later (though super slow, but I bought a new laptop two years ago).

Then another mistake with the same macbook pro was I was trying to get an umbrella from my backpack, and dropped my backpack. My mac was in it, got a nice dent.

 

So thankfull nothing happened.

 

No, I don't consider getting a mac a mistake. I think the whole mac vs windows thing is a bit silly, it's really down to personal preference. I like both windows and mac. Sticking with now windows for cost, gaming, and such. Also, at the time, when I got it I still knew nothing about computers, so if I went for a windows at the time I doubt that laptop would still be running.

 

My first computer mistake was asking for a gateway laptop. On the one hand, the gateway I got is probalby better than what my dad would probably have bought me if I didn't spesify a brand (looking at the emachine desktop my sister got that year, it lasted longer than my laptop but it was slooooooowwwwww and pretty useless overall for more than internet). This was my very first time getting a computer, and I was a freshman in highschool. I had very VERY limited computer knowlage then. I choose gateway because at the time my step-dad had a gateway that was already about 13 years old or so, and still running strong on windows 98 (I was a freshman in 2007). So I thought I was making a soild choice. Sigh. That laptop was crud. Though when it did work at least it could run photoshop and stuff (unlike my sisters computer, had to use hers when mine was getting fixed and when it died). I'm still thankful my uncle swooped in and helped me get a macbook pro, I would have otherwise been screwed for the rest of high school and then part of college.

 

Current laptop dropped once, (was in my backpack hanging on a bathroom hook) and another time cat knocked it over (thankfully while closed) off my desk.

 

So far that is it. Hopefully nothing happens when I start building my PC as soon as I can affored to order all the parts... I am going to be taking it to a friends so she can help me. But I am nervous about bringing it home to my apartment, going to be so paranoid during that car trip and then carrying it up.

[Recon97]

You all people are talking about techs so I am gonna go with some real life.

I wasn't there with my dad when he was breathing his last, 8 years from now.

[Cronins1]

gtx 960 and a cs450m for an i7 4790k based system.  not sure what I was thinking... it was February.. the cold was getting to me.. and I had not discovered these forums yet.  New gpu and psu are on their way finally! Though the 960 really has been awesome and I can't believe everyone hates on them, I can't wait to see what a 980 can do.  I got the 980 for $360 from evga bstock, otherwise I would not have bought a 980

Slightly off topic but I had never heard of evga b-stock. That is a magical place and I'll be buying a 980 there soon. Anyone know if any other companies do this?

 

My biggest mistake is reformatting drives when I try to install other os's on partitions.  Happens more than it should.

[79wjd]

Buying a new high end/expensive router every few years hoping it will fix random internet issues....it never does, and it's always a waste of money. 

 

Meanwhile, I just ordered a new router that just got delivered today that I get to play with tonight.....clearly I still haven't learned the lesson. 

 

Now that I think back, I can only recall having four routers...although I feel like I've had more -- some random Linksys, replaced it with a Netgear WNR3500 (which looking at some reviews now looks like an awful choice at the time), followed by a Netgear WNDR4500 (which also looks like a questionable choice -- and which I just bricked a couple weeks ago), eventually replaced that with a free D-Link 868L from Optimum (long before I bricked the WNDR4500), and now I'm about to replace the D-Link with an Asus AC66u (not free unfortunately, but seems like an educated decision unlike the past choices -- so hey, I guess that's a plus). 

[spyder]

I broke one of the tool less hard drive bays of my corsair 200r case when I was installing an old hard drive which turned out to be dead in the end when windows disk management could not detect it.

[lightningterror]

Buying ram back when i didn't know much about tech for my old pc and got 1x 1gb and 1x2gb ram for it because i didn't want a 64 bit os.

[ADFX_Pixy]

Getting the wrong Noctua NH-D14 for my computer. My computer has an i7 4790K which uses an LGA 1150 socket and I purchased the Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 edition, not the standard one. From what I red online I could have contacted Noctua and they can said the right mounting hardware for free but I was able to find the official mounting hardware on Amazon for about $7.99 and since I was still on my free 30-day Prime membership I purchased it. 

[Arbird]

Accidentally snapping off the sata connector on my hard drive.

[BentheMuffin]

Nothing broke but I couldnt get the harddrive out of our old hp to back it up so I put the case right next to my PC with sata and power connectors coming out of my case to connect to the harddrive.

[IceCold007]

Buying two gtx 670 2 gig vram edition GPU to play Modded Skyrim. I found out fast that I couldn't play skyrim the way I wanted to play it. Ran out of vram.

[kipper]

I used tooth paste to keep my CPU cold.

[BentheMuffin]

I used tooth paste to keep my CPU cold.

Idk how you thought that was a good idea. You knew you needed paste but not thermal paste.

[ag90]

i bought a way!! to high cpu cooler, so now i have a big hole in my sidepanel where the top of the heatsink sticks out.

[GigaScratch]

I didn't know how to insert the motherboard into the IO shield, so I just jammed it in there and screwed the motherboard down before it could move.

[PudgyAstronaut]

A used 1440p monitor on a deal too good to be true... and it was. I could see the "light" scratches from 3+ feet away easily and in a central location. Also the worst back-light bleed I have ever seen. So I guess I am staying 1080p until I can afford a 1440p monitor I will WANT to keep for 3+ years.