Worst Tech mistake you have ever made?

[thepurplesquares]

The biggest mistake ive really made so far was probably mounting my hyper 212 evo horizontally so it blocked my first RAM slot (also not installing ram first).

Also ive almost knocked my C70 case over at least 5 times now

[BlurrySoul]

-I switched the power input (240V or 120V?) of the PSU for my first build because I was curious. Then I turned it on and POOF.

-Tried to lower the voltage of my underclocked graphics card until it has too little power to drive the card.

-PC crashed and I had to force shut down the PC because I forgot to plug in the reset button into the MB jumper.

-Connect 9V battery to a USB stick to see which one is the one providing power and then I spoiled it since it doesn't support 9V electricity.

-Formatted a memory card on digital camera because I didn't know what "format" meant back then.

Bad investment:

-My current laptop(Dell XPS 13 2011 with 1st gen i7). Sandy bridge was released and the just solved the motherboard issue back in early 2011 so my friend suggested not to buy it since I'm bringing my laptop to college. I kinda regret it now because it's at least 1 generation older than other laptop and I could've bought the sandy bridge i7 by adding extra $30.

-This is unrelated to PC but I bought a Windows Mobile phone(v6.1 but can be upgraded to 6.5) back in 2009. Worst investment ever. Not much customization. Slow processor that can't cope up with the homescreen IU(or maybe just bad and laggy IU). Android was still in its infancy and I personally think iPhone 3GS was kinda overpriced(in Malaysia).

I did the same thing with my GameCube memory card. lol

[theJBcomputers]

biggest mistake was when i changed on cpu from the stock cooler there was so much thermal compound out it that when i pulled it off the cpu came with it and bent some pens.

[TechTheWorld]

I have not made a noticeable mistake yet( I have only been in to computers ofr about 4-5 moths now). Its kind of scary to go that long with no mistakes...I know a big mistake must be coming....

[TechTheWorld]

Actually there was one! U know the little plastic thing on the motherboard that hold that 3v battery in? Well you are supposed to slide the battery out right? Well I just pooped it out...Now I have to ghetto rig it....

[Season]

Paracord. Never again...

[Minjon]

12 years of DSL internet @ 3 megabit/s download and 500 kilobit/s upload

Now cable, 60 megabit/s download 15 megabit/s upload :D

I was on 1megabit/s for like 10 years and finnaly yesterday i got cable 5megabit/s download :)

[Neusbotje]

I mounted my motherboard with the wrong screws... I replaced some screws with the good screws but i ended 50 % psu screws and 50% motherboard screws.

[igotsnomoney]

My worst mistake was during my first computer build. forgot to ground myself and touched the gold pins on the cpu. felt the pain of the static first, then after 20 seconds i realized what i had just done (this was a $230 Cpu at the time).

[CyBaNeTiiKz]

I have a EK spin bay res and D5 pump, I hooked the pump correctly to the inlet and outlet of the res + other components then mistakenly thought I hooked it up wrong, and switched them around. I was wondering for a while why I wasn't getting any movement, and then i realized. To be fair i was having a crappy day but I should have double checked everything.

[bunnyr31]

bought an antec 300 case because i wanted a cheap case, worst idea now i need to buy another case to get a h100 or similar in it plus there is zero cable management options.

[MG2R]

My biggest mistake was surfing to /b/

Says it all...

[191x7]

-> Flashed a Radeon 9600XT bios on a brand new 9600pro (got the card RMA-d).

[Goliath002]

One of the mistakes that I did was to install a Ram on a powered on computer, that was really bad... I did not know it was on because the fan on the CPU was disconnected

one of the conectors of the ram just got black

[Tee_k]

Back in the day, 4-5 years ago when i bought the biggest and most bad ass Graphics card i could find. The Legendary Sapphire Radeon 4870X2.

Big, expensive, noisy and consumes quite a bit of power. And it never really lived up to its reputation and my personal expectations. But i must say, after all these years

this computer still runs without fail, and i'm proud of owning one of these "rear" cards. Disappointed and Proud at the same time! :)

[EricX2]

Windows ME nuff said.

Same here, and I switched to it from Windows 2000 which was magnitudes better at the time.

[EricX2]

Lets see. I've had a desktop that was running on a counter and knocked it to the floor. I've taken a laptop that was turned on and pulled the RAM out. I've had installed a long server PCI card wrong but instead of reinserting it I pushed harder until it fit and then turned it on causing it to fry. I wrote a script that deletes a folder but had a typo on it so it deleted the c:\windows\system32 directory and all subfolders... then pushed that script to 400 pcs during the day where I work.

My biggest mistake for purchase? Everything seems like a big mistake once the new generation comes out. It's too hard to choose. I bought a GeForce 4 MX to upgrade from a GeForce 3. That was the first time I had ever remembered that a next gen part was slower than the previous gen. I built a mid end Socket 1156 chipset system intending on upgrading to a better CPU later... right before the 1155 came out and no 1156 processors came out after that.

[CoolBeans_]

Bought a laptop

[João Severino]

Dropped my laptop and destroyed the hard drive, which had to be replaced, and now the cooling fan only works when it wants

[fredrök]

I bought an hp desktop before I started building my own and hated it.

been there, done that!

[Jorge_lsca]

Misplacing PSU cables when sleeving, it was really bad :(

[Zuba Twizta]

bought a HX1050 :(

[Donut417]

I some how cracked the screen in my first notebook computer. Lucky for me the best buy warranty I spend $300 on covered it or I would have been up the creek if you know what I mean. Oh and the invoice for the repair job said $428 so I guess it paid the warranty off. Only reason I buy accidental damage on my mobile computers.

[DLM_012]

I regret buying a Coolermaster V8 not knowing that the 8350 at stock under load runs at the wattage my cooler is rated for. I could be getting far better temps. It's no fault of the cooler itself but rather my ignorance.

Lesson learned: read processor reviews more carefully

[NewHopeTech]

I bought an hp desktop before I started building my own and hated it.

I did that with a Toshiba laptop.