OT: Give-away - WE HAVE A WINNER!!!

sigel · Post by **sigel** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 4:17 am

I've been at this game (computers) for about 10 years (no crap) and I've also worked in computer stores, and i've also done a lot of dumb stuff in the name of learning.

anyways, way back in the day of the 386, i was building my 'new' system
it was a 386sx33 with a 40Mhz Cyrix 387 (Cyrix actually made the fastest floating point processors back then) and got everything working, CGA graphics, it was all I could afford at the time. Well, I was working on the computer and thought "why not put a fan inside the monitor?" (I was into cooling WAY back when, put a heatsink from a 486 on my 386 with krazy glue) anyways, I get in there, not paying attention to my timex metal band watch.. crossed some stuff that shouldn't have been and was thrown accross the room into my closet, I went to the hospital for 2nd degree burns to my hands and wrist (I have the scars to prove it) and I had to get a new monitor, but.. the watch still works! I still have it, and use it... timex, takes a lickin and keeps on tickin...

Another time I was installing a 'new' 5x86-133Mhz processor, overclocked to 160Mhz, and with the heatsink, grease and all that, it was ready to rock, well, I decided that I wanted to reset the CMOS (couldn't remember my password) and the computer was already installed under my desk, so I reach down the grab the jumper, set it, and turn on the computer, smoke comes out.... not good, so I take out the system.. what happened is I set the CPU to 5 volts AND (when i thought i didnt get the jumper) I accidently pulled a capacitor half way off the board, and the lead crossed withs omething and fried everythign but the hard drive in the system, needless to say I was ticked, I had to work all summer mowing lawns to replace the hardware, and use my 486dx2/66 as well :-(

When overclocking an Athlon a few weeks ago, (taking it to 2.0Ghz) it didn't quite make it, I let my friend build it up for me (stupid mistake) and he decided to use 'his' silver paste, it wasn't arctic silver, it was real silver paste for heatsinks in telephone trunks and whatnot, part of the core did get crushed, and smoke came from under the heatsink, take it off, and the CPU was nice and orange.. there was an expensive mistake.

One time, at work, I was working on a customers laptop (when he was at the counter) and I tripped and spilled an entire, full, 44oz soda right into it and it sparked, literally, he wasn't too happy, but I didn't get fired, I did have to buy him a new laptop though (ouch)

And just a year ago, at another computer store I worked at, I was talking to a customer and working on a computer, drinking water, and I had a mouth full of water, the system was going into windows and this sexy chick sound comes out of the speakers "oh spank me HARD daddy" (his startup sound) and the speakers were full blast, well, I started laughing, and spit the water into the system, it didn't do much, but fry the power supply (nothing else was damaged), but he was embarrassed and yelling at me, I was just laughing at him, I couldn't stop.. he took his computer (with a new PSU) and never came back...

more to come when I think of it.

blade_146 · Post by **blade_146** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 4:52 am

Recently i built a box for a lady and had the cover off cause i wanted to see how hot the thing was getting. I used a 1.4g tbird with the retail hs/fan and decided that it was getting too hot for my taste. So i plopped a delta on there and gave it a good q3 test to heat'er up a bit and thought to myself,"self, since you just put that fan on there, the best way to tell if it helped much is to see how hot the heatsink is, Reach down there and put your finger too it and see." Well i think you know where I'm going with this story. So I did. Never really made it to the heatsink. 7000rpm of whirling finger death blocked my heatsink fondling. Jesus that hurt like hell. Damn near took off the tip of my finger and the nail with it. I now understand the importance of a fan grille. Me and "self" havent done too much finger tip temperature checking since then. its funny now i guess but it wasnt then. It was one of those slow motion deals too. I wasnt really paying that much attention to what i was doing. Hell at that moment i considered myself an expert in the fine art of gauging temps with the finger and just casually reached in and got a nice little wake up call. Just before the ginsu action began, i looked in and watched the angry jaws of death devour my flimsy digit and turn it into a mangled mass of throbbing pain. I didnt really realize what had happened until the room got quite for split second because the fan had stopped. Then it hit me "that was not good at all" As i pulled my bleeding limb from the cpu cooler turned meat grinder, the fan seemed to whirr with delight as it spun back up. "WHHRRRRRRSSSHHHHAHAHAHA" it screamed at me. As the fan rejoiced in the morsel of flesh i had provided it, i ran to the bathroom writhing in agony. Stupid fan!!

Jim Z · Post by **Jim Z** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 7:36 am

The city my mother works for bought a bunch of 19-inch Trinitron tube monitors from the local ANG base, they were some freaky fixed-frequency things that required a Vsync of 70Hz and I don't know the Hsync.. anyhow, I go drop $40 for a VGA-to-5 BNC cable, and after it powers up I try to adjust the sync dials on the back so that the picture would stop rolling. Well, I was using a metal screwdriver, and I must have wandered off of the dial a little because I heard a brief buzz and the picture went away. Permanently. And I had to explain to the city offices why one of their brand new 19" monitors didn't work anymore.

Serves it right, too. Them mil-spec monitors weigh about 60lb.

moonsocket · Post by **moonsocket** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 9:50 am

well...this happened at my friends house last year.....he finally got rid of his p166 and got an athlon 650 so we start putting his computer together with much excitement....we were all done..computer still on desk laying down without the case cover on and we decide to get a snack at the store before firing it up for the first time....so we go to the store..doo dee doo..mm..snacks..munch munch...get back to his place..go over to the desk..and smell something odd...he says..damn..the cat mustve sh*t under the desk again...look under..nothing...hmmmmmmmm........so we go to start his new pc...look inside and guess what.....a nice little present from the cat...yup...the cat sh*t in the new computer case on the motherboard...not a joke..it really happened....needless to say the pc didnt work and he had to use his 166 for another month

PreDatoR · Post by **PreDatoR** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 11:30 am

That would be one dead friggin' cat

HardTech · Post by **HardTech** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 11:42 am

you forgot me

well, I was being adventurous with my computer and I kept on decreasing the voltage on my Celeron 300a@450 (the one I STILL have!). I went from 2.0 to 1.9, 1.9 to 1.8.. I went all the way down to 1.7 on stock cooling, at 450mhz. It ran stable as a rock. Then, I decided to go down to 1.6.

The computer would not boot up.. I got really pissed, and during my pissness, I completely forgot I had lowered the voltage. I could not for the life of me figure out why my computer wouldn't boot up... I tried everything. Finally, after almost breaking my computer, I decide to look in the BIOS and lo and behold... my voltage is now at a good 2.0 with no intention of being changed

Nutster_98 · Post by **Nutster_98** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 11:50 am

Well.........I have had my share of stupid mistakes, so I might as well share one

Around 1996 the guys at work convinced me to get a computer (I was a gear head). So I sold my hotrod and bought a AMD 133 with a whopping 32Mb's of ram. So a couple of months later my friend introduces me to Quake......well that got me involved when I figured out you could play it online. So I became a Quake junkie, and one night about 1a.m. in the morning the screen just froze in a heavy deathmatch. I figured something must be wrong internally. I grabbed my monitor off the top of my desktop and opened up the case......and some seriously hot air came out. So I shut it down and waited till I could call my friend the next morning. He was always really good at diagnosing the problem, but it seemed like I could never get him over here to help fix it. So he says "Sounds like the power supply fan has went out." So I go to the local computer parts store and pick up another. Well Christy (my wife) is cooking dinner in the kitchen (which is right next to my computer room) and I am telling her about what has happened.......like she cares

Anyway, he is supposed to show up and help me put it in, so I wait and wait and then get impatient and figure it can't be that hard. So I unhooked all the power wires going to the switch (AT Power supply) and pulled the old PS out. I pick up the new PS and noticed that I forgot to look at which wires went where on the switch. So I figured.......might as well try it anyway....what could it hurt? Keep in mind that Christy is still in the kitchen working on dinner. So I get the switch wired up and put my case back together and plug it in to the wall. I yelled at her "I am gonna turn this on, think it will work?" and she mumbles something that I could not hear

I crossed my fingers and hit the power button..........the lights went really dim in this room and the kitchen and I heard her yell........."Michael, what the hell are you doing?" So I turned the computer off. I went out in the kitchen and she said "Maybe you better wait on your buddy to help you". I couldn't believe I had done something so stupid, now I am wondering "did I just fry my whole computer because I couldn't wait an hour on some help?". Well...my buddy finally shows up and when I tell him what happened he almost fell out of the chair laughing so hard. So I am a little panicked now wondering if I am gonna be able to deathmatch (told you I was addicted). He wired the power supply up and bang!, she worked like a charm.

Lot's of overhead on that story, so bear with me

Just one of the many stupid mistakes I have made. But they were all in the name of learning.

PS.......Noone ever told me that a Ram Simm had to be put in at a 45 degree angle, but that's another story

Nut

DaveJ · Post by **DaveJ** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 1:15 pm

Guess I'll throw my 2 cents in...

Back when I lived in the dorms at school I used to cart all my computer junk home for the holidays... This was about 3 months after I'd spent a chunk of loan money on a brand new case, RAM, MB, and K6-200 (late '97). My room was seriously cramped, and I had my tower sitting on top of the counter that ran the length of one side. I was in the process of unhooking all the wires from the back, and couldn't quite reach one at the bottom. So I pushed the tower forward a few inches and leaned back to grab the screwdriver off my bed. Next thing I know I heard this loud BANG and turned around to see my tower sitting facedown on the floor.

That cost me a new case, 3.2GB HD, and toasted the 2X burner I'd gotten on a hot deal about 2 weeks before...

More recently, I built a Celeron 800 system for a friend last week. I got all the parts in and had everything hooked up right, but still couldn't get the thing to boot! Crap... I figured the CPU was too new for the board, it didn't explicitly support C2's... was all ready to trade the thing off, and decided to take ONE more look at the manual.... buried in the back was a note: "Board will not boot with CMOS jumper in 2-3 position". So I look at the board and sure enough, the jumper was set incorrectly... DOH!!!

(I reset the jumper and the board fired right up...)

If we were talking about software I could mention the time I almost toasted a production server by forgetting that I was logged into the console instead of my workstation, and attempted to update the software on the server itself! Oops.

It's a good thing it was during normal maintenance, so no one noticed...

Dave

Snelski · Post by **Snelski** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 10:38 pm

There ya go, that's what I mean - good stories guys, excellent!!!

"Michael, what the hell are you doing" - Nutster, nice job on that power surge

...

"I didnt really realize what had happened until the room got quite for split second because the fan had stopped" - blade_146, I have to say that I did that a time or 2 myself but I never cut the skin. Now this 7000rpm Delta fan I'm scared of so I have that little loveable fingerguard on that. Several times have I reached on in there only to get that little "oh sh*t" look on my face, especially when you're just doggone tired and trying to finish up something

.

Keep them coming people, don't be shy to show yer stupidity!!! hehe...

2336 · Post by **2336** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 11:35 pm

About 4 months ago I bought an MSI K7T Pro 2A from someone at another forum. Installed it and the T-Bird 800 I just received and figured, "Alright, time to overclock!" The first couple of attempts when I locked it up i reset the CMOS and figured "Hey, just try again" The only problem was that somewhere along the way the rig was eating DLLs! Sure enough when I went to restart Windows loads, but all I get is the wallpaper - no desktop and then the error messages start poppin' up all over. This happens repeatedly! Over the course of the next week and a half I ended up reformatting the HDD and reloading Win98SE at least 8 times!!! I thought I had got a POS MoBo for sure!!! Then finally, late one Saturday night after another failed overclocking attempt I shut down and reach inside the case to clear the CMOS and accidently bump the CMOS battery - and it rattles!!! Whoa! That doesn't sound right. So I popped the battery out, wiped it down real good and then adjusted the prongs behind the battery to exert a little more pressure on the battery and all of a sudden PROBLEM SOLVED!!! It was a loose CMOS battery the whole time! After that not a bit of trouble - just a bit of embarrassment for not checking everything!

Snelski · Post by **Snelski** » Sat Oct 27, 2001 6:28 pm

What??? It's the weekend and all of a sudden no one has anymore stories??? Can't believe this, I need some more belly-aching stories here people!!! We even have an extra hour to add this weekend (remember to change your clocks tonight to fall back that extra sleeping hour

)...

Common, out with the stories; remember that you can post 2 story posts per person

...

Post by **sbp** » Sat Oct 27, 2001 7:41 pm

No they are all out getting drunk. And they left us behind. :/

bitSLAP · Post by **bitSLAP** » Sat Oct 27, 2001 7:42 pm

Okay for my second story...the AUTHENTIC computer desk

Durring my last year of highschool, I built my computer right into my desk! I removed the drawers on one side, and built my own drawer that dropped a bit lower than the bottom of the desk. I mounted the motherboard in the bottom, with the cards pointing out the side. The CD-ROMs were mounted at the top of the drawer on hinges, so they would fold out to reveal the motherboard.

I eventually had to abandon the project, since I removed so much from the desk that it was sagging badly from my monitors

Sean · Post by **Sean** » Sat Oct 27, 2001 10:06 pm

Any pictures? I would have loved to see how it looked.

Snelski · Post by **Snelski** » Sat Oct 27, 2001 11:35 pm

I removed so much from the desk that it was sagging badly from my monitors

Now that's something I would've liked to have seen

...

It actually reminds me of the time that we cut out the complete body off a Ford Pinto in Autoshop, leaving just the bodypan and the drivetrain (wheels and all attached). Problem was that you couldn't drive the darn thing unless there were a few people sitting on the back end to keep the middle from dragging...

- it was a fun experiment though.

PCA Forums

OT: Give-away - WE HAVE A WINNER!!!

K7T Pro 2A Blues!

What??? It's the weekend and all of a sudden no one has anymore stories???