Stupid things you've done to your PC.

[Laughing Man]

So we know a fair few of the forum members are PC builders so let's face I am sure some of use have done something stupid during one of the main tinkering exercises we often do that has resulted in the death of either a component or the whole PC. So let's here your tales of PC Home Improvement.

I'll start. I Cut a couple of holes in teh front of my case through which I would stick my two Zalman Fanmate controllers. To do this I need to remove them from the plastic boxes they came in and stick them to the back of the newly modded bay cover.

This stood for months until I upgraded the case. I didn't want to cut holes in the new case but wanted to keep the controllers so I just stuck them inside one the drive bays and again this worked fine for a few months until one day I was wanting to see just how effective the fan mates were at cooling the PC.

I dug the CPU controller out and turned the dial up to full. After a few mintues the temp had fallen by only a few degrees so I concluded that they were mostly a waste of time and shoved the controller back in to the bay.

SPARK, smell of burning and the PC shut off and refused to boot. When I had replaced the case I had left the fan controllers as they were, without their plastic cover on with the circuit board exposed. It was plain luck that when I stuck them in the bay first time I stuck them on top of some other wires which had insulated the back of the circuit board. This time round though I had shorted the board on the metal case and blown my CPU header.

Result was a complete strip down of the PC and a replacement of the motherboard. The scorch mark around the CPU header was quite impressive. I may dig it out and see if I can stick a picture of it up. Oh and needless to say I no longer use any fan controllers, stripped down or otherwise.

 

[sir pugglez]

The stupidest thing i did (to my old computer) was trying silence it with foam (i had read somwhere that it was very sucsessful) I turn on my computer and it started to burn. my computer was on fire.

 

[sheic99]

I short circuited my fan and electrocuted my self at the same time.

 

[Ronwue]

Stupidest thing I did was rummaging through the hard drive and seeing a folder called windows. I then proceeded to deleting all the files that sounded odd. Needless to say a full reinstall was in order. I was puzzled as to what happened. I was at the beginning of my computer obsession back then.

The stupidest thing i did (to my old computer) was trying silence it with foam (i had read somwhere that it was very sucsessful) I turn on my computer and it started to burn. my computer was on fire.

Damn....

 

[deadsparrow]

stupidest thing ive done...

uhm..i hit it a few times with an axe.
luckily the side i hit is really really hard..and all that happened was a few loose cards

 

[HL Plague666]

replaced my os 3 times for the hell of it and most the drivers dont work now :\

 

[Anomynous 167]

Around 2004 I was searching for the reset button for my iMac and I started wacking it from the side, while trying to search for the button. Then the pc fell off the desk it was on.

 

[runtheplacered]

Breaking the clips that hold your memory in, that's attached to your motherboard, sucks.

 

[SovietSecrets]

I deleted the System 32 folder on one of my old PCs and let another run for 6 days which burned out my power supply.

 

[Citrus]

After learning my lesson after doing something similar to Ronwue, I then went about opening the Task Manager and ending all the processes that sounded suspicious. Which was most of them. Some reappeared, so I'd close them again, and then they'd reappear, and then eventually I found out how to close them and make sure they stayed off. At this point I had to take my computer in to get fixed because I had no idea what happened.

That was a few years ago now. I'm thankfully more computer-saavy now, although some of the mystery processes in my Task Manager make me suspcious enough to Google them.

 

[Vlane]

I deleted the System 32 folder on one of my old PCs and let another run for 6 days which burned out my power supply.

My PC is running for about 26 days now.

Well let's say you type in regedit.exe in one line and you just delete some stuff because you think it's useless.

 

[Stryc9]

On an older system I jammed a screwdriver into the motherboard several times in the process of putting on one of those crappy Socket A heatsinks. That motherboard didn't work well after that, kept overheating so I ended up having to buy a new one.

I keep the stabbed one as a reminder to not do stupid things like that again, plus it makes a great speaker stand.

 

[aussiesniper]

Spoiler: snarky guy within me

Installing windows vista!

I once kicked my PC over accidentially. Fortunately nothing was damaged.

Man, my story is dwarfed by everything else in this thread...

 

[Dufferking75]

my dog got loose and chewed up my keybored

 

[TheBluesader]

I tried to download new drivers for my goofy integrated graphics card duel USB port twisty funky mess of a Dell HD monitor, and it gave me the blue screen of death. I lost about $300 in iTunes music because I had to reformat, and I hadn't backed up any of the music except what was already on my iPod.

And I don't know if it's something I did, but right now my duel fans sound like an airplane taking off. The computer works fine, but you can hear it revving up and down throughout the entire house.

I probably did something.

 

[CyberAkuma]

Bought a DELL...
Seriously. Probably the most stupid thing I've ever done.

I spent more than $2500 on a brand spanking new DELL desktop system that I had so many problems with on so many levels, and once the CPU and the warranty expired they wanted to charge me over $200 bucks for an obsolete USED CPU.
The PSU blew up months later, most likely because I added so much stuff inside teh case like CD-burner, extra harddrives and shit (you should *NEVER* do that to a DELL desktop unless upgrading the PSU. The PSU's in those DELL desktops are the worst piece of shit, believe me)

As far as causing some real damage to hardware because of sheer stupidity, I have not experienced it that much. Mostly do to the fact that I used to work at a PC store building PCs.
Oh yeah, I remember that once I had this really whiney customer being a real moron to me because I was a new intern at the place and he had payed a lot of money for a rig that I was supposed to build, so he was really pissy about making sure I did everything right.

I got so mad at him (I was 15 years old I think) that I deliberately connected the IDE floppy cable upside down on the motherboard. For you people that don't know what it meant back in the old days... it meant the instant you turn on the PC = fireworks inside the case.

If the moron was so concerned about his fucking rig he should have built it himself instead of litterally harassing a new 15-year old intern, the asshole.

Other than that I've experience exploding PSUs, broken CD-burners that actually burn small visible holes *THROUGH* discs (this was during the earliest era of CD-burners) ZIP-drives that completely dismantles ZIP-disks inside the unit, (God, Zip-drives were horrible *HORRIBLE* things) faulty CPU fans making the CPU overheat and burn up (this was occoring pretty often with the first line of AMDs)

None of which were my fault though so I dunno, but I guess that's the story I could share

I'm usally pretty confident with PC hardware parts, so confident that in fact, I order all my parts from the U.S 40% cheaper (I live in Europe) and I don't care that I litterally have no warranty on the parts at all in case I do something stupid; which I usually don't.

 

[Signa]

I think Setting video settings too high for the drivers/displays is the worst I've done. This was all Windows 3.1 though. It's kinda hard now to mess things up that way.

Oh, and not using uninstall applications. I used to just go to the folder and press delete.

 

[Iskenator67]

A few months ago, I purchased a new computer because my old one looked like it had come over on the Mayflower. Needless to say this left me with a spare computer, monitor, keyboard, etc.
The Motherboard was fried in the old one and I was too lazy to fix it so I took the old remnants of my computer to the backyard with a friend and, armed with a shotgun, magnum, fireworks, and an old ax, proceeded to destroy every identifiable piece there. This was stupid because a few months later I had found myself at a local electronics retailer (a Pawn Shop) and they were selling perfectly working Motherboards for incredibly cheap. I know this because I had a good history with this store and they always had quality merchandise. Sometimes the urge to destroy overrides common sense. Also a monitor can take a HELL of a lot of damage before surrendering to superior firepower.

 

[Iskenator67]

A few months ago, I purchased a new computer because my old one looked like it had come over on the Mayflower. Needless to say this left me with a spare computer, monitor, keyboard, etc.
The Motherboard was fried in the old one and I was too lazy to fix it so I took the old remnants of my computer to the backyard with a friend and, armed with a shotgun, magnum, fireworks, and an old ax, proceeded to destroy every identifiable piece there. This was stupid because a few months later I had found myself at a local electronics retailer (a Pawn Shop) and they were selling perfectly working Motherboards for incredibly cheap. I know this because I had a good history with this store and they always had quality merchandise. Sometimes the urge to destroy overrides common sense. Also a monitor can take a HELL of a lot of damage before surrendering to superior firepower.