The dumbest thing you've ever done on a PC

D

DoomRulz

Gawd
Joined
Apr 17, 2006
Messages
512
Title says it all.

My most recent event was installing Warcraft III, and as soon as it finished, installing Frozen Throne, but while installing FT, installing the WC III patch at the same time!!!!!

Is it any wonder I was asking myself "Wtf? Why isn't this game working???"

Sure enough I uninstalled it, re-installed the original game, patched it, THEN installed the expansion :p

Any others?
 
hmm.. built a brand new pc for someone, then couldn't get it to work for about 2 days, couldn't figure out what was wrong. Finally, I took it all apart and realized there was an extra mobo standoff shorting the motherboard so it wouldn't turn on. :D Removed the standoff, and it ran fine.
 
Forgetting to plug in the molex connector to my hard drive when I first installed Windows XP Pro
 
i recently tried to max oblivion on my pc. for those of you who dont know: pentium 4 2.6ghz, ati x700 pro, 1gb gskill ram, etc. that was a damn good looking slideshow. i think fraps crashed at one point cuz the fps counter couldn't show fractions :D.
 
psu died took my mobo with it, threw the psu it took part of my thumb along for the ride, 6 stitches!
 
- Dropped my drink in a running PC. (A running PC is no match for a coke)
- Dumped a drink into my Open bench PSU (Sparks!!)
- Dropped a screw into a running 5000rpm Fan (which proceeded to hit me in the face REALLY hard)
- Formatted the WRONG partition on my HD (2x)
- Dropped my PC out a 2nd story window... (Middle of winter, Outside Cooling)
- Killed 2 keyboards, exactly the same way, with exactly the same drink, exactly 2 months apart from one-another
- Killed an A8N-SLI board by accidentally shorting a component out with a PCI bracket I was installing.
- Touched the live leads from a CCFL inverter

And so many more...

To be fair, I build ~300 systems a year... And I'm addicted to caffeine... so...
 
Arcygenical said:
- Dropped my drink in a running PC. (A running PC is no match for a coke)
- Dumped a drink into my Open bench PSU (Sparks!!)
- Dropped a screw into a running 5000rpm Fan (which proceeded to hit me in the face REALLY hard)
- Formatted the WRONG partition on my HD (2x)
- Dropped my PC out a 2nd story window... (Middle of winter, Outside Cooling)
- Killed 2 keyboards, exactly the same way, with exactly the same drink, exactly 2 months apart from one-another
- Killed an A8N-SLI board by accidentally shorting a component out with a PCI bracket I was installing.
- Touched the live leads from a CCFL inverter

And so many more...

To be fair, I build ~300 systems a year... And I'm addicted to caffeine... so...
Click to expand...


have you ever been struck by lightning? :p
 
Exact details still not understood, but...

Started to remove a partition with Acronis. Just as it started, realized it was the wrong partition! Closed the program to stop it.

Rebooted the system, and walked away to get lunch. Didn't realized that Acronis had queued the procedure for run at startup, and when I came back, my recently created and set up partition (6 hours of work) was gone.

-Larry
 
When I was younger I unplugged the floppy cable from the motherboard WHILE the PC was on. lol Surprisingly enough the system die, I think it froze and when i restarted everything was fine. However the floppy drive controller was completely baked but I used that motherboard for another year before i eventually replaced it with a better one.
 
-I guilletined my Microfly Theromometer Lead in a RAM dimm and shorted out a stick. Didn't mentioned it to the egg guy I talked to for RMA - didn't think he would believe me anyway.
-I deleted paint one time from Win95.

Nothing too stoopid.
 
Disabled the speed control on a cd drive to try to get CDs to explode. It's really cool, but a really good way to destroy a drive. I don't know if that qualifies as stupid, but it's entertaining...
 
My absolute dumbest thing I've ever done was with my P5AD2. I went nearly insane trying to figure out why my system wouldn't detect my hard drive, checked the wires thousands of times, checked the BIOS - and I overlooked one option.

IDE Controller: Disabled.

:eek:
 
Had to reinstall windows just for a cleanup. Mouse lagged really bad in windows and I couldn't find any problems (downloaded new drivers, etc.). So I formatted windows again. Mouse did the same thing. Then I noticed the AC adapter to my usb hub had somehow come unplugged. PLugged it in and all was fine.
 
Dosen't really qualify as dumb since it wasn't my fault but...

Installing a new HDD and I guess the IDE cable I was using was somehow faulty...so I turn on the PC and instantly the cable starts to smoke and burn from the drive end to the mobo...luckily I caught it before it got there. But man it looked like a fuse had been lit!

Drive still worked too :p
 
Re-installed Windows x64 on my work PC to fix the problems I had when I recieved it. Nice to know half of my programs don't run on it. Also wouldn't support my USB ports at all, even fresh from the factory(Dell lol).

It's rocking 32-bit now and running much better
 
I dropped a screw into my psu (had one of those cool plastic see through covers, but the cover had a bottom 90mm intake hole and my psu only had one fan at the time). screw fell in, many sparks and a loud pop and that psu was toast. luckly it didn't take anything else with it.


I have deleted wrong files / partitions many times

I
 
Arcygenical said:
- Formatted the WRONG partition on my HD (2x)
Click to expand...
I've done this so many times it's not funny. Luckily there's drive rescue to the rescue!

Other dumb things include trying to use the recovery console for 3 hours to resurrect a corrupt system instead of just spending 45 mins reinstalling windows. And the all time favorite of sticking fingertips in running fans cause I'm too cheap to buy fan grills. :mad:
 
Went to replace a faulty CD-ROM drive in our company's server at about 5am before employees got to work, this should be easy, right? I accidentally unseated the RAID card in the process and corrupted a bunch of files on restart. Took some recovery effort and no data was lost, but took until about noon before we were up and running again. The boss was not amused, but at least everyone else in the office got to go for a field trip to a job site all morning.

11 employees X 4 hours of no work = :eek:

My lesson learned was to only work on the server on Friday evening, no matter how small the issue.
 
Back in the days of DOS around 3am in the morning, I remember seeing a message that said "are you sure you want to format your hard drive?" ... it was only after I hit the " y " that I realized what I had just done. :eek:

Moral of the story: pay attention to warning messages, especially late at night.
 
clicked on "You are a winner, click here to receive a PS2"
with out pop up blockers, firewalls or any measure of protection,
resulting in probably a 100 pop ups, including computer freeze
and shut down. Including accepting the download for the "form"
to fill out in order to receive the PS2, resulting in data corruption,
virus, and conclusively a format. :rolleyes:

Ah~ I was young, naive and drunk back then :)
 
Arcygenical said:
- Dropped my drink in a running PC. (A running PC is no match for a coke)
- Dumped a drink into my Open bench PSU (Sparks!!)
- Dropped a screw into a running 5000rpm Fan (which proceeded to hit me in the face REALLY hard)
- Formatted the WRONG partition on my HD (2x)
- Dropped my PC out a 2nd story window... (Middle of winter, Outside Cooling)
- Killed 2 keyboards, exactly the same way, with exactly the same drink, exactly 2 months apart from one-another
- Killed an A8N-SLI board by accidentally shorting a component out with a PCI bracket I was installing.
- Touched the live leads from a CCFL inverter

And so many more...

To be fair, I build ~300 systems a year... And I'm addicted to caffeine... so...
Click to expand...

Holy shit man, how'd you drop a drink into a running PC lol??
 
nvpx said:
Back in the days of DOS around 3am in the morning, I remember seeing a message that said "are you sure you want to format your hard drive?" ... it was only after I hit the " y " that I realized what I had just done. :eek:

Moral of the story: pay attention to warning messages, especially late at night.
Click to expand...

lmao i think we're ALL guilty of doing that at some point
 
When I was younger I used to turn off the power strip when I turned off the computer (I can't remember why). One day I pushed the button to turn the PC on and nothing happened. Then I remembered I had the power strip turned off. Like an idiot I flipped the switch on before pushing the button on the computer again.
The PC never worked again. Luckily it wasn't a very expensive computer :p

Also:
Ran my main computer without any anti-virus, anti-spyware, ect. for like a year.
I didn't know any better at the time. Then I installed one of those free anti-spyware programs and it said there were something like 1400 critical files :eek:
 
-Formatted a storage drive (learned my lesson, always unplug drives not needing formating)
-Shorted out a PCP&C PSU with a screw driver trying to adjust the pots
-In an attempt to quickly test a new CPU under phase, didn't insulate enough (the mobo actually worked after a day of drying).
-Forgot to plug power into vid card and wonder "wtf" for a few minutes before realizing.
-Kill XP numerous times during overclocking/benching sessions.

I'm sure there's plenty of others, just can't think of them right now.

Nothing really major i guess, but some bone headed things ;)
 
Its was my first day on the job working at CompUSA (Don't laugh.) Boss handed me the first computer to be fixed. The work order said that it wouldn't boot to windows. Plugged it in, turned it on. Heard a pop, smelt a funny little smell, saw a funny little flame come out the back of the PSU. I thought I was seeing things, until a not so funny, bigger little flame come out the back. I calmly walked the few steps to his off and asked for a fire extinguisher. He laughed, then sniffed the air and smelled the burning PSU. He walked out, took one look at it, one look at me and goes "This may impact your performance review next month." He grabbed the extinguisher and put it out, but not before the smoke set off the fire alarm. And what happens in a major store when the fire alarm goes off? The fire department gets rolling. Three trucks and having the store delay opening by 2 hours later, the boss tells me "Call the guy, and tell him he won a new PC."

Technically, it wasn't my fault. I didn't set it on fire. Maybe Ted the penguin did, but it for sure wasn't me.
 
AceCurby99 said:
Its was my first day on the job working at CompUSA (Don't laugh.) Boss handed me the first computer to be fixed. The work order said that it wouldn't boot to windows. Plugged it in, turned it on. Heard a pop, smelt a funny little smell, saw a funny little flame come out the back of the PSU. I thought I was seeing things, until a not so funny, bigger little flame come out the back. I calmly walked the few steps to his off and asked for a fire extinguisher. He laughed, then sniffed the air and smelled the burning PSU. He walked out, took one look at it, one look at me and goes "This may impact your performance review next month." He grabbed the extinguisher and put it out, but not before the smoke set off the fire alarm. And what happens in a major store when the fire alarm goes off? The fire department gets rolling. Three trucks and having the store delay opening by 2 hours later, the boss tells me "Call the guy, and tell him he won a new PC."

Technically, it wasn't my fault. I didn't set it on fire. Maybe Ted the penguin did, but it for sure wasn't me.
Click to expand...

You didn't get fired for that did you??
 
DoomRulz said:
You didn't get fired for that did you??
Click to expand...

Nope. I worked there for about 9 more months. Ended up leaving to teach and coach Jr. Highers...Blowing up that PC has been the least of my worries ever since...
 
when i was 4 or 5 i unknowingly cleared the hard drive of a macintosh which had all of my dads documents work stuff etc etc. Since then its been pretty smooth running.
 
on an old board, the instruction manual for a NIC had a wake-on lan feature. Of course, since it was so poorly written, I thought it meant to plug the Wake-on lan cable into the place which fits. Which happened to be nowhere.

5 minutes later, I plugged it into a jumper block, bending the pins just a bit to make it fit.



The computer never worked again.
 
I forgot to turn off peergaurdian and kaspersky before going online to play video games, my computer crashed :( .
 
Left an open beer right next to a machine with no side cover installed, with a five year old boy (my son) in the same room, unattended for about 45 seconds:eek:

You can figure the rest out.
 
-Bought Windows ME
-Tried to learn how to do cable organization when the computer was still running
-Bought a Geforce 2 MX-400
-Used a backpack with a laptop in it as a goalpost for soccer... you can figure out the rest.
-Let my friend use my computer, he used it to see porn on my computer when I wasn't looking, led to 124 spyware infections.


Digital Exhaust, you like RHCP?
 
Night Black said:
-Used a backpack with a laptop in it as a goalpost for soccer... you can figure out the rest.
Click to expand...

Holy SHIT lol

How did you not realize there was a laptop in there??? :p
 
DoomRulz said:
Holy shit man, how'd you drop a drink into a running PC lol??
Click to expand...

Its called a lan party. I found out the hard way that pepsi and pentium IIIs don't mix.

My dumbest moment was leaving the mobo mounts in the case while switching boards. massive motherboard shortage ensued, as well as some repurchasing :rolleyes:
 
DoomRulz said:
Holy SHIT lol

How did you not realize there was a laptop in there??? :p
Click to expand...

Well, I didn't put it at the post myself. I had put it off to the side, and some asshole on the opposite side wanted to keep his backpack clean, took mine instead, and used it as the post.

So the bag eventually gets kicked, and amazingly the kicker missed the laptop by 1/2 inch and took out my math textbook. (No loss there :D )

I screamed at the person who put my laptop there for quite sometime, but when it was kicked the jolt actually fixed the failing LCD on the POS Sony Vaio.

If he had taken out my laptop, and all the files I needed for a presentation to about 200 people... I would have had a heart attack.
 
probably when i opened a computer and pulled the ide cable off of the hdd.

(i was only 5) :p :)

also, the dumbest thing i ever did with computers was order a dell (please, no comments on this)
 
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