The worst thing I ever did to hardware without destroying it

[Dr. Zot]

A few years ago - I came with my wife over to her one of her friends (my first mistake) house. Nan said that I worked on computers for a living and I said yeah its what I do.
So the friend of my wife said that her husband just bought a computer. I said great and now you can get e-mail from nancy (my second mistake). My wife's friend said can you show me how to do it that? (my third mistake). So I did. We went to their computer and I said do you have a modem? (I didn't see one). *Oh I forgot I was holding a can of Diet Coke by this time.* So my wife's friend said the store guy told her it has everthing in it. I said ok, it must be inside (I swear I did not see a modemjack). Before anything else gone on - she said can you open it up and see - and I said sure (another mistake). I asked for a screw driver (why? I don't know) - unscrewed the cover and looked inside and saw no modem. standing by the door I picked upped my coke the door swung open wider (which I was standing behind) (YES another mistake) in comes her husband - the can drops (coke in the computer) I cry. The Wife crys. The husband is mad but crys. And my wife tells me you know - you should be more careful when looking at someones computer. I looked at my wife's friend and said got a straw?
The morale here? If your wife says that she needs to drop by her friends house for a minute tell her to drop you first somewhere ELSE!

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Techs do it with hard drive

[dksuddeth]

I've done ram before on an Acer Aspire. while machine was up and running i popped another 16 megs of ram, the system rebooted and worked just fine

[shawnMt]

I've hot swapped a few ISA cards(usually accidentally)- once my boss was standing right beside me and I pulled ram out of a running machine - he didn't even notice. But this one takes the cake.

Installing scsi card for HP scanner in my girlfriends machine (Gateway 133 that her DAD paid $1900 for.) It was right after we moved to the college town we live in now. OK - machine lying on side (power off) - card in one hand - just opened BEER sitting on keyboard tray directly above machine - can you see where this is going? Yep, I close the keyboard tray and my brand new Bud Lite toppled strait into her Gateway. It got on everthing. Girlfriend FREAKS - I FREAK (sort of)...

Let machine dry out, pull all cards exept video. It boots - put cards back in one by one rebooting each time. Worked like a champ.

[gizmo1_1]

I have repaired computers for nearly 5 years now and have had my share of close calls. I thinks I about messed up my pants when working on a brand new AMDK/2 400 for a customer.
After I finished doublechecking all of my connections I decided to fire it up. Every thing worked fine, except occasional error messages when windows started, and lockups.
I searched for a soultion to the problem and tried every diagnostic step possible. Even a clean install with no periphials or cards. At the end of my rope I tried a new processor.
nothing worked . Untill I looked down to see the CORE Voltage was set at 3.3v.
Fortunatley both CPUs. Were ok.


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[email protected]

[emmons]

The worst thing I've ever done? I have to admit that I havn't done anything TERRIBLY horrible, but a while ago at a store I worked at we recieved a computer that would only display funky ascii charactors in various patterns and colors on the screen at boot. After a bit of research we found that one of the SIMMs was put in backwards! We took it out and put it in right and it worked fine. Suprisingly, I think it was an Acer.

[WildTech]

One of our best customers had ordered a new machine for his own home use. He ordered the works! DVD, cd burner, Voodoo 3500, 128mg ram, Awe 64, AMD K-6 2\400, etc. I did a meticulous job on the build and I left the case side open so the new owner could check it out. He came to pick up the system while I was running a final stress test on it. I slipped into the office to grab his bill and when I returned to the shop the machine was throwing sparks and smoking. The dude had be examining the interior of the case with a small, metal mag-lite. While looking around he had inadvertently touched the cpu fan with his fingers and jumped dropping the light onto the motherboard. He then poured my Diet Mountain Dew on the board to extinguish the sparks. I pulled the AC plug right away but the damage was done. What the board short didn't fry, my Dew did. We were able to salvage the drives and the case but nothing else. Good thing I wasn't drinking lighter fluid......hehe.

[Robert J Smith]

Wildtech I hope the next machine cost him
double, you must have freaked

[JeanneD]

I didn't do it, but a friend whos poor souped up 486\66 much loved pc I had fixed up a couple times brings me her pc "cause it won't boot up, it got kicked" she was almost crying.
The side of the mini tower was kicked so far in I could hardly get it off (her husband got drunk and kicked it, also broke his stupid wrist punching monitor (haha)...she who would never leave him no matter how bad he treated her, and it was bad, booted him for good finally...for messing with her pc, last straw..no AOL). Anyhow motherbd was almost a U, and cards all bent and distorted...took them all out without much hope, knowing she has no money either, put books on them overnight to flatten them back out, then put them in a new (old) case. I couldn't believe every single thing still worked, I had to fdisk and reformat, etc cuz partitions all gone, but hey...still going now 6 mos later...so...




[This message has been edited by JeanneD (edited October 01, 1999).]

[Sparky]

I had just finished an upgrade and was booting the machine. Video was not initialising so I pushed on the card to make sure it was seated just as my buddy tapped my shouler shocking me. The system rebooted. I panicked. It reset the bios but no permanent damage done...

[Dav]

Being that I'm new to the field, I've had my share of goof ups. One night, not thinking, I did something that almost everyone knows they shouldn't do. I plugged the keyboard into my machine while it was running. A faint smell of something burning, shut the machine down, open it up, and yup. I had fried a circuit on the MB. A small wire, a little solder, and.....it's still in use today.

Another time, I was installing two hard drives into their bays after moving all the compontents into a larger case. Thinking that I had the drive cage hooked onto the case, I let go, and started to put in the first screw. To my horror, the whole cage, with hard drives fell to the bottom of the case. Mumbled a few choice words, said a quick prayer, repositioned the case, attached the screws, hooked everything up, and....I'm using those hard drives still.

Live and Learn eh?

[This message has been edited by Dav (edited December 04, 1999).]

[gizmo1_1]

To day I was finishing up a brand new system for a client. This was the 12th machine I had built today and was getting tired. This one was special thought. PIII500 DVD CR-RW the works. I was careful, and neat zip ties on all of the cables, Extra screws in the drives, everything was perfect. Os loaded fine.
Two hours after I delivered the machine cutomer called and complained about some weird beeping. Ane the machine randomly shut itself off.

come to find out I managed to plug the CPU fan in backwards.
CPU temp was 215F at its peak
Glad it still works.

[[email protected]]

Gizmo, how'd u plug a P3 in BACKWARDS??

Here's my goof. Being the strange perosn I am i'm work on my dual celeron setup and though I'd turn it off, instead I'd only suspended it (Stupid ATX formfactor). and I removed both CPU's. When i realized what i'd done I turned off the machine inserted both CPU's and Windows runs w/o a hickup

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"We don't know one millionth of one percent aboout anything" - Thomas Edison

[[email protected]]

my mistake read the post wrong the FAN was in backwords. good thing not the CPU