killed my computer

[WildTangent]

well last night, when i was messing around with my dedicated linux box, i swapped a hard drive so that i could try some new things (without erasing all the customizing and such i did already). i successfully installed ubuntu with reiserfs, and xfce rather than gnome. at this point, i decided i needed more slack from my keyboard, and pulled on it, and then the problems started. my monitor suddenly went blank, so i get up and check the back of the computer. well, theres the problem, the KB cable had gotten wrapped around the monitor cablem and had pulled the whole graphics card loose. easy enough to fix i thought, so i turned the computer off, and pushed it back in. turn it on, and i hear one long beep, and then 3 shorter ones, and no video, no HDD activity. so i go and turn it off again, and check to see that everything is plugged in as it should be. once satisfied that nothing was amiss, i turned it on again, still nothing, i turned it off once again. out of frustration (and this is the part that a semi-experienced computer technician should have never done) i hit the computer, and then, it wouldnt even turn on again. if i hit it again, the PSU fan would run, and the HDD light would turn on, but there was no power light on, and the other fans and the HDD wouldnt spin. my first attempt at troubleshooting this new problem was to swap out the PSU, no dice. i then tried to swap the memory, not happening. out of desperation, i swapped the CPU, and this time there was actually some new activity. upon pressing the power button, the HDD spinned up, and the fans started, but still no image on the monitor. it was at this point that i gave up, and im fairly certain now that my motherboard, or my CPU (or both?) is the cause of the problem.

anyway, im sorry to make a novel out of my story, but has anyone else here inadvertantly killed their computer through what seemed like simple experimentation or any other action? please share your stories, i need something to laught at, because at this point, im down to 1 functioning computer (from 4) and its running nothing but windows

-Wild

[codejunkie]

yep i decided to flash the bios on a brand new box that was working perfectly fine just because i felt the need to toy with something when in the middle of the flash the power went off well needless to say when the power came back on i thought i'd try it crossing fingers toes etc, hoping the flash completed in time well lets just say she was a paper weight and i made a big goof. :roll:

[WildTangent]

>_< ouch....thats why i refuse to update my BIOS unless its absolutely neccesary, and when i do, i do it at work on a APC backup power supply. i had a friend lose his brand new Asus A8V-SLI (at the time worth around $300 IIRC) when the power cord got pulled out by his dog

-Wild

[codejunkie]

>_< ouch....thats why i refuse to update my BIOS unless its absolutely neccesary, and when i do, i do it at work on a APC backup power supply. i had a friend lose his brand new Asus A8V-SLI (at the time worth around $300 IIRC) when the power cord got pulled out by his dog

-Wild
yep it hurt for a day or so but i figured what the heck i and went and bought $40.00 ECS socket A motherboard swiped the parts from the other system and got it running for less then it would have cost me for the bios chip for that board.

[aragorn2909]

About a year ago I decided to swap out my stock amd heatsink/fan for a nice, quiet copper core. The salesman at my local pc shop tried to sell me a copper shim to go on top of the cpu, but I figured, hey, thats an extra 5 bucks in my pocket! No thanks! Got the thing home, proceeded to change them out, and just as I'm getting the new one hooked in, I hear a little grinding noise. Didn't I chip the corner of the cpu!
Shiny new cpu =$150
Copper shim = $5
Experience/Embarrassment = priceless

[sonny]

Well... I'm gonna tell my story... Actually I didn't do anything but I got frustated for almost a week.

I was doing some googling, listening some music... enjoying my box, wasn't doing anything important. Just need to point uot something, I have my case open, cuz I've airconditioner in my room, and the air is flowing directly to it, just to cool it off. Anyway, everything was fine, the temp was under 30°C, when I suddenly heard a buzz, turned left to see my mother-board, when I realized there was a lighting inside my pc, the light went up and down my mobo, then stopped at the same point it started, and one integret (don't know the actual word in english but is those black things with "legs" on the mobo) was talking through an electric impulse with an other one, forming an arch, I was petrified, and I realized that my toe was searching for the off button in the "(the thing that has several plugs and it's desinged for computer use :grin: )" but couldn't located it, then my toe found the button and everything stopped. When I checked up, the black thing had a hole in one of the "legs". Then I cried... for almost a week... :sad:

PS: I gotta improved my electronic english, sorry for all that.

[poofyhairguy]

It was my 286. My second computer with a 1x cdrom drive (anyone remember caddies?). I didn't understand what the point of a surge protector was.

First lightning storm and the entire thing was fried. No more dos shell and ducktails for me. I miss PCs with a turbo button.....sigh.....

And last year I dropped my Pentium 3 600mhz PC over a story. It destroyed the cdrom drive, the motherboard, and the case (bad). But last month I put the cpu in great little computer that exists to play new family guy on my tv....

[knewbix]

And last year I dropped my Pentium 3 600mhz PC over a story. It destroyed the cdrom drive, the motherboard, and the case (bad). But last month I put the cpu in great little computer that exists to play new family guy on my tv....

I have to ask this - how on earth did you manage to drop your computer that far?! :-? I can understand dropping it from arm height or such, but over a story?

[UbuWu]

yep i decided to flash the bios on a brand new box that was working perfectly fine just because i felt the need to toy with something when in the middle of the flash the power went off well needless to say when the power came back on i thought i'd try it crossing fingers toes etc, hoping the flash completed in time well lets just say she was a paper weight and i made a big goof. :roll:

Did that as well, but most bioses provide a way to completely reset the bios if such a thing happens. I had to copy a some files to a floppy and insert it and press some special keycombination while booting. Didn't work at all... Later I discovered this was because it was a ls120 floppydrive (never used it for ls120 floppies) which is not connected to the normal floppy disk connector. So I had to buy a floppy drive, attach that to the computer and then restore the bios. But before I found out about all that I had already bought a new computer...

[primeirocrime]

It was my 286. My second computer with a 1x cdrom drive (anyone remember caddies?). I didn't understand what the point of a surge protector was.

First lightning storm and the entire thing was fried. No more dos shell and ducktails for me. I miss PCs with a turbo button.....sigh.....

And last year I dropped my Pentium 3 600mhz PC over a story. It destroyed the cdrom drive, the motherboard, and the case (bad). But last month I put the cpu in great little computer that exists to play new family guy on my tv....

oh 386 with the turbo button... felt just like the Flash.

I live in a building in the last floor, 3 years ago there was an electrical storm and most people would think that surge protection would suffice, but the bizzarro world were I live made every other copper wire of the telephone company to fry, For the first time I saw a modem light up [usb] and then just a loud crack in the PC. amazingly the hard-drive was intact.

[WildTangent]

one of my older PCs was fried by lightning, everything but the hard drive and CPU were fried

-Wild

[CoriolisSTORM]

Check this out, the lightning hit near my house, came in the telephone line, fried the house alarm, and then took a direct route to my baby at the time my Pentium 1 box and the only one I had. It took me forever to convince my parents to let me fix it, which I done, as it had only fried the sound card, modem, and power supply. Took a year and a half to be exact during which I became a console gamer mostly. Now everything is unhooked from the sockets during a thunderstorm. We also had lightning strike near our house one day, which went in a wire sticking out from the foundation, and worked its way through our plumbing system and ruptured a few pipes. Needless to say, no one uses the plumbing or anything electronic during a thunderstorm now.

[poofyhairguy]

I have to ask this - how on earth did you manage to drop your computer that far?! :-? I can understand dropping it from arm height or such, but over a story?


OK...so my current apartment (and the one I was moving in at the time) Is really just two rooms- a bathroom and a livingroom + kitchen + bedroom hanging over the livingroom like a balconey. I had the computer in the corner of my bedroom and I was trying to move my bed when I gave the ole Pentium 3 a really good shove (accedentaly) and the thing dropped from my bedroom to my living room. It was quite an awesome thud...


Luckily stuff from the Pentium 3 days are cheap now so I could fix that old friend of mine easily. It as two CPUs now....and plays TV on my TV like a pro (I am too cheap to go the "order cable TV + TIVO" route when the world of torrents and bits suits me so well......) So that one wasn't as tragic as my 286 (those are hard to find now).

[Big Venus]

I didn't kill it, but I haven't been able to get that particular piece of hardware to stop doing what it is doing...

I had my first system for about 2 or 3 years and then decided to get an 80GB hard-drive. I went out and brought a 80GB Western Digital drive at the time for $120 but I should have got an 80GB Maxtor drive at the time cost $135. $15 difference, but I keep 15 dollars and brought the Western Digital and installed windows xp sp1 on it and it worked good for a while in that AMD Duron system. Then one day I heard this wushing type sound (like a yeti or some animal cry) it was constant and then I decided to power down the system and try to reboot it and it would only allow the BIOS to boot and I haven't been able to get the actual disk to format or anything since then. So I suck it and dished out $135 dollars for my 80GB Maxtor drive that I should have gotten first.

Since then I am not going to buy a Western Digital, Seagate or what not drive, only a Maxtor drive for me...

[WildTangent]

Since then I am not going to buy a Western Digital, Seagate or what not drive, only a Maxtor drive for me...
well, i havent had any bad experiences with either 3 companies, but i have heard that large (120GB+) maxtor drives are loud, so my new stuff will be WD (cheaper than seagate)

-Wild

[Big Venus]

Still to this very minute I don't know what happened at the time the largest was a 100GB and it only lasted for 2 months.

[WildTangent]

YAY! temporary relief for my lack of a linux box! since my windows computer serves rather important web server duties, im reluctant to throw in another hard drive and dual boot it with linux, so, i got vmware through work, and im installing ubuntu on it as i type! :) this isnt permanent, im hoping ill only need to do this for about a month

-Wild

[WildTangent]

huzzah! now posting from my virtual Ubuntu machine! its slow as hell (5 minute boot time! :O ) but its usable once its up and running

-Wild