There are quite a few frustrating things. A big one is trying to find documentation, manuals and drivers for old and particularly for more obscure hardware. Another one are manufacturers that use standard connectors with custom pinouts (hi, Dell) or completely non standard form factors and connectors.

However my top spot is the whole Universal AGP malarkey where manufactures either deliberately or through sheer incompetence fail to adhere to the standards or rather merely use them as guidelines. I REALLY hate those bastards.

Trying to figure out how OEM cases come apart (HP, I'm looking at you). Having to disassemble the whole flippin case just to get to a RAM slot or something equally stupid.

Non-standard positioning of connectors on motherboards, and therefore often horrible experience of doing cable management (or even just trying to reach certain devices).

Just remembered a good one. OEM cards that have the same manufacturers part number and device ID as the actual retail model, but have cut down features or need special OEM drivers to work at all (Creative labs and dell are particularly guilty of this).

I second taking cases apart - old Macs and PS2s drive me nuts, not mentioning the Indy I still didn't figure out. I never know if I am supposed to use force or I am breaking something as there's a hidden screw or tab I didn't notice.

most frustrating part is

turning ON...and wont post
turning ON again...and it posts

turning ON with a videocard installed...wont post
using another motherboard with same video card..and it posts.

For me it is making memory in DOS. It takes me forever, as a matter of facts I have never ever finished any build because I can't run anything because of lack of memory. Not that there is too little, but because I can't manage it.

Working on them before access to the Internet. 😎 😉

Also drivers from old hardware from companies that ARE GONE

like soyo, pcchips, epox, DFI, and the list goes on and on

and dealing with different brands of memory for example PC133, so many vendors and its a lottery because the memory says 512mb and the motherboard detects 256.
some of them don´t even boot with the memory installed.

and that even happened to me on motherboards where the manual said they accepted 512mb.

When documentation is wrong.... I mostly see it on Socket3 systems.

brostenen wrote:

When documentation is wrong.... I mostly see it on Socket3 systems.

or worse, the documentation is technically correct, but you have an undocumented revision of the hardware (usually very early or very late in production) or it is an OEM specific model.

Last time I built a a 486, I tried 2 motherboards before I found one that would POST. Then I went all the way through installing DOS only to find that it would corrupt itself on the first reboot. I tried different hard drives, IDE controllers and finally just swapped motherboards again, before it would work. So 3 dead/dodgy motherboards.

I did a big purge/selloff after that.

Fiddeling with 50pin SCSI-II is not a smooth walk eighter, when it is the first time one see it.
The same regarding harddrive, when the BIOS does not have user-selectable drive parameters.
Or just working with old hardware in general, when it is first time I am playing with it.
Finally as it was mentioned previously. When the official support-webpage is no more.

I just need a $something . . . if only I hadn't thrown it away 20 years ago.

Here's my top 3:

3. Removing molex power plugs from drives which can hurt my fingers
2. Configuring a good working Windows 95 / MS-DOS hybrid pc with all drivers.. (takes ages)

But on first place: 1. INSTALLING AND REMOVING CPU HEATSINKS / COOLERS 😵

SpectriaForce wrote:

Here's my top 3: […]
Show full quote

Here's my top 3:

3. Removing molex power plugs from drives which can hurt my fingers
2. Configuring a good working Windows 95 / MS-DOS hybrid pc with all drivers.. (takes ages)

But on first place: 1. INSTALLING AND REMOVING CPU HEATSINKS / COOLERS 😵

Why the heatsinks? Are you talking about the ones that you normally use a flathead screwdriver to push the retention mechanism in/out of place (socket 3, 5, 7, 370, 462, etc.)?

If so, a nut driver works way better and you don't have to go insane worrying about slipping off and killing the board.

cyclone3d wrote:

SpectriaForce wrote:

Here's my top 3: […]
Show full quote

Here's my top 3:

3. Removing molex power plugs from drives which can hurt my fingers
2. Configuring a good working Windows 95 / MS-DOS hybrid pc with all drivers.. (takes ages)

But on first place: 1. INSTALLING AND REMOVING CPU HEATSINKS / COOLERS 😵

Why the heatsinks? Are you talking about the ones that you normally use a flathead screwdriver to push the retention mechanism in/out of place (socket 3, 5, 7, 370, 462, etc.)?

If so, a nut driver works way better and you don't have to go insane worrying about slipping off and killing the board.

It's my overall experience, having worked on all kinds of pc's, from old up to new systems. A lot of aftermarket CPU heatsinks / coolers are very difficult to install and some sockets are poorly designed, resulting in damage of socket or cpu. Especially Intel socket 478 and 1150 / 1151. In fact, with the latter I have had so much trouble that I decided to upgrade to socket 2066, due to the way the socket closes and the way the cooler can be installed on the cpu.

Trying to find drivers for hardware made by long dead companies.

Trying to locate manuals for short lived hardware because the manufacturer didn't bother to silk screen the purpose of jumpers on their boards (Ambra I'm looking at you) and you need to bypass something built in that has decided it no longer wants to play.

Co-workers who (even though the boss says they know exactly what they are doing) can't even work out how to download a driver let alone install one (I used to do rebuilds for an e-waste outfit and we would recondition what we could for resale).

Proprietary parts that you cannot get schematics or replacements for even though they were standardised long before the box in question was built.

Re-installing Windows 98.