Ampera wrote:

Don't use water, use IPA.

For some reason I first read that as India Pale Ale.

In my case...

1) I tried to improve the cosmetics of the plastic case front (286 generic clone) in the bleach, then I painted it white - and tried to remove the paint with solvent. I ended up killing this beautiful case.

2) I put the keyboard bios in my Asus 386 mobo in the wrong direction and I fried the motherboard. I hope to get it repaired one day.

Vincebus wrote:

weeks ago i ALMOST killed my only 286 board, typical.. i plugged the AT p8 p9 connectors backwards , when i turned on the pc it didnt made any sound and the PSU fan wasnt spinning, so i assumed that i killed it.. however, i dont know why i had that feeling but , you know those nuts down the motherboard for mounting, in my case noticed those were big enough to make contact with some traces and short them, that short caused to turn off the psu before screwing the mobo from the bad connection.. so i isolated the screws, plugged correcty the psu, and BEEP, that was close.

I did the same thing when I put together an AT system about a year ago. Not working on AT gear since around 2005? made me forget the proper order. Man, was I pissed at myself. Luckily the Socket 7 mobo survived. I think it depends on the PSU's overcurrent protection kicking in at the proper time or at all (most of them are crap by todays standards).

I did plenty of pretty bad screw ups with old hardware, mostly when I was a kid, so a few friends of my parents gave me old computers and some hardware instead of seeing me damaging the familly computer 😁.

• Dropping HDDs on the floor, about 10 killed HDDs in 15 years, surprisingly, a 250MB Seagate was making weird noises, bur worked for 2 more years after the crash.
• Trying to install a 486 DX2-66 CPU, but badly setting the jumpers (I set it to 50MHz), I ended up using an old 486DX-33, thinking the DX2 was dead (so I smashed it with a hammer to see what was inside it 😁).
• Plugging wrongly an AT PSU, a +5V cable melted in one case, but the over current protection was usually quick enough so nothing else died on my other attempts.
• Plugging wrongly/backwards a floppy power connector, instant death 😁
• Flipping the 115/230V switch at the back of a PSU, there was a blue flash, an exploded MOSFET and burnt MOVs. I tried to repair the PSU, replacing the MOS, a diode and the fuse, removing the MOVs, but forgot to check the transformer and the optocoupler. The MOS, fuse and transformer exploded, resulting in a very bright flash (I was almost blind for a few minutes and unable to focus for a few hours...)
• Overclocking a GeForce 2 MX, it worked great, but the RAM was running hot, so I glued a heatsink, that stayed a few months, but eventually fell off on the sound card, also damaging the motherboard.
• Almost had a flathead screwdriver got through one layer of PCB, tring to install a heavy heatsink on a socket A motherboard (but the motherboard survived).

Dumbest thing I did with retro hardware was an Athlon 600 on an FIC-SD11 back in 2003, it stopped working no matter what I did it couldn't make it stable enough to use, so I kicked it through a wall, really upset my mother 🤣.

Now very strange thing occurred after that, it posted and worked just fine no more instability it just worked, I always liked to think I scared it and made it fear for its existence 🤣.

I once did the 115/230V PSU switch, but in a weird, different situation:
An industrial machine used an old HP Pentium 4 XP system. Its PSU died. I ordered a replacement on ebay, installed it, tested it in my office, and hooked it back up to the industrial machine. Powered it on and *poof* it exploded.

for some unknown reason, this particular machine's PC power was wired internally for 230V. We have other similar industrial machines and their PCs are all wired 115.

Fortunately, nothing died but the PSU. I ordered another one, this time switched it to 230V before hooking up to machine, and all was well.

Ampera wrote:

Don't use water, use IPA.

When I read this, had I been drinking, I would have almost spit IPA (India Pale Ale) all over my keyboard, 🤣.

I did make an error once of knocking an IBC root beer all over a 1990 Chicony 8551 101 Key XT/AT Switchable keyboard with alps keyswitches - I still have that crazy keyboard and still use it (need to clean the wax off it from the Scentsy that spilled during Christmas now that I think about it...still works fine and looks great for it's age). If you ever want to see a "drunk" computer - that's the way to do it. 🤣 - misspell self-web-search city!

The usual stuff:

- broken pins od 486DX2 (and back then I didn't have money to buy another one, so I had to downgrade to 386SX/20 MHz)
- fried 387 (of course I screwed up orientation)
- "Oh, so black wires on AT power supply connector are supposed to be next to each other? Interesting.."

And my favorite "braindead" moment - I willingly switched ATX power supply from 230V to 110V, just to see what happens. Now I know - smoke, thunder and lighting.

Crippled my favorite K6-3+ CPU.
Here is the long story. I did some reversible jumper wiring on the GA-5SMM mobo to make Tilamook running on x4 multiplier, but I forgot to remove the wire before swapping to K6-3+. Now the K6-3+ acts weird with respect to the BF2 input:
Low: normal.
High: won't post at all.
Float: post OK and get the same multiplier settings as if pulled high, but XP crashes during booting.
One solution is to let BF2 float during post but switch to low before booting XP. The multiplier setting won't change after the switch.

Yeah, uh, let's see here:

• - Roasted a PowerBook G3 Pismo by removing the CPU heatsink (don't judge, I was 10)
  - Fried an IDE hard drive by plugging in the Molex cable upside down (it was chipped on a corner so it plugged in all the way)
  - Ripped a SMD capacitor clean off of a Voodoo 3 3000 while trying to remove it from an AGP slot. BUT it still worked and I managed to solder it back on.
  - For a short time, did all of my PC part installations/swappings on SHAG CARPET. I had no other choice, for too many reasons to list. Miraculously, the only possible casualty was an ECS motherboard (knowing ECS, though, it was probably already broken)

ElementalChaos wrote:

Yeah, uh, let's see here: […]
Show full quote

Yeah, uh, let's see here:

• - Roasted a PowerBook G3 Pismo by removing the CPU heatsink (don't judge, I was 10)
  - Fried an IDE hard drive by plugging in the Molex cable upside down (it was chipped on a corner so it plugged in all the way)
  - Ripped a SMD capacitor clean off of a Voodoo 3 3000 while trying to remove it from an AGP slot. BUT it still worked and I managed to solder it back on.
  - For a short time, did all of my PC part installations/swappings on SHAG CARPET. I had no other choice, for too many reasons to list. Miraculously, the only possible casualty was an ECS motherboard (knowing ECS, though, it was probably already broken)

The last thing any of us are here to do is to judge others.

We are too busy trying to feel better about ourselves 🤣

Whether it was already broken or not, you're no longer using that ECS board, so it's for the best.

I bought an old 286 pc. It was actually first complete pc I have ever bought. I was too excited to test it, so I plugged it in without checking it out first properly. When I turned it on, the result was loud bang, electrical arcs between case, motherboard and psu and lots of smoke in the room. The seller had said he tested it, but I still learned my lessons that day. I think I was lucky I didn't get electrocuted too.

Both of these were when the now retro tech was fairly new.

1. First PC we ever had.. a 386sx-25. Was doing something and somehow shorted something and smoked the PSU. Ended up taking the PSU apart and finding a blown voltage regulator. Bought a new one, and replaced it myself. This was when I was 13. Not such a huge deal as I had learned how to solder quite a while before that.

2. My little brother and I were putting together a 486 system. We accidentally messed up the orientation of the CPU. When we powered it on it shot flames out of the CPU socket. Scared us both. Pried the CPU out of the socket (it had melted some of the plastic on the socket). We turned it around the correct way and turned it back on. Much to our surprise it worked just fine.

3. I had made a water block for my socket-A system. I ended up tightening the bracket down just a little too much and heard a nice snap/crack. Took the water block off and found that I had broken the CPU into 3 pieces. Not just the die.. the whole CPU.

4. Worst screw-up though was when I gave away multiple AWE32 cards as well as some P1 stuff. Then a few years later I gave away my collection of retro CPUs 😠

i have some screw-ups too:

-testing an ATX PSU with my main HDD and some low end mobo, everything got smoking, and i hadn't even turned on. The HDD got a broken fuse that was replaced and now works.

-broke a Radeon 7950, the thing was really hot so i supposed i could fix that, cleaned the heatsink and put some new thermal grease, started gta V and, like 5 seconds later, the card is dead.

-Buying my current machine's motherboard. it's a Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3 (AM3+). I buy a lot of used stuff, i prefer that way so it's cheaper to me. This one was like half the price of a new one, so i bought it. 1 month later: USB not working (even the 3.0 that uses a separate controller), PS2 not working, Firewire not working, main PCI-Express x16 slot locked at x8 with newer (mostly with UEFI support) cards.
the USB/PS2/Firewire problem got fixed by "injecting" 5v and GND directly to the ports in the rear and in the headers in the front, and cutting the original traces.
the PCI-Express problem could not be diagnosed, so my shiny RX560 is very bottlenecked by the reduced bus.
Apart from that, it's rock solid.

Have a lot more, but mostly they were because of me not knowing that the AT psu connector at the mobo has an specific way to connect, and burning like 5 or more mobos that were good.

I fried my recapped dual socket, Tualatin compatible MSI Pro266TD Master-LR by inserting an AGP4X/8X compatible but 1.5V card where as the board was strictly AGP4X 3.3V 🙁.

Was gonna post about accidentally inserting a 486 CPU backwards, but saw I already did so on the first page. 🤣

Honestly, I've never really caused any outright catastrophic physical damage to a computer as a whole. Even the previously-mentioned backwards 486 was a relatively quick fix. There are a few more moments of stupidity I can recall though.

My family's first 486 was my first in-depth encounter with computers more complex than an Apple II, and for the first year or two of using it I was rather ignorant about how Windows 95 worked. One day I was browsing the files on the hard drive when I saw how "messy" it looked. So, I decided to go about "sorting" the files on the hard drive into different folders along the lines of "TXT Files", "BAT Files", "SYS Files" and so forth. Needless to say, it refused to boot once all the critical system files had been moved. No physical damage of course, but it required a very expensive trip to the local "computer doctor" to get it working again. 😜

==========

A couple more years later and the exact same 486 system, I had learned a little bit more about computers in the meantime and was in the process of doing some upgrades to hopefully extend the useful life of the system. I had successfully installed a new 4GB hard drive and maxed out the memory to 64MB, upgraded it to Windows 98 (Not recommended I know, but I didn't know that at the time), upgraded from the 14.4k modem to a 56k modem, and also installed a network card (That ultimately ended up never being used). The final thing I was looking to do was replace the Trident VLB video card with one that was faster and had more memory.

Now, at the time I was fairly well along into learning the innards of computers, except for one thing: I kept confusing 8-bit ISA slots with PCI slots. In my mind, I'd look at the 8-bit ISA slot on the motherboard and tell myself "Oh, that's a PCI slot because it's shorter than the rest!". This confusion then fueled the notion that the new video card needed to be a PCI video card. Thus, I went to the local computer repair store, gleefully bought a 4MB PCI video card, then brought it home and proceeded to shove it into one of the 8-bit ISA slots. I found it VERY odd that the card stuck out from the back a couple inches, and that it was also installed upside-down (This was the first PCI card I had ever seen). I assumed maybe the card had been assembled wrong, but decided to try it anyway.

Needless to say...it didn't work. 😜 Surprisingly, it didn't damage the motherboard. I was absolutely convinced the card was defective, so I returned it to the computer store and got a different video card...an ISA video card. Recall that the computer in question originally came with a VLB video card. Yes, my inexperience meant I went from a video card that wasn't even compatible to a video card that WAS compatible...but was significantly worse than the one the computer originally came with. You could literally see Windows drawing the screen line by line. 🤣 Again, I thought the card was defective, and returned it.

Defeated, I stuck the old VLB video card back in. An unexpected bonus, though, was that the drivers for the ISA card I had tried were still installed, and they were also compatible with the old VLB card, unlocking the 16-bit color mode. Before that, Windows had been using a generic "Super VGA" driver limited to 256 colors. I was genuinely surprised!

==========

I've mentioned this in another post before, so I won't get too detailed. But, there also was the time where on my first custom build I tried to power an external USB hub from one of the PS/2 ports and ended up frying it. 😵 The system still booted and ran...I just didn't have any functional PS/2 ports anymore. 🤣

==========

Probably the most destructive stupidity I have done only affected a hard drive and not an entire computer, and the drive in question was already dead. A friend sent me a failed hard drive to see if I could recover any data off it. I found out the spindle was stuck and it would not spin...and I mean stuck HARD. I thought maybe it was just a lubrication or bearing issue, and breaking the spindle loose might get it running just long enough to recover the data.

WELLLLLL...my method of "breaking the spindle loose" involved removing the drive cover, grabbing onto the hub with a pair of locking pliers, and trying to twist it as hard as I could. Needless to say, not only did this fail to unstick the spindle (It was rock solid), but it also mutilated the hub, liberated several metal shavings into the drive case, and scratched multiple deep gouges into the top platter. Thus, even if the friend had wanted to send the drive in to a professional data recovery service, I had just basically screwed up the chances of them being able to recover all of the data. 😵

Well the very first family PC was an HP Vectra desktop with PIII 733 370. I was playing Counter Strike 1.6 on it online, GTA vice city and similar old games. But when the PC did stuck on something and not responding i was boxing it, or boxing the old CRT monitor. One day something was no ok with the machine so i did turn it off, opened the case and i saw SW jumpers, i did move all of them (seems that damn SW jumpers are really attractive to damn kids...) and later on the PC was f***ed up as a friend did reinstall it like 20 times, and was corrupting in no time, so i brake the whole thing, did keep the CPU, sold the memory and the HDD, and the mobo, PSU and rest all did get smashed with hammer and got to the local trash.....

After that machine one family friend did give us their old PC socket 462 Sempron 2200+, ASRock k7s41gx, some small HDD, junk PSU, only 128MB of memory, MAN that thing did take years to load Win XP damn, so a friend helped me to find proper memory and to upgrade, and after that was ok.
In that time i was still in school and an idiot i did hit this PC multiple times, as i play CS 1.6, or when i get killed, and specially when the PC not responding, this is how i trashed the original HDD, and later the 80GB IDE replacement. I still can remember how good was to move on from that junk SiS integrated video to nVIDIA MX440 i think, the colors was so much better...
This PC ended up having problems in internet as was become slow as hell, reinstall did not fix it, and a guy from the internet company did come to see what is the problem, was all the capacitors on that junk asrock board was blown up, from the junk PSU. I did sell the PSU and the board, to some guy while they was still working, most funny thing was that moron did run the same PSU on that board, and seems the PSU was close to blown, so it did blow as well as the junk ASRock board, and he was calling me on the phone to tell me that i was selling him not working parts, but he did know it was his fault...

Normally im very precise and delicate when now im working with PC parts, as we all know they are very sensitive, but some times even i fail. Like when i in a rush i forget to connect CPU fan, VGA cables. There was at least 1-2 times i did broke the corner plastic of IDE connector on mobo, even on my good old ABIT NF7 V2, but i did glue back the broken plastic...

I did buy for dirt cheap Radeon HD3850 AGP only 10 euro, it was not in perfect condition, like a DVI pin was hit, some scratches all over the card. I decided to clean the card and change the TIM, as i opened the card there was dual sided tape on the GPU chipset, and when i put the card back together it was showing broken images/colors... BUT im sure there was something wrong with the card in the first place, as the tape on the chipset was one of the clues, and the others was the DVI connector that was hit, i did remove so much mobo stuck heatsinks,, or videocards heatsinks, this never happened before...

I did get for free an wonderful ABIT BE6 (original not -II or V2), BUT problem was it did not want to run my PIII 1GHz on adapter that was running just fine before on my ABIT BE6-II (other mobo that i did trade), as i did knew there was one really bad bigger cap right to the VRM, but i did want to see the CPU running before replacing the caps. Well the small 400MHz PII was running just fine, as i did try several times to run my 1GHz PIII nothing, or instant shut down. Well on the last try there was magic smoke from the mobo i was in shock, turned in the fastest possible way the power off. Well the some was from the place where is that bad cap, i was first thinking the VRM of the board was toast, but is ok, as when i get a friend he will replace all junk caps to revive the mobo as using ABIT BE6 mobo only for PII is not optimal...

Other retarded thing i was cleaning my very first IBM Model M (how excited i was back then finally Model M...) , bcuz the keyboard was so damn dirty and missing 7 caps all keys was working (and even now as im typing on it here) (well for 5 euro i guess is ok to be dirty and to have battle scars..). I was cleaning it fine every single cap and key, also the cable and all. So far so good, but the retarded thing was someone (idiot kid i guess) before me did write symbols on the key caps, also there was hand writing on the back of the keyboard the IBM sticker (as my Model M is of the last original IBM gen 3 with plastic sticker not paper) and like an idiot i did try to remove that on the back as well as i did not have a f**king clue that was QC from the IBM factory, i did think it was the same moron that did write the symbols on the front of the keyboard, so i did remove part of the back label, good at least i did not remove it all....

I guess just bad luck that some idiot did write that things in the front, as i did not have before Model M, i did not know the back is with hand writing, not machine one.........

Still can remember when my uncle give me his old TFT monitor, i was still boxing the old CRT monitor when i get mad at games. The next day i was with new monitor, and the moment i got mad i did punch the damn TFT i was like 😳 ooo F***, but there is very positive thing from all that, as the monitor was some BENQ and did have like 4 frozen pixels, and after the punch the monitor did fall behind the desk, and after that punch the pixels was not there, they was fixed damn....

Some years ago, when I renewed my computer I bought an Athlon 64 3200 with mainboard and RAM so I could keep the case, PSU and drives from my old computer. At that time, the shop had "boxes" (cubicles) where a customer could assemble and test his own computer.

So I assembled the entire thing and powered on. Power led blinked and died. I disconnected everything except CPU and RAM from the mainboard and tried to power it. Nothing.

I called the employee at the shop and checked everything. Was it a DOA mainboard? So the buy gave me another mainboard and left. I connected CPU and RAM and powered it. It worked and I shut it off to connect the drives, cards and all the stuff. Again, I powered it again... and it died again. So I checked every wire one by one until I saw the source of the problem...

Some time ago I installed in my case a front panel (that time I had an Athlon 1 Ghz) with flash card slots and sound, USB and IEEE1394 ports. When I dissassembled the case, I disconnected the USB and IEEE1394 cables (to make some room and get to the mainboard screws). The front panel had exactly the same connectors for both cables and I connected them the wrong way (so the IEEE1394 port was connected to the mainboard USB ports). I connected them the right way and called again the employee. Because I was a good customer and they trust me because I was working on it, they believed they had received a faulty lot of mainboards. He gave me another one, we both checked it thoroughly (RAM tests and those things, although I knew I had burnt the previous mainboards) and when the test finished, I left the shop with my computer. Happy ending 😀

On another incident with another Athlon computer, a coworker received a computer that locked up randomly. We made a stress test and discovered that CPU got too hot so he opened the computer cover and used compressed air to clean it. After cleaning it the computer refused to work (no beeps, no image, nothing), so he disconnected everything and cleared NVRAM... nothing. After a while, he dediced to dissassemble the CPU and RAM and use contact cleaner on them (it's amazing how much problems can be caused by some dust or oxyde on connectors).After disassembling the fan and CPU he left it on the table and the cause was clear... the compressed air moved thermal paste so it lied on the CPU surface (shorting those capacitors/bridges/resistors that tell an Athlon CPU the FSB and multipliers). After that it took over 15 minutes and an entire contact cleaner spray to clean all the thermal paste. Fortunately, the CPU survived without damage.

Last week while I was toying endlessly with my controller card trying to get my second COM port working (fixed), I moved my pci bracket mounted CF to IDE and left it hanging loose since it was in the way of the controller card jumpers, one of the power ups I didn't realize the +5v trace was laying flat on the bare metal of my case.. It smoked as soon as I turned it on and the copper trace came right up. Sigh.