I once pinched, I believe it was a floppy ribbon cable, in between the case and cover. Dead shorted. Turned the computer on and something caught fire. I was nerding out and had a plexiglass window installed (this would have been late 90s/early 2000s) and so you could see the flames. Turn off the computer, flames went out. So just turned the power button on and off over and over to watch flames light up, flames go out. Yeah, I was easily amused, 🤣.

Early 90s, Tandy 1000 TL/2, was reading in the manual to NOT use smartdrv because of compatibility issues. Said screw it, tried it anyway. Screwed the drive royally. Couldn't even low-level format it. Had to go to my parents to explain what I'd done and how I destroyed a $400 40 MB hard drive. Oops. Dad wasn't thrilled. He mentioned it when getting it replaced at Radio Shack and the manager (who I still keep in contact with from time to time) said that the only way I was going to learn about computers is by doing this very thing.

Not me specifically, but back in the early 2000s, I was doing watercooling. Was a complete cluster back then because you were on your own - you'd find someone on eBay selling homemade waterblocks, then get your hose, aquarium pump, etc. I finally had enough of it, and a friend wanted to buy the old setup. He had an old Athlon and first time he installed it, crushed the core. That was the end of his fancy new Athlon. Second time, he was too gentle. Didn't actually make contact with the waterblock. So smoked that Athlon. D'oh. He didn't try again after that. 😀

Thallanor wrote on 2020-08-17, 16:20:

I once pinched, I believe it was a floppy ribbon cable, in between the case and cover. Dead shorted. Turned the computer on and something caught fire. I was nerding out and had a plexiglass window installed (this would have been late 90s/early 2000s) and so you could see the flames. Turn off the computer, flames went out. So just turned the power button on and off over and over to watch flames light up, flames go out. Yeah, I was easily amused, 🤣.

Early 90s, Tandy 1000 TL/2, was reading in the manual to NOT use smartdrv because of compatibility issues. Said screw it, tried it anyway. Screwed the drive royally. Couldn't even low-level format it. Had to go to my parents to explain what I'd done and how I destroyed a $400 40 MB hard drive. Oops. Dad wasn't thrilled. He mentioned it when getting it replaced at Radio Shack and the manager (who I still keep in contact with from time to time) said that the only way I was going to learn about computers is by doing this very thing.

Not me specifically, but back in the early 2000s, I was doing watercooling. Was a complete cluster back then because you were on your own - you'd find someone on eBay selling homemade waterblocks, then get your hose, aquarium pump, etc. I finally had enough of it, and a friend wanted to buy the old setup. He had an old Athlon and first time he installed it, crushed the core. That was the end of his fancy new Athlon. Second time, he was too gentle. Didn't actually make contact with the waterblock. So smoked that Athlon. D'oh. He didn't try again after that. 😀

I would like to know more about SMARTDRV killing drives . You are referring to Microsoft' SMARTDRV , right ? I am asking because, if memory serves, Tandy used to use the SMART DRIVE qualifier/name/brand on some their hardware products (hard drives, I believe).

Once not plugged in properly a BERG/Floppy connector, turned the PC on and poof! Flames and smoke.

I don't know how I managed to, but I might have shorted some pins.

Oh and a fresh one: Trying to save a Samsung SpinPoint HDD. Currently ongoing... ugh. EDIT: Currently pulling the rest of the data from it, hopefully it won't be futile trying to perseverate.

darry wrote on 2020-08-17, 16:47:

I would like to know more about SMARTDRV killing drives . You are referring to Microsoft' SMARTDRV , right ? I am asking because, if memory serves, Tandy used to use the SMART DRIVE qualifier/name/brand on some their hardware products (hard drives, I believe).

This might turn into a fun Google adventure for me tonight. Yup, it was the Microsoft SMARTDRV. Basically, it was mentioned in the Tandy 1000 TL/2 booklet that came with it. I believe it was the DOS reference guide. Thing was maybe 8.5" tall, but only 4" or so wide. Tall booklet. And it went over the most common DOS commands. I'll see what I can dig up. 😀 I suspect if anything, the reason it was some sort of weird interopability issue with the bizarro XTIDE drive interface Tandy used for just a few short years. So few, that drives were only available in 40 MB and maybe 20 MB and 10 MB. I know 40 MB for sure, because that's what I have here. (Or had - pulled it and replaced it with a Trantor 8-bit SCSI adapter and SCSI-SD kit and magneto-optical floppy for more storage, plus 1.44 MB floppy support.) 😀 Will let you know if I find anything in my search. 😀

The AT PSU in my Pentium 90 system started failing this week, with the system rebooting whenever I tried to launch a game. ATs being hard to find, I picked up a modest new ATX supply and with all the needful AT-ATX and SATA-Molex adapters, got the system back up and running. At which point it was still rebooting when I launched games.

This week I learned that the wrong glide2x.ovl file can cause reboots, and that my old PSU was fine. The lesson only cost me a day of futzing around and $65. Oh well, nice to have spares.

I like many of you, I threw away a small fortune in retro hardware. Most notably, several working dual CPU motherboards. Tyan 1564D, Abit BPS, P2B-D, all my AT cases, a complete Indigo2 workstation, all my assorted CRT monitors, and even a prized AWE64. Live and learn.

I also forgot to prime my first custom built water cooling rig and let out magic smoke of a T-bred in spectacular fashion. Damaged the copper surface of the water block.

Most recently I was in a hurry and accidentally deleted a partition with some files on it. At least I had most of the files copied elsewhere.

SilverHawk wrote on 2020-08-23, 16:23:

Most recently I was in a hurry and accidentally deleted a partition with some files on it. At least I had most of the files copied elsewhere.

Active partition recovery works magic on deleted/damaged partitions.

I realized I setup all my windows machines' partitions in the wrong way. I created a partition with the is cd on its own partition, c, windows on d: and data on e: , rendering the CDROM f: . This was useful in many ways but I realized many old games need the CDROM to be d: for the (CDROM track) sound to work properly.

I guess I can put the windows cd data on c: together with the windows installation and wait to partition the rest of the disk after windows installed and still have a separate drive for games.

Dumbest was when I gave away my collection of CPUs before I got into retro computing. That and the older hardware I set out to the curb which included a Pentium 1 SBC and at least 3x AWE32 cards and I am pretty sure a couple SB-16 cards, a Socket 7 motherboard with a P1-233MMX and probably some other stuff. This was when I was cleaning out a closet years ago.

A few years later I gave away a bunch more stuff including a Voodoo 3-3500. I forget what else was in that lot of stuff I gave away.

40 years ago I lent my Apple II to a friend during my vacation.
His mom placed a flower pot onto it, let the water pour over, and it killed the PSU.
Well, it was not my mistake, and his parents paid the replacement PSU, so no problem, and it was not even retro (at least back then), but I still find it funny.
So, it seems a bad idea to use computers to place flowers on...

I used a normal ide cable to connect a SB audigyto one of those 5.25 front expansion things once when I couldn't find the right cable. The cable melted and people in the dorm were not too happy with me... To this day I wonder if it was to be expected. 🤔

Accidentally putting two AMD 5X86 Cpus in the wrong way, and killing both. Yeah you'd think the smoke smell and no video on the first chip would be a clue, but alas. ALLWAYS double check online if your not sure you've put a CPU in the right way.

I lost my 586 privilege that day and haven't touched one since. Not gonna murder anymore of those beasts.

Joakim wrote on 2021-11-22, 21:30:

I used a normal ide cable to connect a SB audigyto one of those 5.25 front expansion things once when I couldn't find the right cable. The cable melted and people in the dorm were not too happy with me... To this day I wonder if it was to be expected. 🤔

That shouldn't have happened as far as I am aware. Pretty sure the Creative front panels use a straight through cable.

Now if you were using a floppy cable with the twist in it, then yeah, that would have caused problems.

Another mishap:
Late in 1980 I was making my own Apple II language card replacement (using a 74LS14 to save me from using the stupid cable that was only used to generate CAS from RAS).
While testing it I slipped with the oscilloscope probe.
Don't remember to which 4116 voltage supply pin the short was, either -5V or +12V, but it knocked out the whole bank.
That was more than 100 Deutsche Mark zapped in a fraction of a second.
Was very angry and learned to be very careful when taking measurements.

A couple years ago I installed a capacitor kit in a Macintosh LC III logic board, afterwords tested it and sometimes it wouldn't successfully boot up, it'd just stay on a black screen. I proceeded to recap the PSU as I heard they can also cause the black screen issue if the capacitors in them go bad, no change. At this point, most of the time this LC III wouldn't boot up anymore. I bought a replacement PSU for probably $60 with shipping (yes), still no change. Eventually I narrowed down the problem to one of the new capacitors on the logic board, one of the solder pads under the cap was loose and not making a good connection. I added a jumper wire and my Mac LC III has been good ever since. I feel dumb for having bought a rather expensive replacement PSU for no reason and not checking capacitors earlier.

And a really long time ago (probably close to 20 years ago), I accidentally killed an ASUS P4B533 full length ATX logic board by not seating an SDRAM module in correctly before powering it on. Looking back, it was a P4 board and therefore was no great loss, but at the time it was quite the bummer.

And not long after that, I remember trying to fix a bad power connector in an old Toshiba Satellite laptop, it was an AMD K6-2 400MHz system. At that time I had no soldering, screwdriver or plastic clips skills at all, I ended up damaging nearly every connector in the laptop and figured it was a goner so I had the machine sent for e-cycling. I saved the AMD K6-2 processor from that laptop though, that same chip lives on in a Micro ATX desktop PC I assembled from random parts, I still have that PC. I really wish I saved the hard drive from that Toshiba Satellite, it had a number of programs on it that now I can't remember the names of.

Some time after that, I bought a fully working Toshiba Portege R100 laptop. I couldn't get any 1.8" IDE drives to work in this laptop at all and ended up accidentally cracking the LCD screen. Some time after that the touch pad stopped working too. I surgically removed the LCD panel from this laptop, turning it into a keyboard computer. It's in pretty rough shape but somehow this tired old thing refuses to die, so I've hung onto it. Despite all that, this is one of the few laptops I've ever found that supports booting from the PCMCIA slot, I wish I had known that when I first bought it. Looking back, I wish I took better care of this laptop, good condition fully working ones seem to be really scarce now... But then this was a super early netbook and was really, really cheaply built and is super flimsy, so perhaps it was no great loss.

Had a 486DX2 66MHz PC back in the 90's, presumedly the PSU died and since I understood nothing about PC's back then and neither did anyone else in the family, the whole thing was thrown to garbage. CRT, Sound Blaster 16, everything gone just because the PSU was dead. Still want to go stand next to a wall and start banging my head at it when I think about that.

Threw away my CRT monitor after getting a LCD monitor. Threw away my CRT TV after getting a LCD TV. Could have used both later.

Threw out all my physical retail PC games around 2010 because I though digital was the way to go, only to make a hard 180 degree turn a few years later.

Sold all my PS1 games early 2000's. They were PAL games which I haven't used since I learned just how crappy frustratingly many of the PAL conversions were, but I wish I would have kept them for sentimental reasons.

Once I cleaned a Microsoft IntelliMouse Optical with some all-purpose cleaning agent, or at least I though it was some basic all-purpose market stuff. It ate the plastic like it was battery acid, completely ruined the mouse. Learned a lesson there about correct use of chemicals.

Sombrero wrote on 2021-11-23, 06:54:

Sold all my PS1 games early 2000's. They were PAL games which I haven't used since I learned just how crappy frustratingly many of the PAL conversions were, but I wish I would have kept them for sentimental reasons.

Not a mistake, PAL is trash.

Screw whoever thought that giving us Europeans 17% slower games with squished graphics was a good idea. The worst part is that most mid to high range European TVs from the late 90s could do both NTSC and PAL just fine. But developers just didn't care.

Hotplugged a floppy drive in my Compaq, somehow (still don't understand how) I fried the PSU. Luckily only the fuse needed replacement.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-11-23, 07:15:

PAL is trash.

Screw whoever thought that giving us Europeans 17% slower games with squished graphics was a good idea.

PAL is not trash.

You obviously haven't experienced Never The Same Color.
This was why PAL and SECAM had been developed in the 1960s as alternatives which didn't, for example, show the news speaker with a violet face that had to be adjusted with a "hue" knob to look more natural, and constantly to be readjusted depending on the reception quality or when changing programme.

If you experienced the "SECAM fire" back then, you'll agree that PAL is the analog TV system that gave best colors even with bad reception.

And the reduced game speed is because of PAL's higher resolution, 625 instead of 525 lines.
The alternative would have been to introduce black bars, but obviously that would have not been accepted well by the gamer audience.

retardware wrote on 2021-11-23, 12:08:

PAL is not trash.

Let me rephrase that. PAL is trash for playing console games from the '80s to mid 2000s. For TV broadcast purposes it's fine, especially if you had a European station broadcasting a PAL signal to your TV. The colors were definitively better than on NTSC.

And the reduced game speed is because of PAL's higher resolution, 625 instead of 525 lines.

No, it's because PAL TVs run at 50 Hz compared to NTSC TVs which run at 60 Hz. Here a video on the subject.

The alternative would have been to introduce black bars, but obviously that would have not been accepted well by the gamer audience.

Eh? Most PAL games had black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. And the image was squished in addition to that.