First post, by JayCeeBee64
- Rank
- Retired
After reading a similar topic in another forum (mostly IT oriented), I figured it would be a good idea to create one here ^^.
I'll admit it, I didn't learn about computers in a classroom or by listening to someone else more experienced. It was all self-taught by mostly trial and error, reading books and magazine articles when possible, and trying out new things out of the blue. Along the way I did some things that nowadays would qualify as dumb and even downright stupid 😅
I'll start with one of my earliest experiences, trying to install a sound card in my uncle's Packard Bell in 1993. Neither one of us knew about how to configure PC resources to get one working, and the Media Vision Jazz 16 was being very stubborn in trying to use IRQ 7 no matter what (the parallel port was using it already and caused constant hangs\freezes). Out of sheer frustration I just powered the PC up and tried to plug the card in an ISA slot while it was still on; the moment I did, the Packard Bell suddenly turned itself off. We looked at each other in disbelief for a long couple of minutes, then did the only thing I could do - unplug the PC, count to 10, plug it back in and press the power switch. The Packard Bell cam back to life and booted right up as if nothing ever happened. After that scare I just grabbed the Media Vision manual, went through it in detail, and finally figured out how to change the sound card's IRQ.
My next recollection is when I upgraded my PC in 1996. It had been rather difficult in progress (bent AT case, dead PSU and hard drive, screws missing\stripped) but finally got everything installed and set. I pushed the power switch - nothing happened. I checked everything, tried again and again, still nothing. Took the PC apart, put it back together carefully, nothing. I began to wonder if I had another dead PSU or a bad motherboard when my uncle walked in, asked me what was wrong, then told me the power cable wasn't plugged in the PSU. I screamed so loud that my mother came in the room very quickly, then proceeded to lecture me about being absent-minded and working myself to death for no good reason. Interestingly enough I still forget about the power cable occasionally to this day, and it always happens to my Socket 7 PC 😊
In 2003 a family friend brought his PC over for me to upgrade the OS to XP Pro. I went through the process just fine until the CD key number had to be entered; the XP install refused to accept it. I got on the phone to tell him what happened, he came over, tried the CD key himself, was perplexed by this. I happened to look at the CD jewel case and saw that it was for XP Home; the guy's face just deflated. Afterwards he went back to his place and got the right CD key.
Of course I can't forget one of my biggest blunders when my 10 year old Athlon XP PC went up in smoke in 2011. What was really painful about it is that I already knew the PC was not in good shape as early as 2008, yet took me over 3 years to get a replacement ready - I simply got too complacent about the Abit KT7A's actual state of health (the caps around the VRM, CPU socket and memory slots were in awful shape). If only that PC had lasted an extra week....... 😢
That's it for now, though I'm pretty sure I'll remember some more of my facepalm moments later on. Now then, what have you done?
Ooohh, the pain......