LOL Stupidest things you've done, or seen, when building PCs

OK not really an issue but amusing.

Company decided to try a hardware swap cabinet. Imagine a remotely lockable unit size of a vending machine with 8 shelves each with a shiny new HP laptop in a dock and a KVM in the back we use to remote on and do stuff.

Now, this thing also has a lovely glass front.
Some numpty being told it needed moving took it for a trundle round to said place on a pallet trolley. Its very top heavy an needless to say fell over smashed the glass, broke the KVM an a few of the laptops.

Best bit, it was only on a trial lease!

 

Transmeta Cheesecake.

 

An entire 1/2" tube water cooling loop.. except I used 3/8" barbs on every block and wondered why I had just fried a brand new A8N-SLI Deluxe...

THATS WHY WE LEAK TEST CHILDREN.

Spilling a dirty pint from a game of ring of fire over a brand new Corsair K60 is pretty high too...

 

Leak-testing children would have prevented this, how exactly?

Correct grammar and punctuation is the difference between helping your uncle Jack off a horse, and helping your uncle jack off a horse.

 

Improperly installing the HSF on an Athlon XP without thermal throttling? Check.

Cutting self on those bits which clip into front-panel 5.25"/3.5" cutouts before learning to just whack them with a screwdriver? Check.

Frying a PSU by playing with the voltage selector switch? Check.

Having the FDD LED light up solid because of an improperly connected ribbon cable? Check.

Wiping the contents of a HDD while partitioning without a backup? Check.

Scaring myself because my first self-built system didn't turn on, but simply forgot to flip the PSU power switch? Check

 

I think I would have placed the comma in your first sentence after the "how" rather than after the "this".

 

Ah, now that depends on where you want to place the emphasis in the sentence. Let's take the comma out of the equation and instead use an ellipsis to denote the pause (which, I realise, is not the correct way to use it); the sentence could be either:

"Leak-testing children would have prevented this... how exactly?"
or
"Leak-testing children would have prevented this how... exactly?"

The latter is probably more correct, but there's also the question of style: people often write on forums, blogs, comments, etc, in the same way that they would speak out loud. I'm probably splitting hairs at this point, but what good is the internet if a pedant can't use it to be pedantic?

 

Using Ghost to clone a HDD to a new drive and doing it the wrong way...

 

Pampers on the PCB's. Duh.

 

What a noob - everyone knows Huggies are the best!

 

I bought an Abit ITX motherboard.

I still get angry at myself about it sometimes. Although, to be fair, that board is still technically working (it just sucks balls).

For something more current: I still, to this day, forget to put the IO plate in the case before installing the motherboard. I forget at least half of the time. I must have done it dozens of times, my brain just refuses to remember about the IO plate.

 

I have done that before. I once failed to notice it until after I had spent hours on cable management and fitting a full watercooling loop.

It was at least a month before I could work up the energy to strip it all down again.

 

I'm sure most have bricked a Dfi mobi at some point, I know I managed two in a row a number of years back.

 

That moment when you realise you've used dd and accidentally transposed if= and of=.

 

Sleeping psu cables and flipped the 12v/5v molex around and fried 2 brand new 300gb SATA drives just when they first came out.... Doh that one scared me.

Managed to RMA them without issue mind!!

 

Sleeping ?

 

Cables get tired too.

 

In the late 90's I once saw my boss at the time dribble into an open computer right in front of the owner, who had brought it in with a problem.

He just slurped, wiped the motherboard with his handkerchief and carried rabbiting on, seemingly oblivious to the look of disbelief on the owners face.