I did the dumbest tech thing I have ever done yesterday...

[photon]

So I'm putting together a computer for my kid from spare parts around my office since he's showing more interest in using a computer.

Get it all together, boot up, jump into the BIOS to make sure everything's ok and see a 85 degree C CPU!! Check CPU fan, that's running. It's a brand new tower cooler with those heat pipes so maybe it's defective? I take everything back apart (cooler has a back plate on the other side of the motherboard), and realize that..

I forgot to take the protective plastic sticker off the base of the heat sink!

You know the sticker usually with the big "REMOVE THIS BEFORE USING" warning on it?

Fortunately didn't burn my CPU out.

Is this a sign that my time as knowing things about computers is at an end? Can being a greeter at wal-mart or driving a school bus be far off?

Anyone else do anything truly dumb with their computers?

[Blaster86]

Ha Ha, Photon is old!

[Hack&Lube]

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showpos...8&postcount=46

[keratosis]

Time to get your class 2.
Yah, I did something pretty stupid a while back.
While flashing the bios on an nforce 2, I
was impatient and restarted the computer before
it was ready to. Even though it was plainly spelled out on the screen
not to. I also knew better as this wasn't the first time I
had flashed a bios.
Needless to say I bricked the mobo.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by keratosis

Time to get your class 2.
Yah, I did something pretty stupid a while back.
While flashing the bios on an nforce 2, I
was impatient and restarted the computer before
it was ready to. Even though it was plainly spelled out on the screen
not to. I also knew better as this wasn't the first time I
had flashed a bios.
Needless to say I bricked the mobo.

LOL, impatience when flashing a bios! That's a first!

"Arrgh, this flashing is taking too long! I'll just quit right in the middle of it!"

[Azure]

Hey, at least you didn't bend the pins on a brand new motherboard with a i7 processor.

[photon]

That would suck.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

One day I was exasperated from trying to troubleshoot a rebuilt of a computer. I had thought it was a power supply problem (it wasn't, but that's another story) and was fixated on that. Late at night, tired, and possibly under the influence I got into this internal debate in my mind whether the switch on the back of the PSU meant "currently in 220V" mode vs "flip to engage 220V mode". Stupid, but we all know what we're capable of when we're tired and trying to troubleshoot. We'll try anything...

1st time in 15 years of building systems I've seen sparks. I see Corsair's don't have that little switch anymore....

[Kybosh]

I'm gonna throw out the biggest insult one can say to a nerd/geek: You aren't as nerdy as you once thought.

[Ironhorse]

Format c:
<enter>

[Boblobla]

del *.* can usually mess some stuff up as well.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Ironhorse

Format c:
<enter>

Not nerdy enough, it would have warned you twice, once with a yes/no question, and once to enter the volume label.

So I'm gonna have to call BS on this one, unless it was say, DOS 3.3 that this happened on.

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Not nerdy enough, it would have warned you twice, once with a yes/no question, and once to enter the volume label.

So I'm gonna have to call BS on this one, unless it was say, DOS 3.3 that this happened on.

Yup.

While trying to format a 5.25 floppy...

[llama64]

And thus the root spake "rm -rf /*" and all was null and void.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Ironhorse

Yup.

While trying to format a 5.25 floppy...

Nice

[Azure]

Suddenly I don't feel so stupid anymore....

[Canuck-Hater]

Well I havnt quite done anything like that, but I had quite an experience 5 months back. I tried overclocking my CPU changed the Bus speed by about 20. After that my computer wouldnt start, so I was pretty much screwed. Had to call a tech guy to come over and fix my PC. Yep biggest waste of 60 bux.

[psicodude]

A few months ago, I was doing some work on my dad's computer. I was pretty much done and started the computer up, but left the case off to ensure all fans, etc. were working. I dropped a case screw inside by mistake, and watched it bounce around the mobo for a bit, eventually lying on the mobo beside the PCIe port. No big dea, I think, I will just reach in and grab it. Unbeknownst to me, the screw had created some sort of arc/short thing and had heated up to the 500 degree range.

Two things happened that day. First, I had the coolest looking burn on my index finger and thumb for months after....and second, my father now knows that I can swear like a sailor if provoked. At least the computer still worked...

[photon]

Originally Posted by Ironhorse

Format c:
<enter>

Heh, I had a customer a looong time ago that did that on the machine they used for their accounting and customer service and stuff.

They were trying to do the backups to tape.

Office Drone 1: Hey, how do I format a tape?
Office Drone 2: format c:

And apparently they wanted to format the tape because their backups hadn't been working for a long time! Long enough that while the data was being backed up, somehow they'd stopped backup up the application itself (which was written in BASIC and customized for them). They had to pay to get the application re-customized to read the out of date data files, and then try to recreate who knows how much information.

Glad I didn't do that one.

[photon]

Though I did turn off an entire rack of stuff that was the uplink for credit card processing stations all around NE Calgary... basically interrupted and disabled all credit card processing in NE Calgary for a few minutes.

The room was a mess with cables all over the floor, and one of the cables I was standing on to get at the rack went over the toggle on a power bar. *click*