14 replies to this topic

[Chris82]

So last week I ordered 2GB of my favorite RAM...Corsair XMS2 DDR2800 memory. I already have 2GB of the stuff which I've been using for about a year. Good, cheap, reliable memory...at least the sticks I already had.

I got my new memory which I bought for two reasons:

1. I have Windows Vista
2. GTAIV wants more memory

Now after I installed it I POST'd and booted wonderfully. GTAIV ran much more smoothly and Windows was a bit quicker too. A random BSOD here and there which I thought nothing of.

About a day and a half later (today) I'm sleeping and when I woke up, I go to my computer, which gives me a 'Failed to POST' message. At this point I'm thinking it's my old hard drive which was acting up a bit but I hit 'Last Known Profile' which rebooting my computer but nothing was displayed on screen, not even a Failure message. I'm scared shitless at this point but I diagnose the problem and pull out the RAM which, not surprisingly, allowed the computer to POST. So now I'm mailing it back to Newegg for some (hopefully) good RAM sticks. Having 4GB of RAM was nice, but not nice enough to make the computer fail.

Fucking computers.

Share any interesting hardware fail stories.

[Scroll_Lock88]

There is this aura of fail that surrounds chris. How can one think nothing of a few BSOD's? Something is seriously f*cked up with your sh*t and warning lights go off whenever I encounter an BSOD.



Which one should I choose, there is quite a few.........


Took a working pull APC 10,000 watt rackmount UPS home after the company gave it away for free to me for doing computer work, almost brand new, 9 hours of use. They were in the process of moving and these units weigh in at about 100-120 lbs, pretty much a two man lift scenario, anyways. They were moving it to their new server room when they dropped it, dented it pretty good. Since these were high $$$$$ servers you can't run hardware that has been dropped that powers said hardware. So I got it for free.


Brought it home, and totally disregarded any possible danger resulting from plugging it in. So I brought it to my workbench. Mind you I keep paperwork for customer computers on said desk and I set it right on top of said paperwork. I just wanted to plug it in and get it running.

Plugged it in, standby light was a solid green, sweet it still works!

Hand reached to the ON switch, and clicked it. Immediately, I heard this slight whine, figured, must be a coil or battery warming up or something, then it got progressively louder in a rather short period of time to a loud crackle noise from high voltage arcing from one point to another. Immediately I think 'Oh sh*t'

Then the blue flames came...... Came out of the sides, top, rear, anywhere there was a ventilation hole or gap in the metal it was coming out. Before I could say 'Sweet mother of jesus f*cking christ' the entire desk was in flames. I immediately pulled the plug burning my left hand in the process, and grabbed the extinguisher. Flames were rather high at this point in time. I almost called the fire department on that one


Protip, take extra care of high voltage devices that have cosmetic damage, things can go bad very fast.

[Sniprwulf]

that's one crazy story scroll.

I've had pretty good luck aside from taking apart an old tv, putting it back together and then having a sh*tton of smoke come out of it; so i took my barbell and smashed in the inch and a half thick screen while it was still on. that was fun.

[Scroll_Lock88]

Another good one, customer of mine had a computer where the CPU fan failed. Obviously it caused the computer to shut down every so often. This guy is 23 years old, so he should have common sense, well......... He doesnt.


Brought it to, wait for it, 'A friend who knows about computers' to ask him what was wrong with it. Friends reply was he heard that if you pour water into the top of the computer where the power supply goes it will refill it with coolant. Now, don't ask me why he followed his friends advice but he did it............ And you can pretty much guarantee everything was a goner.



I like the people who have friends 'who know about computers' they give me more business and money from when they f*ck it up more than before they f*cked with things.

[Jagged]

I think scroll ruined this thread by his story.. no one can top it.

I think my best disaster story was when i first built a computer. Got a �50 mobo, and a cheap stock PSU becuse it wasn't that beefy. Computer was working fine for a week, then i started smelling burning. I turned off the PC, unplugged the PSU, and all i could smell was a harsh burnt almost smelt like hair. Plugged it back in, PSU sparked and i saw a small amount of smoke.. don't ask me why i plugged it in again cos i have no idea. I had a spare PSU so i plugged it in and nothing happened. Turns out the original PSU shorted and killed my motherboard and for some reason everytime i plugged in a new PSU it would short. I got through 4 PSUs before i figured that one out.

So i ordered a new PSU and Motherboard, knowing the problem. Checked all the other components in my other PC to make sure it was all working. Put everything together.. plugged the PSU into the Motherboard, and turned the PSU on. I heard a deafening bang, sounded like a gunshot, and low and behold the PSU had literally exploded on the inside.. there was a massive hole in the plastic covering and the fan had snapped. This ofcourse f*cked up my motherboard aswell so i had to get a new one and a new PSU.

That PC took 5 PSUs, 2 motherboard and 2 graphics cards to the grave. The Graphics cards just died.. still dunno why.

[Komit]

A few months back during the summer my computer was giving me sh*t. I would turn it on, all the lights and everything would come on, but the little speaker never gave me the beep so nothing was turning on (monitor, keyboard, mouse). I've had this issues before and usually just fixed it with unplugging all the parts hooking em all back up.

Well not this time. For some reason I was a bit pissed, and decided "hey, lets try moving this little red slider on the back of my power supply". Granted, I had already read a couple stories of what it did but for some reason didn't think it'd happen to me. Well I move the slider, press the power button, and *pop*. My computer was up against a window, and I could see in the reflection a shower of sparks shoot out the back of my power supply. Took me about a month to save up for a new one (had no job). Damn I felt like an idiot.

[mr.lively]

Lame story here, but dog owners might find it funny. Last Christmas our dog sitter didn't do as she was told, stupid b*tch, and left the dog out of the crate. Also, she must have had some friends over or something because the 360 was out of the entertainment center and on the floor when we returned. Lo and behold, the b*tch had had a party and let the dog piss on our 360, causing it to come down with a bad case of the f'ing ring of death.

[Scroll_Lock88]

My single greatest multi hardware fail was at one of the LAN's I frequent.

I forget which LAN it was, acouple years ago. Anyways...........


I guess during setup 9-10 people daisy chained power strips, not sure why, because there was ample power provided and if they needed more they could have asked, anyways........ If you know a thing about how electrical wiring this is a big no no, especially with gaming machines pushing the wattage the newer computers use.

The first guy to be the first of that daisy chained mess was a guy with a wal-mart computer, now I really bark out how quality power supplies make the difference, well this guy didnt heed those warnings. Most DECENT power supplies switch off or atleast try to, but in the event they fail it automatically closes all circuits in the power supply so it doesnt leak power out damaging anything. Cheap power supplies have absolutely no protection like this.


First hour or so was fine, but I'm sure that cheap power supply was really struggling to clean the power from the fluctuations in the line and it finally snapped. We are talking fire, smoke, the whole nine yards. 8 computers dead, non salavageable because the surge from that cheap power supply was so great it fried em all. One of which was a alienware laptop, never forget the look on that guys face when it wouldnt power up, tears were running down his face the whole nine yards.


Another word to the wise, never EVER daisy chain power strips together for power, run extension cords from different outlets from different circuits to prevent fire hazards and power hazards.

[Chris82]

One of which was a alienware laptop, never forget the look on that guys face when it wouldnt power up, tears were running down his face the whole nine yards.

That's what the idiot gets for buying a $5000 laptop for gaming.

Did you kick the wal-mart guy out or make him pay for the parts?

Also I got another story, Shadow, Scroll, and Zeke all probably remember this but...

Almost a year ago we were all PVPing in EVE. My computer kept overheating in the games and therefore auto-shutting down to prevent damage.

Well this happened during a PVP outing and it happened at the exact wrong time...I was unable to assist which caused us to not be able to take down a very juicy target and his accomplices. Needless to say, Shadow was extremely pissed. The next day I took out the mobo and CPU fan and re-applied the grease to correct the issue.

[DarkShadow]

that isnt a hardware failure though chris, no sweat. :)

My most feared moment in terms of PC hardware failures is when my old Asus SK8N's Sata port (fucking via chipset) blew a transistor and started an electrical fire, luckily only the motherboard was broke from that point on I said fuck air cooling and went with a phase change kit, on water atm and not complaining.

[Scroll_Lock88]

That's what the idiot gets for buying a $5000 laptop for gaming.

Did you kick the wal-mart guy out or make him pay for the parts?

Well I didn't run the LAN, but they took the prizes that was for tournaments and tried giving it out the best they could to the people who lost items. Plus whatever money was profited for future LAN's was divided to help mitigate the costs.


Props to them for supporting the LAN attendants.

[Frag0holic]

I haven't had many problems with hardware failure through the 14 years I've been using computers.
Although my GPU overheated and almost burnt out on my laptop this fall. S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky was the culprit I think. Because I started getting all kinds of artifacts onscreen (that should tell you something's wrong), and 15 seconds later it crashed, blaming the Nvidia driver.
I thought nothing of it at the time, but pretty soon I started seeing the most random graphics glitches and artifacts in Windows and I started researching the problem. I decided it may have been software related, so I format the drive (without backing shit up... idiot!), and then Windows XP won't install. The lappy came pre-loaded with Vista, took me a while to figure out that my SATA drive wasn't recognizable by the XP install disc.
Three days of research later and I finally made a slipstreamed install disc, the works, and booted it up... Same graphics glitches... I don't feel like I could install a new GPU on this thing, even if I could find somewhere to buy one, so with the money situation as it is, I'm stuck with a comp that crashes every time I try to start a game in fullscreen. So that leaves roms and DosBox for gaming :S

[Scroll_Lock88]

I haven't had many problems with hardware failure through the 14 years I've been using computers.
Although my GPU overheated and almost burnt out on my laptop this fall. S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky was the culprit I think. Because I started getting all kinds of artifacts onscreen (that should tell you something's wrong), and 15 seconds later it crashed, blaming the Nvidia driver.
I thought nothing of it at the time, but pretty soon I started seeing the most random graphics glitches and artifacts in Windows and I started researching the problem. I decided it may have been software related, so I format the drive (without backing sh*t up... idiot!), and then Windows XP won't install. The lappy came pre-loaded with Vista, took me a while to figure out that my SATA drive wasn't recognizable by the XP install disc.
Three days of research later and I finally made a slipstreamed install disc, the works, and booted it up... Same graphics glitches... I don't feel like I could install a new GPU on this thing, even if I could find somewhere to buy one, so with the money situation as it is, I'm stuck with a comp that crashes every time I try to start a game in fullscreen. So that leaves roms and DosBox for gaming :S

Depending on the laptop model # it is possible to acquire a replacement videocard.

[Haven]

Two towns back I worked in a local shop. Guy brought in this gross looking E-Machine that had coffee stains all over it. Sure enough the age old joke of using your CD drive as a cup holder didn't work. He literally said "I tried using my second DVD Drive to hold my Coffee." Needless to say the mobo looked like an elephant sh*t in it.

He didn't have the cash to fix it, just told us to use what we could. His HD had gigs of dude-on-dude porn and about 50 pictures of his head cropped off and put onto Justin Timber lakes body. Yarly

[Frag0holic]

^
Haha that sounds more like a failure at life.