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What your worst WHOOPS! or DOH! momment while working on a computer?

S

salamontagne

Experienced Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2010
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245
Location
Harwinton,CT
C'mon. While we all have learned from our mistakes, everybody has made a horriffic blunder or two while working on computers

I'll break the ice and say my worst was with a mini 286 motherboard that i bought from a computer show. There was no way i was going to get my money back ( i dont remember how much exactally i paid, but it was alot of savings on my part. Probabily over $200, as the 386 had just come out, as i recall.

Anyhow, i tried to re-seat the eprom chips, and turn it back on.

And, as i recall, they got quite HOT and i swear, there was a light comeing from the quartz windows!

14 years old, and i thought i knew everything :stupid:
 
I once installed my brand new motherboard with all onboard options in my old case (Athlon64 it was).
And forgot to take out one stud where this motherboard did not have a hole, but the northbridge chip.
 
So many stories to tell - so little time !

In my old age, I liken my memory to dynamic RAM with intermittent refresh. Whilst working on a first generation IBM 5170 motherboard, I inserted two banks of RAM - that's 36 of the 'piggyback' 4128 RAM chips. Unfortunately they all went in the wrong way. 36 RAM chips destroyed. Not only have I done that that once, I've done it twice. From that, I can tell you that the Mostek version of the RAM chip tolerates incorrect orientation, but the TI version of the chip never does.
 
Once I blew the fuse in my dad's multimeter (it shatered into fragments)...

But about computers, the worst thing I have done must have been to power a 120vAC PSU with 240vAC. Blue ligth, BANG, and the fuse to my work-area went out. Luckily the FDD connected still worked.
 
Recently? Taking one of the those Chinese "POST code" card makers at their word. "You can put this card in backwards with no bad effects". Blew out an HP Vectra VL motherboard that way. Nasty smell and brown southbridge chip.
 
modem7 said:
So many stories to tell - so little time !

In my old age, I liken my memory to dynamic RAM with intermittent refresh. Whilst working on a first generation IBM 5170 motherboard, I inserted two banks of RAM - that's 36 of the 'piggyback' 4128 RAM chips. Unfortunately they all went in the wrong way. 36 RAM chips destroyed. Not only have I done that that once, I've done it twice. From that, I can tell you that the Mostek version of the RAM chip tolerates incorrect orientation, but the TI version of the chip never does.
Click to expand...

I can relate. When fixing up my crop of Apples not once, but twice I inserted ICs the wrong way...one was a RAM chip, the other a logic chip. I switched on and nothing happened. I then felt the chips I'd just inserted (the wrong way) and consequently left a layer of skin on the surface of the IC, which was by now close to melting point!

Tez
 
My biggest mistake was plugging in an ISA card backwards. It was a small controller card without a backplate and I had the motherboard on the workbench, not installed in a case, so I had no frame of reference of which way was correct and I goofed. After flipping the switch, the monitor just showed lines on the screen and smoke started wafting up from the ISA card. The card was toast but thankfully there was no other damage.

I also once accidentally unplugged a computer while it was defragging the hard drive. Miraculously, there was no data loss; I must have caught it during one of the "read" cycles.
 
Amongst many, one of the first that comes to mind is destroying a brand spanking new Cyrix PR200+. Big $$$ at the time. Voltage settings not anywhere even close to being correct.

Does running over a really nice 286 motherboard while backing out of the garage count?
 
Not really my fault but a whoops regardless. A buddy was building his first machine (I think it was a 386 but not sure) and he couldn't get it to power up so he brought it over for me to have a look. We set it up on the kitchen table and after some twiddling I got it working and booted it for the first time. We were elated to see the C:\> prompt come up on the screen. Within seconds we heard a little chirp, the machine powered down and was now completely dead. We were clueless as to what just happened. About this time I heard a noise and peered over the computer to see my young daughter, about 3 at the time, standing there with a screwdriver in her hand. Apparently, she had poked the screwdriver into the back of the motherboard causing a short. My buddy was able to go back to the store where he bought the motherboard and convince them it was DOA so they exchanged it for him. He put the new motherboard in the machine and all was well.

I spent a few years of my career as a technician before getting into PCs so I've been pretty careful to check things before applying power. I have, however, killed more than 1 floppy drive by connecting the ribbon cable backwards!
 
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My worst screwup was putting a 486/40 or 80 into a motherboard while talking to a friend and rotating it 90 degrees without noticing. Fried the CPU and melted it into the socket. I guess it was a $130 mistake at that time, went out the next day and got a 486/80 chip and motherboard and paid more attention to what I was doing.
 
If it's painful, you'll certainly remember it!
I was tinning my solder iron (about 30 years ago, mind you) - when I shook the iron slightly to remove a gob of solder. The gob landed on the little finger of my right hand. 30 years later I still have the burn mark to remind me.

attachment.php


Ouch :eek:
 
tezza said:
I can relate. When fixing up my crop of Apples not once, but twice I inserted ICs the wrong way...one was a RAM chip, the other a logic chip. I switched on and nothing happened. I then felt the chips I'd just inserted (the wrong way) and consequently left a layer of skin on the surface of the IC, which was by now close to melting point!

Tez
Click to expand...

Speaking of Apples... I remember messing with the DiskII controller card in the mid '90s and connecting the interface cable on only one row of the headers on the card... smoked one of the little 74LSxxx chips on the controller. Gotta love that "magic smell" of melting electronics.
When I called up Norvac Electronics in Beaverton, OR (I grew up in Portland, OR) and asked if they had any of that chip in stock, the guy on the other end asked "So you smoked another Apple disk controller, did you?" :p
That's one of those times you start to appreciate most modern designs that at least attempt to tollerate incorrect installation by not self destructing. At least Apple's machines of that vintage had all chips in sockets.

Recently my big "oops" or rather "oh sh$t!!" moment was messing with a "The Link II" and an Atari STf... seems it didn't like my connecting things to its ACSI port while powered on :(
Killed the STf and now it won't do anything. Haven't really started trouble shooting it. It was a modified STf too, with sockets installed for all the ram chips and 2MB ram installed with sockets for another 2MB, and a socket attached over the MC68000 for use with an 80286 compatibility card. That REALLY bummed me :(

I'll need to ask for some help/pointers on that here sometime in another thread.

Live and learn they say...
__
Trevor
 
One night, around 4am, I plugged a Dallas cmos chip into a ps2 55sx backwards. Thought maybe the chip was bad so I plugged it into another for confirmation. Then I realized what I had done, after frying 2 motherboards. Got a lot of spare parts out of that #$%@-up.
 
Years ago, I was working on a Pentium I tower with the machine laid horizontal on my workbench. I bumped my shelves above the bench, which caused a slot blank to fall off the shelf. It landed exactly in an ISA slot on the motherboard. The PCI bridge emitted smoke, and that was the end of that motherboard. Fortunately, the RAM and processor were fine.
 
Lord Moz said:
Speaking of Apples... I remember messing with the DiskII controller card in the mid '90s and connecting the interface cable on only one row of the headers on the card... smoked one of the little 74LSxxx chips on the controller. Gotta love that "magic smell" of melting electronics.
Click to expand...

Lol, oh I forgot to mention. I did that too!


2008-03-01-apple-disk-controller-plug-mistake.jpg


It was SO EASY to offset the connectors on those Apple II controllers ...

Tez
 
tezza said:
Lol, oh I forgot to mention. I did that too!


2008-03-01-apple-disk-controller-plug-mistake.jpg


It was SO EASY to offset the connectors on those Apple II controllers ...

Tez
Click to expand...

Once I offsetted the floppydrive cable in my PC just like that. The drive made some of the most horrible noises I've ever heard, (almost) scearing the cr@p out of me, but luckily nothing broke.

Where is all the people that accidentaly zapped their C64s throught the serial ports?
 
Dual Xeon 603 motherboard, a Tyan unit. Went out of my way to find a PSU that would work with it (the manual specifically said to use an EPS-12v power supply, NOT an ATX 2.0 PSU) - a nice 550W EPS12v PSU.

Alas, it's hard to find anything that's not ATX 2.0 these days. Plugged it in, turned it on, and BAM - one of the chips near the processors caught fire. I think it can be repaired, since that chip is the only damage, but who knows what else it did?
 
Hi
Several times I've carefully checked electrolytics and
tantalums only to fnd that when powered up, they
were in backwards :(
I always buy two for just such problems.
Dwight
 
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