What is the dumbest thing you've done to/with your computer?

I saw a thread like this on the MaxPC forums and always got a kick outta the stuff that some people do. So....lets see what the MGs have done!

of course, someone has to start it off so.......i guess thats me lol

When messing around with RivaTuner i was pleasantly surprised by the GPU fan control....i proceeded to mess with it, and dropped the speed quite a bit. ahhh...quieter now, much better. Shut down the computer, go to bed. next morning i turn on the computer, everything seems normal. Get into windows, about to start a game when a window pops up, "GPU temp has exceeded slowdown threshhold" AHHHH! Check the temp...125C!!!! Of course i start freaking out lol, pull up rivatuner and crank up the fan speed which had apparently stopped completely lol and hadnt started up at the slow speed because of some *ahem* "excessive" dust. at least i didnt kill my gpu lol....:banghead :banghead :banghead

 

OK, there was this one time at band camp....... oh that's a different story.
I tried to fix an ailing, older PC by deleting and uninstalling what I (at the time) thought was trivial stuff, so that it had more space on the hard drive. It turns out I removed part of the OS and had to do a complete reinstall of Windows.....That did fix my problem though and it brought me here!!!

 

let other people use it!!

 

Allowed PCWorld to service my Dad's.

 

lol i hear ya on that one laurieb....ugh, it annoys me so much when people mess with my computer...

 

I went slap crazy when I got my first laptop and loaded it up with everything imaginable from this site and promptly crashed it. Computators here in town had to wipe it clean so I could start all over again. It's still loads of fun to try things out from MG's. I'm addicted.

 

Password it.

 

What's the dumbest thing? Not waiting three more weeks to build it. :-( I paid around $300 for my processor. When Core 2 was released, i could get it for half that price. Same thing with everything else. All the prices dropped. I know the saying is that if you wait for the next best thing you will never end up buying anything because technology moves so fast. But this was three weeks! But I just had to have it sooner! :-( *sigh*

 

yea ive considered that but whenever i tell my parents im gonna pw it (cause my brother/his friends/parents themselves mess with it occasionally when im not around) they say no cause i guess they think im trying to hide something lol

 

Pulled out RAM when the computer was on....

I forgot to turn it off.

*scowls*

 

I see you are 18. If the computer is yours, and yours alone, password it.

 

Once, when I was young (er than I am now) back in the olden days of windows 3.11 (not that olden) I deleted all the papers with the funny symbols, because I wouldn't need them anyway.

Reinstalling off of 9 floppies was fun.

Remember when they could fit an OS on 9 floppies, rather than 9 DVDs?

 

I've done many stupid things in my life... Not so many with computers though, but there are some, of course!

I once didn't stop my cat when she took a stroll over the keyboard on my old performa while I had several proggies running. "Something" happened, a conflict occurred, causing a big black box around the cursor.

I learned how to reinstall my comp though...

joshcrick, love it! I always wondered what would happen, but I've never dared trying!

 

i can think of a few

when i was about 10years old i thought i would make my keyboard better by removing the keys and putting them in order. A B C D........ lol

another time i tried making room for a game test drive 4? on a 340mb hdd and i deleted windows installed TD4 and restarted and got nothing.

and not to long ago like 2years i was working on a computer and while it was running i unhooked the hard drive and tried..... Tried!!!! hooking up another when it shorted out and knocked me onto my back side lmao i made it a point after that to make sure every pc is off and unplugged before i touch its insides.

 

I always move hardware around whilst the pc is on, and I know I shouldn't but...hey!

When I got my X-Fi soundcard, there was no sound......the mute option on the audio panel was selected and I had called Creative to give me help etc lol.

 

I downloaded Firefox and then deleted Explorer. I then spent a few hours wondering why nothing worked.

 

When my computer was overheating I had the side panel off and a fan blowing in until I realized that the computer company had put the radiator fan facing the wrong way, blowing hot air in and letting the radiator gather a ton of dust.

Or falling for an AIM virus, but that was an easy fix. One of my friends actually took a look at the bat file just to see what it did.

 

Me, I'm working on it as we speak.

 

once i installed a version of linux that was too old to be run on my top of the line tower, i didn't even leave windows on just in case i needed to get online for suport.... did i mention that i changed my bios setting so that it wouldn't boot from a disk and the turned the delay for entering bios down to zero...

 

dumped pop down the front, and wrecked the usb/firewire plugs...

 

when i decided to pick my up monitor and my pc case, each with one hand. I dropped both of em, and my monitor cracked.

 

Losing my temper with my portable and hitting the keyboard. Broke the keyboard, the hard drive, the cd drive, the case. Silly thing was I only hit it once, and not that hard. Was especially silly as large chunks of my PhD were on the computer. Ahh Toshiba not as strong as you look.

 

No One! Touches my computer. if they do they dont get far. i have a pass on the bios that wont let it boot. and one on the os.

dumbist thing ive done... i sat my 3K$ XPS on the balcony edge to grab a drink. walking back out i watched it fall 3 stories (seemed like slow motion) and shatter on the concrete below. and dell said that wasent covered in the warrenty confused i wonder why

 

Install Windows

 

I would have to say when I installed things just because I could, not because I needed to.

To wit: A USB wireless adapter and a USB Bluetooth adapter when I actually needed neither. This on a machine with 6 native USB 2.0 ports, one of which is even populated with a webcam I never use anymore.

Want my USB scanner app to both open and to power save? Every other boot.
Want my media server to work? Disable Bluetooth.

 

I hooked up an IDE cable to 2 drives and smoked (literally) the whole system. Phew! what a stink!

 

Kinda related...I left hi-powered walkie talkies on my desk near the keyboard...blew 3 in 2 weeks before I realized why the KBs kept blowing.

 

:drink Drank lots of beer and started playing with my old computer - seeing what I could do to upgrade it. Tried lots of stuff. When I went to switch out the graphics card, I forgot to shut the thing down . . .

Moral of this story: Don't drink and upgrade! :banghead

(@laurieB ref another thread . . . this was why my eMachines needed a new motherboard . . . )

 

Tried to install ubuntu/kubuntu Linux.

It killed my monitor (corrupt EDID).

So I tried again. And again. And again.

I'm a little slow sometimes.

Yes, software can kill hardware

Then, there was this time, when I had an IBM Aptiva sporting a killer PII 350mhz....I needed extra length from the PSU power connector.

So I used some pliers to try and twist off the tie wraps, as I didnt have cutters.

I broke the insulation on half the PSU power connectors. On a proprietary PSU

 

My first computer was a 386. My wife brought home a floppy copy of Works from the college that someone had installed a virus to. My friend who was slightly better with computers than me, and myself tried to remove the virus, and failed to the point where me had to reformat losing all my wifes college papers.

 

Disable a windows service needed for networking when 'tweaking' xp thinking I'll never network, then a few months later spending hours figuring out why the dam things wont connect

 

Install Windows 2000. Now that was really dumb.

 

I gave it to a salesman to use.....

 

The delete key.
Need I say more?
lol

 

Clicking on a something w/o paying attn...at some site that said u needed a "coupon reader/printer" to print coupon for Blockbusters Video...knew I did not need that n of course never seen something download that fast, hit the internet lock...but too late. Then spent an hour cleaning my computer of malware, blah!

 

LoL! - That's classic!

I've done quiet a few things that with the aid of hindsight, weren't too bright. Usually me being too impatient/impulsive with tweaking and modding gear. Or getting too greedy with the overclocking.

I've had a few near catastrophes modding and partial reprogramming of BIOS's on mainbaords, vid. cards, and even DVD burners. Nose irreparable, but I've come scarily close.

Going back some years - 'smoked' a few Floppy drives, not connecting the power lead on correctly.

 

an irreparable nose, eh? ya musta got whacked pretty hard

 

Errm..small typo, there - was supposed to read None, of course. Excuse the 'dumb' mistype. :foolish

 

After walking across the house (in flat soled slippers,on carpet, ofcourse) to get a drink and returned to my office to work on my comp...and stupid me, I reached into the tower to grab the video card without diffusing myself of static first...and damn near blew the end of my finger off, and proceeded to cuss out the computer!! Couldn't figure out if I was pissed because I fried the video card, or if it was because it hurt like hell!!!!

Roger

 

Ditto! Did in the mobo too .

 

Some days.... just turning it on is dumb enough...

I haven't done anything fun, i not deliberately soldered the power supply to the mother board... that took talent... but not much else... now, OTHER people's computers....

 

Was upgrading the HS on my personal machine, and needed to move the PSU to do it. Thought I would save time by only removing the screws, and leaving the power leads on. PSU slipped from its resting place, and landed right on the mobo. Another one bit the dust.

 

hitting the enter key after allready determining that to do so would create a very bad hair day

 

Took my laptop to the repair shop and told them it wouldn't turn off and wouldn't get out of hibernation. This was my first laptop. When I picked it up the tech charged me $50 and said if I wanted to turn it off to hold the button down until it went off. I guess there wasn't anything wrong at all, windows was just hanging.

 

Normally on laptops, if you close the lid without powering down, it will just turn the screen off, to save on power. When you open it, the screen is re-powered.

 

I've done that too! Did you remove that huge folder named "DOS", since it looked unnecessary anyway? I did...

Ten years and thousands other mistakes later, I now know a little bit more about what not to do to a computer's file system. Heh.

/Mimsy

 

back when computers used a tape hardrive, and the 5 1/4 floppy loaded the program....I type in the wrong password, and didn't know it....had buddys and myself checking everything else....somebody got it to work, when they used the wrong password, but didn't know it at the time....it all work in the end.........wobbles:cool

 

Wow you just taught me something else. Thank you!

 

attached a hard drive while the computer was on.....needless to say, it wiped my other drive...ugh!

 

A year ago I deleted my password log on and turned off my welcome screen and was running my computer as the administrator I have good virus software and keep my firewall tight but my computer started to be constantly violated with worms, virus's etc.

Only until a month ago did I read about the its never a good idea to log on and ie as an administor since this built in designation is the weakest link and just about gaurantees a worm or virus etc.