Weird Computer failure stories

I was reading a post in the hardware forum and had a thought of a new thread. There are a lot of us who do work for a living on the side, or for fun with computers. I have some stories about dismal failures, and dramatic victories I would like to hear some others.

My vietnam:
My first server experiment -
Compaq proliant server I bought off my supplier for $5.00, I bought it so I could learn a little about servers and for fill in work while I was bored. When I got it. it worked it booted to windows 2k and everything. It was a PIII 800mhz single processor with lights on, and an ata raid array. It was configured as a mirrored array, and I don't have any data I care THAT much about, so I set into formating changing the array to a striped array. Half way into this project I figgured out what I would use it for when I was done, a massive juke box file server/printserver. Well the hardware setup was a snap, I even got the compaq smart start cd with it. Well I went and formated the drives and was configuring the drives with auto and came up with an error, that no matter how hard I tried I could never get it fixed, I put over a month of labor hours into this system, and it still sits in my shop with the only thought being a bad raid card that is on order.

 

My last computer build.

AMD 64 3800+
2gb Corsair VS ram
300gb Maxtor SATA 150 drive w/ 16mb cache
ATI X800Pro
MSI K8N Neo 2 Platinum
yada yada

First few months, it ran great. Then I moved. From there on, I got random freezes, stop errors, and reboots. One day debugging the minidump would point to the video drivers, then the sound drivers, then the ram, then the cpu, and so on. I tried ram tests (PASSED!), prime95 tests (PASSED!), 3dmark marathon runs (PASSED!) more fans, bigger fans, rebuilt it (twice), different drivers, less ram, floor fans, cable management different BIOS revisions, I even tried different OSes! All to the same end.

Its now parted out in my closet.

 

Got my cheapo Dell Dimension, turned it on, decided to reformat, deleted the recovery partition. Could not reload XP because I did not have a cd, yelled at Dell, got the cd, loaded xp but could not install drivers because I did not have the cd, yelled at Dell, got the cd, could not burn music because I could not reload Sonic (no cd again) yelled at Dell, got the cd.

Subscribed to Vonage, hooked it all up and the phone did not work. Internet access was dead. Called Vonage, on the phone for over an hour trying to troubleshoot the problem. Noticed that the green lights on my Comcast modem were not blinking and upon further investigation, it was not on. Turn on connection and everything worked, amazingly enough. Hmmmm, apologized profusely to the Vonage tech and blushed considerably.

I have done several stupid things and finally I decided to go to school for computer networking, programming, security, and hardware. I want to know it ALL. (Unlikely though since everything will have changed by the time I get out of school...LOL)

 

I have a good one My computer was running just find the evening before. The next morning I turned it on started just fine, I opened my mail worked ok till I went to my inbox it started beeping like crazy.I went back to the first folder it stopped. So I tryed to shut it down and when I click on start it just liked blinked.so I did a cold shut down. Started it back up same thing.I had to leave for work so I told the wife ,She started working on it doing all kinds of things still the same so she went in safe mode.ect. Well when I got home she said she had it fixed.and she did. She moved the keyboard. The keyboard was under my monitor and holding down the escape key. Time to clean desk off

 

We had to call one of those expensive computer techs in for a malfuncton that turned out to be a pierced earing back under a key dropped by my 8 year old daughter.

 

Did you ever turn the mains electricity on with the computer plugged in while decorating your new house or removing the light fittings you were supposed to leave in for the new owners I did it a few years back while decorating which killed the a hardrive and modem

I recently fixed a friends computer an old p2 450 mhz hed been to three pc stores spend £120 in total and all he had to show was a 32mb stick of ram 'ofcourse he could have had a used computer for that' he was constantly getting BSOD,I had the computer for a few hours discovered win 98 power saving feature was turning the modem off disabled it and all was well 'kind of' the computer was still crashing but much less infrequently it was at least now usable,strangely I had used the computer for a week without a hitch

This year he bought a new computer in a box from the supermarket wanting to wash his hands of the old computer and start a fresh I hooked the new computer up,installed the firewalls,service packs and antivirus ect all was chippa

A few days later he phoned me up,everything had worked for two days now the computer wont load into windows AT ALL I checked it and yup the startup files had been seriously corrupted,my conclusion the problems with this and his old computer must be something to do with his electricity I asked ,he had his wiring checked and it was given the OK.

What could it be then?well the computer was in his daughters room,daughters need their hair to be nice,which in this case meant a set of hot curling tongs some hot straightening tongs and a 2kw hairdryer all plugged into the same adapter as the computer and all on at the same time ,she now does her hair downstairs,windows was restored from the backup and hes had a month of trouble free computing

 

bacvk when I was about 10 years old I had a p1 ACER computer 133mhz 32mb RAM and an ati video accelerator card that proabbly cost $10. My granparents gave it to me and I saved up for about 3 months and finally got a monitor, mouse, and keyboard. the computer worked great I played games like harry potter and the sorcerers stone, POD, deer avenger and a lot of SIM games. then one day my aunt came over, she wanted to get on my computer and make sure evrything was working right. so she was screwing around with the device driver and noticed tehre was a conflict with the mouse, so she uninstalled it. It took her 3 days to get my damn mouse working after that. Another good story with that pc, i was only 10 at the time so I had no idea what "monochrome" ment, so i changed my monitor to that. I freaked out when everything was in black and white lol.

 

You're all amateurs! Buy a Mac or use Linux.

It doesn't disappoint me when computers break down or play up. I expect them to.


Considering how they work, it's amazing they don't more often.

 

amateurs eh ? well at least I can compete in the olympics now, would modding be a summer or winter event? I'm sure even oh great exhaulted insomniac has a few tales of woe, even if he won't share. After all linux dosn't have all the drivers right out of the box.

 

I actually would have advised the guy to get a mac as the comp will only be used for surfing,homework ect,but I cant see any new macs that cost anywhere near £300

 

I was kidding sunscreen, don't take it so personally.

Didn't you notice the smilies in my post? p)


The very fact I have to even explain this is very telling.

 

It was a tongue in cheek comment, complete with smilies even. Nobody is perfect. Well, I am, but thats a story for a different time. I only choose to make mistakes to appear human.

 

LOL, careful what you say, with or without smilies.

I only choose to make mistakes so I can fit in with you all.

 

My best fault: The system before my current one with a 2000+ XP - which is now a webserver - had a really nice Creative GF4200 Ti graphics card. It was lovely, that thing. But ther was one small problem. Every now and then, the computer would just freeze up. The same picture would stay on the screen - but for some reason the HDD seemed to keep doing things.

Hmm, I thought. Checked the Event log and it kept saying the graphics card was being removed. That can't be the case, I thought - so I updated drivers and all that jazz, cleaned off the connectors on the slot and the card. No joy.

Then a few weeks later after having a look around the case it became clear that the panel that holds the cards in place was BENT - so it was holding the AGP card half out of the slot!

Bent the metal around a bit and I never had a problem again

Linux has nasty failiures on a weekly basis for my desktop systems - but mainly due to user-stupidity. I got a kernel panic the other day - I tried to compile my own custom kernel so I could run some webcam drivers and for some reason it didn't compile in the filesystem drivers. Hmmm.

 

Mine is so unexotic I am almost ashamed to note it. FOOD!!! The first time it happened I thought I would need a new keyboard, but took it apart to investigate and found enuff food to hold me thru a coupla days. After cleaning it out, worked fine. You'd think that would cure me of eating at the comp, wouldn't you? WRONG!! Now I just perioically turn the keyborad over and beat on it . Works every time. I need one of those plastic overlays, I guess. where do I get them?

Jack

 

Real newbie mistake a couple of years ago. Was building a computer to give to a hard-luck family that was trying to raise 22 kids, with my own parts and a lot donated from other MG members (was something of an MG project). Installed the motherboard with one of the stand-offs mis-aligned, and fried the motherboard. Had to buy a new mobo for it, and it became a race with time getting it together in time to take it up to Chicago where the family was.

 

Well I'm just so much of a pro I don't make mistakes

Hehe of course I'm joking, back in the days when power supplies came with 115V and 230V switches (could just be a UK thing here), I accidently flicked that switch instead of the on/off switch at the back and....yeh....you can imagine what happened to that computer!

 

Ok so we don't get too off topic. I was joking also, amature/olympics. I had one of those drink in the keyboard things my self. a whole cup of milk in the keyboard. shorted it out and poof new keyboard time. By the way the plastic overlays cost nearly as much as a new keyboard.

I had a good year this year, and I to gave away two computers this christmas time. One to a needy family (sore subject because there wasn't a lot of grattitude) The other one went to brazil for a non profit. Carma all about the carma

 

Any decent office supply store has them.

In my neck of the woods it's OfficeWorks.

They are custom made for the particular model keyboard.

If you're model isn't a popular one, you can send them your keyboard and they will make you one.


Personally, I don't like them as I touch type and need to feel the keys.

Some can also yellow, which doesn't look appealing.

If all you want is to protect the keyboard, they are very effective.

 

Argh - and go with a keyboard for how long? Ok if you've got 1001 PCs with the same keyboard I guess - not really an option for a home user. Unless you've got a spare keyboard you can tolerate for a while, I guess.

I don't suppose it'd be that hard to make a mould. Get someting like putty you can get a sheet of, put it over the keyboard, make a cast out of plaster (or something), then get some rubber vacuum formed to make it.

I might just have a go at that... one day.

 

It's within a day you get it back, at least here.

It's a simple procedure and doesn't take long.


As far as making it yourself, it's not that easy, and would take even longer!

 

I had another weird system story.

I bought a used computer from my supplier, and rebuilt it when it turned on it would randomly reboot. So I started the usual testing ran Mem test and found faulty ram, replaced the ram with known good ram and had the same problem. I then proceeded to test every thing in the case replacing when I didn't know how to test it. The problem persisted, I got fed up and changed out all the components in the case with another system and the problem happened once then never again.

Haunted computer case. I need an old priest and a young one.

 

Ok i got one like cepy's story. Actually i found it in my school. lol. In my cafeteria the lunch peoples have touchscreen pcs and so on. Well one day i was in the snacklines and the touchscreen register computer thingy was constantly chirping and im like "what the heck is doing that?" So i ask and the lady doesnt know. Well i look down and see that they have a box of iced tea sitting on the keyboard. So i tell the lady that she has a box on the keyboard. She takes it off and whadaya know chirping stops. Well she is so happy she gives me a free snack that day . Lucky day lol.
-the new tech guy