Never built my own rig.
I DID wrongly install memory on my IdeaPad z500 laptop but it was later installed professionally okay.
Great article worthy of any modders teabreak
Digital Trends: 4 stupid PC building mistakes I’ve made (and how to avoid them).
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing ... -mistakes/
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PC Building slipups : let he who has not sinned cast the first stone
Re: PC Building slipups : let he who has not sinned cast the first stone
One of my most memorable incidents was many years ago, when testing some Linux distros on an old PC with a small CRT monitor.
Shortly after starting the PC I noticed I was letting all the smoke out of the monitor!
I think the distro was DyneBolic ...... needless to say I did not use that one again.
I don't recall any memorable slipup since, and I have built multiple PCs for myself and others since.
I now check everything anf then double check before I apply power ...... and yes I have caught several errors which would have been costly.
It is good fun still to strip and build PCs and do mods just to see what happens.
Shortly after starting the PC I noticed I was letting all the smoke out of the monitor!
I think the distro was DyneBolic ...... needless to say I did not use that one again.
I don't recall any memorable slipup since, and I have built multiple PCs for myself and others since.
I now check everything anf then double check before I apply power ...... and yes I have caught several errors which would have been costly.
It is good fun still to strip and build PCs and do mods just to see what happens.
Re: PC Building slipups : let he who has not sinned cast the first stone
OK so no real building disasters and I've built plenty of PC's. I did have one notable expensive disaster.
The story starts when I bought a Rechargeable LED Torch in Lidl, it was reduced to €5. It had no charger but came with a USB charging cable.
Nearest computer to my desk is a Dell server so when I got home I plugged in the torch to a USB port to charge it. I left it for a couple of hours and it didn't fully charge so left it overnight. In the morning server was dead and wouldn't boot to POST. Hmmm? Used my second PC to search Ebay for a replacement motherboard and none available so took the next best option and bought a complete server with minimum spec ~ about €250 inc postage.
At this stage I'd no idea that recharging the torch was the issue so next time it was flat I plugged it into my desktop. You can guess the rest. New motherboard required cost was about €90 that time. At this point I realised the common factor was the fcuking rechargable torch!
As a test I built a PC from some old scrap hardware and charging the rechargeable torch had exactly the same result dead motherboard.
I did make up some of the cost when I managed to pick up a new server mobo on ebay and fitted it to the second replacement server I'd bought. I upgraded it a bit and sold it.
The torch is still working fine but I only charge it off a cheap charger which it doesn't seem to want to kill.
You can try and tell me that that shouldn't happen because there is circuitry and logic built into the USB ports to prevent it, I did plenty of research at the time, but it doesn't change the fact recharging a USB torch killed 3 motherboards.
The story starts when I bought a Rechargeable LED Torch in Lidl, it was reduced to €5. It had no charger but came with a USB charging cable.
Nearest computer to my desk is a Dell server so when I got home I plugged in the torch to a USB port to charge it. I left it for a couple of hours and it didn't fully charge so left it overnight. In the morning server was dead and wouldn't boot to POST. Hmmm? Used my second PC to search Ebay for a replacement motherboard and none available so took the next best option and bought a complete server with minimum spec ~ about €250 inc postage.
At this stage I'd no idea that recharging the torch was the issue so next time it was flat I plugged it into my desktop. You can guess the rest. New motherboard required cost was about €90 that time. At this point I realised the common factor was the fcuking rechargable torch!
As a test I built a PC from some old scrap hardware and charging the rechargeable torch had exactly the same result dead motherboard.
I did make up some of the cost when I managed to pick up a new server mobo on ebay and fitted it to the second replacement server I'd bought. I upgraded it a bit and sold it.
The torch is still working fine but I only charge it off a cheap charger which it doesn't seem to want to kill.
You can try and tell me that that shouldn't happen because there is circuitry and logic built into the USB ports to prevent it, I did plenty of research at the time, but it doesn't change the fact recharging a USB torch killed 3 motherboards.
Re: PC Building slipups : let he who has not sinned cast the first stone
You should name that torch something out of a Stephen King Novel.
Like the car "Christine"
Like the car "Christine"
Re: PC Building slipups : let he who has not sinned cast the first stone
I never did build a PC but did upgrade RAM. I never realised the force needed. I thought it just clipped in.
I did fail at a FireWire card install. I was using a bit more force than I liked and it wouldn't go in. The case was half blocking it by amount half a millimetre so I chickened out.
I did fail at a FireWire card install. I was using a bit more force than I liked and it wouldn't go in. The case was half blocking it by amount half a millimetre so I chickened out.
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fancy pigeon
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Re: PC Building slipups : let he who has not sinned cast the first stone
I am an IT engineer in my daily life. Whilst I'm a newbie to the game and have lots to learn yet I've seen some questionable setups and dealt with some very silly stuff (drying a laptop on a hob easily tops the list of shame!)
But as for myself... I have 4 devices in my own home (not counting my work laptop). I have a TV computer (HP 8300), assembled with the most miserable ebay SSD I could find for under €10. It's crap and I keep at it until it blows up. A Dell Latitude E5440 that I've put more SSD's through than I've used it. Battery has shit itself as a result! I should get it going properly as it's my diag laptop (runs Win 7 with VM's and Ubuntu dual booted)
Now my main party pieces: My main PC is a Dell motherboard I have in an Antec midsized case, originally an i5 now with an i7, 32GB of server ram and 2 SSD's in a Raid 0 config, with a 3rd HDD solely to work with SPX/Shadowprotect. So the power buttons and front USB don't work with this motherboard! The CPU fan warning was annoying me on every boot (the Antec case has a lot of fans as standard and I have a noctua fan installed) so I cobbled in a fan I found and every so often it clips off the PSU. The CPU originated from another motherboard I overloaded with a monster graphics card (cobbled into a standard tower unit but modified with a pair of vice grips to accept the huge card), 850w psu and subsequently blew up
I got a replacement motherboard from a waste bin, which had the i5 and was absolutely rubbish at running my VM's. Swapped to the i7 one evening, normal service resumed
My main personal laptop is affectionately known as the scraptop (HP G4/5/6). It was thrown out and in bad shape. So over a few weeks I collected various parts from other sources when the opportunity arose (there's a slim desktop optical drive I had to cobble in for example) and it's party piece is the awful cooling system I had to brutalize to fit. And, yes, it works a charm. CPU temps are naturally higher than average but even under load (yes, more virtualization) it reaches the mid 70s (Celsius). The only normal device is the poor work laptop (Lenovo E570) which has seen some wicked abuse (got rained into, fell off a 10 foot ledge onto concrete for example) yet soldiers on. A true champion of a laptop!
The most extreme boo-boo I've done was in the very early days of my career I pulled out all the discs of a live Host server, then put them all back. Oh boy was that fun to repair...
But as for myself... I have 4 devices in my own home (not counting my work laptop). I have a TV computer (HP 8300), assembled with the most miserable ebay SSD I could find for under €10. It's crap and I keep at it until it blows up. A Dell Latitude E5440 that I've put more SSD's through than I've used it. Battery has shit itself as a result! I should get it going properly as it's my diag laptop (runs Win 7 with VM's and Ubuntu dual booted)
Now my main party pieces: My main PC is a Dell motherboard I have in an Antec midsized case, originally an i5 now with an i7, 32GB of server ram and 2 SSD's in a Raid 0 config, with a 3rd HDD solely to work with SPX/Shadowprotect. So the power buttons and front USB don't work with this motherboard! The CPU fan warning was annoying me on every boot (the Antec case has a lot of fans as standard and I have a noctua fan installed) so I cobbled in a fan I found and every so often it clips off the PSU. The CPU originated from another motherboard I overloaded with a monster graphics card (cobbled into a standard tower unit but modified with a pair of vice grips to accept the huge card), 850w psu and subsequently blew up
I got a replacement motherboard from a waste bin, which had the i5 and was absolutely rubbish at running my VM's. Swapped to the i7 one evening, normal service resumedMy main personal laptop is affectionately known as the scraptop (HP G4/5/6). It was thrown out and in bad shape. So over a few weeks I collected various parts from other sources when the opportunity arose (there's a slim desktop optical drive I had to cobble in for example) and it's party piece is the awful cooling system I had to brutalize to fit. And, yes, it works a charm. CPU temps are naturally higher than average but even under load (yes, more virtualization) it reaches the mid 70s (Celsius). The only normal device is the poor work laptop (Lenovo E570) which has seen some wicked abuse (got rained into, fell off a 10 foot ledge onto concrete for example) yet soldiers on. A true champion of a laptop!
The most extreme boo-boo I've done was in the very early days of my career I pulled out all the discs of a live Host server, then put them all back. Oh boy was that fun to repair...
Knowing enough, just to get by...
Re: PC Building slipups : let he who has not sinned cast the first stone
Not remembering that SATA cables are the product of a fscking accountant playing at being a designer.
Thought I'd lost four years of algorithms, classifiers, SQL data and code and zone files when a server reset. Spent a lot of time searching for backups and checking paper notes on the algorithms. The data was on a 900GB SSD. Double checked the SATA cables and reseated the connector. It worked. PATA/IDE and SCSI connectors are far superior and robust designs. The connectors on many cheap SATA cables have an inherent design flaw in that they rely on the plastic not deforming. The plastic deforms over time and it, depending on the board and HD connections, causes the contacts to become unreliable.
Regards...jmcc
Thought I'd lost four years of algorithms, classifiers, SQL data and code and zone files when a server reset. Spent a lot of time searching for backups and checking paper notes on the algorithms. The data was on a 900GB SSD. Double checked the SATA cables and reseated the connector. It worked. PATA/IDE and SCSI connectors are far superior and robust designs. The connectors on many cheap SATA cables have an inherent design flaw in that they rely on the plastic not deforming. The plastic deforms over time and it, depending on the board and HD connections, causes the contacts to become unreliable.
Regards...jmcc
Re: PC Building slipups : let he who has not sinned cast the first stone
I blame this thread for my recent furbar.
I was testing a CPU to ensure it was ok so did the usual clean and apply new thermal past before inserting.
Put it on test overnight and the following day as all appeared OK, I proceeded to dismantle the test rig.
BOOM!
I could not get the CPU out of the motherboard.
I had apparently used thermal glue and not thermal paste on the CPU.
So I lost not only the CPU but the motherboard also which was the bigger concern.
..... and it is all the fault of this thread. I should not have made that earlier post. It was just tempting fate!
I was testing a CPU to ensure it was ok so did the usual clean and apply new thermal past before inserting.
Put it on test overnight and the following day as all appeared OK, I proceeded to dismantle the test rig.
BOOM!
I could not get the CPU out of the motherboard.
I had apparently used thermal glue and not thermal paste on the CPU.
So I lost not only the CPU but the motherboard also which was the bigger concern.
..... and it is all the fault of this thread. I should not have made that earlier post. It was just tempting fate!
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CelticRambler
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Re: PC Building slipups : let he who has not sinned cast the first stone
Oooooooohhhhhh .... Commisserations.