Whoops! stories

Quark · Post by **Quark** » Fri Apr 19, 2002 6:33 pm

I put this in Tech Support instead of SYM b/c the crowd will most likely have a better appreciation.

Basically, what's the biggest "Whoops!" thing you've ever done with computers?

Mine? C++ class in 12th grade. It's the 2nd day of classes, and of course I'm goofing off with infinite loops. I start a basic counting program, designed to stop once it finally gets to a certain (really high) number. This is while the teacher is lecturing and we're not supposed to touch the keyboard, of course. Finally, I dropped the stop code and let it run infinately.

Counting by ones, the computer finally gets to about 1 million (IIRC) when the kid next to me decides to stop it. He goes to my keyboard and heads for Ctrl-Break. Only, he hits Ctrl-Print Screen.

"Who's printing?" Uh-oh. The teacher heads straight for me, sees the screen and breaks the program. Printer keeps printing. She cancels the print job at my computer. Printer keeps printing.

Of course, this is a nice printer and it already has tons of wasted papers spilled out already. Finally, the teacher turns the printer off and tells me to reboot. We counted out at the end of class: 61 pages of number counting.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Sun Apr 21, 2002 4:59 am

Ohhh i have loads of these, i mean litterally 100's, some of them too embarrasing like changing voltage and frying the PC and stuff like that.

I will try to think of some

Kameleon · Post by **Kameleon** » Sun Apr 21, 2002 9:10 am

Has anyone noticed that AGP cards are much harder to fit into a motherboard than PCI cards, and the AGP cards/boards of a few years ago? Neither did I, until I had this debacle with a new mobo I bought, my Geforce2MX wouldn't work, I tried someone else's TNT2, it didn't work, we put the TNT2 back into his computer, it still didn't work. First "Whoops". After recovering from my 5 heart attacks and 7 ulcers, and trying everything else, I eventually took it in to a pro computer shop. To find that my card worked fine, my mobo was fine, and somehow the only thing that was broke was the TNT2. Second "Whoops". So I tried to return the Geforce2MX to my computer. It didn't work. On taking it back to the shop, I watch carefully when the guy puts the card in, and it works. Losing count of which bruises on my shins were caused by kicking self, and which are from rugby. Where I push the card in until it clicks in, a nice "chunk" noise, he keeps pushing, while my motherboard flexes and squeaks, and I think it's going to break, and then it makes this horrible "choorrkk" sound. THEN it works. Grrrrrrr

Well, I learnt something there...guy on these boards called K0r/\/f1@k€$ might tell you this story from his point of view - it was his TNT2 which I had to replace

Aegis · Post by **Aegis** » Sun Apr 21, 2002 10:15 am

Well, not sure if this is an oops story or not, but when I first purchased my voodoo 3 card, I ended up installing the card with a hammer. Now, post people would assume it wouldn't work after wards. Well, I turned on the computer, and low and behold, not only did it work, but for some reason, the kind people at 3dFX had accidently packaged a Voodoo 4 (which was slightly out of my price range at the time. Oops on them, I suppose.

Xan deVir · Post by **Xan deVir** » Sun Apr 21, 2002 11:09 am

this one was kinda embarrassing, I came to friends place /w my hdd, when I connected it to his pc it seemed not to detect it so I spent a lot of time messing with his bios, changing IDEs, etc. desperately trying to solve the problem. eventually, after 15min I found out that it wasnt connected to the power! grr!!! - I was so happy that I connected it while the pc was on and fried the poor hdd

also, once I found my keys INSIDE the printer... sure reinstalling drivers wont help

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » Sun Apr 21, 2002 2:11 pm

Originally posted by Kameleon
Well, I learnt something there...guy on these boards called K0r/\/f1@k€$ might tell you this story from his point of view - it was his TNT2 which I had to replace

So that's where the R8500 came from!!!

My best was in 1st year physics at university. I was doing a really simple experiment in acceleration using an air track. The track was connected to an Apple II to process the information and display the results. I unfortunately got it to record over 170000 points from the 3 metre track instead of 100. I'd never seen smoke come out of a computer before. I think there might have been something wrong with it anyway, but it was funny to watch. The lab supervisor didn't think so.

Kameleon · Post by **Kameleon** » Sun Apr 21, 2002 2:27 pm

Originally posted by Mr Flibble
So that's where the R8500 came from!!!

Yep - out of his pocket

(with a small donation from me)

Nice one about blowing up the Apple too - my hate for the things means that it warms my heart to hear of such destruction...

K0r/\/f1@k€$ · Post by **K0r/\/f1@k€$** » Sun Apr 21, 2002 2:35 pm

Anyone know that feeling when you change something inside the computer, hook all the leads up, press the power button, and what happens? NOTHING!!! That's where stomach ulcers really come from

Kameleon · Post by **Kameleon** » Sun Apr 21, 2002 2:40 pm

Originally posted by K0r/\/f1@k€$
Anyone know that feeling when you change something inside the computer, hook all the leads up, press the power button, and what happens? NOTHING!!! That's where stomach ulcers really come from

I thought he was gonna disembowel me right there on his computer desk...

It wasn't my fault, honest

Back on the subject, has anyone ever melted an Athlon into a motherboard? What was it like?

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » Sun Apr 21, 2002 2:43 pm

Tom's Hardware Guide had a great video of that. It was a few months ago, but I'll see if I can find the link to it.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Sun Apr 21, 2002 3:38 pm

Originally posted by K0r/\/f1@k€$
Anyone know that feeling when you change something inside the computer, hook all the leads up, press the power button, and what happens? NOTHING!!! That's where stomach ulcers really come from

One of those nightmares i get frequently....it disturbs me

On the subject of burning the chip, i have almost done it, i put everything together plugged everything up...all bar one important component.....the fan for the CPU

luckily it was low lever so it didn't burn out.....but i came close

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » Sun Apr 21, 2002 5:57 pm

Here it is!

There's a 9mb video in the article that shows quite nicely what happens to an Athlon without any cooling.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q3/010917/index.html

Quark · Post by **Quark** » Sun Apr 21, 2002 6:46 pm

Yeah, I almost burnt my Athlon to a crisp. Lucky for me I had forgotten to plug the computer cord in when I hit the power cable.

Oh, wait. That chip was a dud anyway. And it took 3 freaking months for the company to send a replacement. *argh*

Aegis · Post by **Aegis** » Sun Apr 21, 2002 9:19 pm

I'll have to find the site where the guy is making *ahem* some cooling modifications using some interesting tools....

Demis · Post by **Demis** » Mon Apr 22, 2002 8:30 am

Originally posted by Aegis
I'll have to find the site where the guy is making *ahem* some cooling modifications using some interesting tools....

Are you reffering to this Aegis?

Aegis · Post by **Aegis** » Mon Apr 22, 2002 8:37 am

That has nothing on the site I'm trying to find.

Demis · Post by **Demis** » Mon Apr 22, 2002 8:38 am

Originally posted by Aegis
That has nothing on the site I'm trying to find.

I can't wait to see it then

.

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » Mon Apr 22, 2002 1:49 pm

A fish tank. Interesting. Be a pain if he had to move it.

Kameleon · Post by **Kameleon** » Tue Apr 23, 2002 10:26 am

Originally posted by Mr Flibble
There's a 9mb video in the article that shows quite nicely what happens to an Athlon without any cooling.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q3/010917/index.html

That is a funny video - well worth the d/l time on my 56k. I suppose there is one reason to take a P4 over an Athlon...

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » Thu Apr 25, 2002 7:35 pm

Here's a good one. I just had someone bring their computer in. They read about this new "two-speed memory" (I think he meant DDR SDRAM) and wanted his computer to be able to use it. The machine was a P2-400 using PC100 SDRAM. In order to make his computer faster and use the new memory he decided to upgrade the BIOS. Can anyone guess what happened?

He flashed his system with the BIOS for a newer motherboard and rebooted. It didn't quite work as well as he planned (how odd).

I think some people shouldn't be allowed to use computers!