Have you ever done something really stupid like forget to plug the CPU's fan in?

[Phalanx-Imawano 0]

I did just that a few hours ago, and was wondering all along why my 3D Gaming performance was horrid. I tried a number of things, including reinstalling my video card's drivers. It was not until I checked the BIOS settings when I saw in the Hardware Monitor section that my 3.0GHz Pentium4 was scorching at 120 degrees! Then it dawned onto me that my PC was not as noisy as it used to be - the CPU fan was unplugged! (I have a temperature monitoring device that also checks the CPU fan, but it would require that the CPU fan be plugged into it while its own connector went to the CPU fan socket - I did something with it, unplugging the CPU fan connector in the process and just forgot about it). As a result I guess the Pentium4 did some throttling and slowed itself down to prevent overheating. I'm amazed though it lasted so long - I think about 5 hours.

 

Anyway I plugged the CPU fan back in, waited till the Pentium4 cooled down, and Half-Life 2 went back up to speed.

[Wicked101 0]

Wow, 5 hours at 120°C, you can almost cook a pizza with that

 

Things like that happen, I once forgot to plug in the power to the motherboard and I got so cross cause I thought I bought an expensive piece of sh1t, hehe, I could kick myself when I saw the plug floating about, hehe.

[tsonta101 0]

Yes. A long time ago, I was trying to overclock a Cyrix 686 cpu, and the pc would not post. So I try to locate the cmos clear jumper (which was labelled J2), but I could only find a JP2 jumper. What the heck, I put in the jumper, switch on the pc, and BANG, three capacitors blew! I later saw tha the JP2 jumper was the connector for the system fan. My bad! :S

[Wicked101 0]

Talking about capacitors, hehe, at this one place I worked I replaced the ram to see if the ram was the problem, it was a P2 or something small like that.

I powered up the PC and looked over the OPEN box to see if there is a ram count on the monitor and back, the capacitors goes pop, very load I might add and a bloody shoulder later I only realized what went on. It was so quick, all I remember is bang and a sore shoulder then I noticed tha blood, OUCH.

[Phalanx-Imawano 0]

Originally posted by Wicked101:

Quote:

Wow, 5 hours at 120°C, you can almost cook a pizza with that

 

Ehehe, not 120°C, but 120°F (or 75°C). The CPU would have melted at 120°C (water boils at that temp). Still, upon opening the case to reconnect the CPU fan I could already smell a bit of smolder.

 

Quote:

Things like that happen, I once forgot to plug in the power to the motherboard and I got so cross cause I thought I bought an expensive piece of sh1t, hehe, I could kick myself when I saw the plug floating about, hehe.

 

Hehe that happened to me a few times too.

 

Originally posted by tsonta101:

Quote:

Yes. A long time ago, I was trying to overclock a Cyrix 686 cpu, and the pc would not post. So I try to locate the cmos clear jumper (which was labelled J2), but I could only find a JP2 jumper. What the heck, I put in the jumper, switch on the pc, and BANG, three capacitors blew! I later saw tha the JP2 jumper was the connector for the system fan. My bad! :S

 

Originally posted by Wicked101:

Quote:

Talking about capacitors, hehe, at this one place I worked I replaced the ram to see if the ram was the problem, it was a P2 or something small like that.

I powered up the PC and looked over the OPEN box to see if there is a ram count on the monitor and back, the capacitors goes pop, very load I might add and a bloody shoulder later I only realized what went on. It was so quick, all I remember is bang and a sore shoulder then I noticed tha blood, OUCH.

 

Hehe at least you guys blew just a few capacitors. Wanna try a whole Power Supply? That happened to me x) Where I live most outlets are 220V, but at my house we also have 110V outlets for some appliances. I set the Input Voltage of my PC's Power Supply to 110V because I was thinking of plugging it to that line, then I changed my mind, but forgot to set it back to 220V. Just upon plugging it in, I heard a loud "ZONG!" and the stench of smoke began permeating the area. Good thing ATX Power Supplies are really easy to come by (as in you could buy them like groceries - maybe there are lots of cases of blown up PSW's around here creating such a demand?).

[Wicked101 0]

Off PC's for a sec, but still on electronics, it was my strong point at school.

My dad had an old Kenwood amp with 16 speaker channels, back then it was already 25 years old.

This was back in S.A. and there we only use 220, so no confusion:) I wish I could say I forgot to set it back to 220, hehe, but, anyway, I did not use this amp for a while and cause we used to have a lot of parties the amp moved around a lot with us and when I wanted to plug it in (back at home) I just felt around for the power cable, found it and noticed that the plug was removed, so I got another one and connected it, once I turned on the switch the amp went BOOM (BIG WHITE FLASH) followed by lots and lots of smoke and a very bad burnt smell. Later that day, when I recovered from the shock and changed my shorts I tried to find the problem, only to find that I grabbed the wrong cable, it was one of the speaker cables that was still connected to one of the channels, OUCH. That amp never worked again.