Post your first FAIL

Sir B. Fannybottom · Nov 17, 2012

"It looks like the same socket"
*sigh* to be young again.

Doc41 · Nov 17, 2012

Hmmm, too much n00b fails happened to me to remember my first, all the bent s478 P4 pins, fan blades accidental finger wedge, shorted components etc... but i remember a few

*-Once i thought it was a good idea to remove all heatsinks on a gfx card and "re-paste" them ,card was a leadtek winfast geforce3 and yes the ramsinks were glued on :shadedshu
the chips didn't come off with the heatsink but there was enough force to make a few pins come off tho, the card worked but all i saw was stripes on the screen = dead card.

*-Another mishap with a gfx car was when a screwdriver slipped and snapped a capacitor off, it was an MSI geforce 4Ti 4800se but that was fixed and it worked fine,
another time with the same card i was putting it in a different pc and apparently didn't mount correctly, it wouldn't boot so took it apart to find out that the 3.3v lines on the 20-pin mobo connector got so hot that the wires got crispy and browned the socket,
luckily nothing got damaged but had to re solder a new 20-pin to the psu and everything worked, but last year i tried to run that card and it showed a messed up screen= probably dead too :cry:

*-7300GT + Ramsinks i glued on + tried to remove = ram chip in my hand

*-Was going to replace TIM on a mobo chipset, original was all over the chipset and while cleaning it noticed a few hard spots and like an idiot forced my way into them for later thy turned out to be small surface mounted caps on the chipset :facepalm:
tried to solder couple of them but lost one or two, strange thing it worked fine without them?

lesson learned too late? be extra "paranoid" careful when working on a PC and do a redundant check when finished.

-Pardon the long story above-

vawrvawerawe · Nov 17, 2012

I haven't had a fail. I am on PC #1, and I did tons of research first so I anticipate success.

burtram · Nov 18, 2012

My first "Fail" had to be, trying to use one of those Ultra X-Connect power supplies.... I think it lasted two days or so before it popped, and took out my fan controller (the controller still provided power for my fans, but I lost all ability to control fan speed). Never again have I used a "cheap" (not to be confused with inexpensive) power supply.

jihadjoe · Nov 18, 2012

Cracked the die mounting a heatsink on an old Athlon.

In hindsight, I should've mounted the HSF before putting the motherboard in the case, easier to see if it's level that way.

natr0n · Nov 18, 2012

During the AMD Barton days. I sleeved a whole psu with uv orange neon pet. I wired wrong red and yellows on all the molex and killed my a7n8x board, but got an rma got a new board. The psu still worked when I rewired the molex plugs. It recently wore out few years ago.Also was the 1st psu to feature active pfc from thermaltake I believe. cpu still works too.

Wile E · Nov 18, 2012

Eh, I have to repost my fails every now and then.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41746

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38153

cdawall · Nov 18, 2012

Wile E said:
Eh, I have to repost my fails every now and then.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41746

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38153

Ha I remember both of those. The second one makes me nervous about going to TEC's...may end up doing chilled water instead.

natr0n · Nov 18, 2012

Wile E said:
Eh, I have to repost my fails every now and then.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41746

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38153

wow, I was looking for a good pc roast recipe.

drdeathx · Nov 18, 2012

I had a Sapphire motherboard take a processor out and said, "It could not have been the board."

Put another chip in and it took that one out too.

natr0n · Nov 18, 2012

drdeathx said:
I had a Sapphire motherboard take a processor out and said, "It could not have been the board."

Put another chip in and it took that one out too.

Sapphire boards are the worst , made by pc chips.The lowest of the low quality at that time prolly still are.

pigulici · Nov 18, 2012

First fail? I was born on earth, and now I work all my life to repair that...

Wile E · Nov 18, 2012

cdawall said:
Ha I remember both of those. The second one makes me nervous about going to TEC's...may end up doing chilled water instead.

All you have to do with TECs is actually install the fail-safes. I didn't, and paid the price. lol.

drdeathx · Nov 18, 2012

natr0n said:
Sapphire boards are the worst , made by pc chips.The lowest of the low quality at that time prolly still are.

LOL, this was recent but Sapphire replaced the chips.

t77snapshot · Nov 18, 2012

vawrvawerawe said:
I haven't had a fail. I am on PC #1, and I did tons of research first so I anticipate success.

Then you do not belong in this thread :laugh:

Why boast about it :confused:

Jetster · Nov 18, 2012

t77snapshot said:
Then you do not belong in this thread Why boast about it

His day is coming :rolleyes:

hat · Nov 18, 2012

My first, and thus far, last catastrophic failure was when I had my Biostar TF720 A2+, a cheap AM2+ motherboard, paired with a Phenom 9500. The board only officially supported up to 95w processors, and the Phenom 9500 was already 95w out of the box. Not knowing this, I attempted to overclock that processor. I don't remember what speed or what voltage, but whatever it was, it amounted to drawing around 125w. One night I ran an OCCT Linpack test on the new settings, and I noticed the computer shut off. Tired, I slept through it and figured I would mess with it the next day.

The next day, I couldn't get the machine to come back on. After some investigation I noticed the area around the VRMs was burned out. After getting an RMA on the board, along with a new processor (simply assuming the 9500 was dead without testing it, another fail), I noticed the failure also took my 9800GT, the fastest graphics card I ever owned at the time, with it. It took a while to recover from that one, not having the money I do now to throw at hardware.

I tell you one thing though, any overclocks I did with that board I religiously checked out with the overclocker's TDP formula and made sure whatever I was running didn't go over 95w. I also had those little blue Zalman ramsinks on the VRMs as a little extra help.

Solaris17 · Nov 18, 2012

straight bolt first systems mobo to the case no risers get on my level

Millennium · Nov 18, 2012

I've killed a DVD RW with a bad flash back when they were a bit more expensive. Also, plugging in AGP 1 cards into later slots (different voltages) was something I used to do a fair bit when I used to work for MSI tech support. Nasty.

Techtu · Nov 18, 2012

My first...

When I first had 2 PC's one was reaching high temperature's and I knew that swapping the CPU fans around on the systems would be an ideal solution, so went ahead and got the first one swapped over to let another family member back on the PC to do whatever they do whilst I go and fit the other fan on the other PC...

All is well on the 2nd PC, however that family member soon comes to find me saying "your computer won't load" so obviously I ask the basic questions "have you tried restarting" and so on "yes" was the reply I got shortly followed by "It smells like it's burning too", "how long has it been like that" I replied which in response I got "since you left it" bare in mind this is around 15 - 20 minutes later. So I go rushing downstairs to the PC, by the way even at the top of the stairs I could smell what was clearly burnt plastic :eek:

So what did I find? Just my PC stuck at the boot screen with everyone just sat there watching the TV... Clever huh :roll:

All in all I got lucky and it only blown the CPU with a slight burn mark left behind on the motherboard which still worked perfectly until was no longer needed.

n3rdf1ght3r · Nov 20, 2012

I dropped a hard drive off a table, and dented the floor, then while looking at the dent I hit my head on the table and knocked over my other hard drive. I then dropped the first hard drive again while putting the second one on the table. I needed new hard drives after that. DERP

natr0n · Nov 20, 2012

n3rdf1ght3r said:
I dropped a hard drive off a table, and dented the floor, then while looking at the dent I hit my head on the table and knocked over my other hard drive. I then dropped the first hard drive again while putting the second one on the table. I needed new hard drives after that. DERP

next hard drive use rubber gloves for grip and helmet for head.

:toast:

[XC] Oj101 · Feb 24, 2013

_JP_ said:
Can't remember my first fail...so long ago, but I sometimes have some FAIL moments.
Just three days ago, I was trying to revive my NF7-S (because of Abit's site going down) and the darn thing wasn't POSTing. Constant long beeping (usually RAM related).
Took me a while before I noticed the floppy cable wasn't properly connected (upside down).

That's not normal, I've done it dozens of times and all that happens is the floppy drive read/write light stays on solid :confused:

My worst was with an old GeForce 6600 AGP card which I was going to LN2. I'd taken the cooler off and insulated the card, put it into the old Barton and booted into the BIOS to make sure everything was ready. The motherboard was on a chair with the PSU on a table just above it. Once I was in the BIOS I saw that some settings were wrong (NB voltage and so on) so I started correcting them - forgetting that the card doesn't have a cooler. A minute or two in, a nice bright FLAME (not spark) came from an SMD just above the core and scorched the PSU wires coming from the table down to the rig - the wires were about 20cm above the rig. The card had a lovey, thick black scorch mark from the SMD to the top of the card, and the PSU wires caught in the line on fire (pun intended :rolleyes:

) were also nicely blackened.

Another bad fail was when I first took a Phenom (X4 940 I think) sub zero, my first time "accidentally" using a chip without a cold bug as I was expecting one. Needless to say, I didn't know just how much of the board needed to be insulated, and only prepped it for about -40'c. I didn't have a working temperature probe, so I was planning to take things by ear and kept topping up with a splash of LN2 every minute or two until I realised the pot was full :twitch:

Awesome, time to do some decent benching

This is the result:

Whoops, that resulted in a dead graphics card not too long after :/

And

A dead network port. Faaaark. It wasn't even my board :/

Animalpak · Feb 24, 2013

I bought my first graphics card PCI EX 16, thinking that the PCI Express x16 merely as a new technology in the graphics card and not that it is the connecting interface ....

I realized only after i got home the new graphics card that i had a AGP 8X only motherboard ...

I just wanted to play Day of Defeat from steam at decent framerates.

Fckin noob !!

agent00skid · Feb 24, 2013

After disassembling my laptop to see if I could clean it, I forgot to reconnect the fan when I reassembled it. My habit of running temp monitoring made me spot it fairly quickly. No damage done fortunately.

System Name	The SwagMachine / The Sister
Processor	Core i5 3570K @5.2ghz 1.3V/ 1100T
Motherboard	ASUS P8Z77-V / ASUS M5A99X EVO
Cooling	Phanteks PH TC14PE / Corsair H40
Memory	M379B5273DH0-YK0 2X4GB + PVI316G213C1QK 2X4GB / 2x4GB Patriot 2133
Video Card(s)	PNY 780Ti /Windforce 7950
Storage	2xSamsung 840 EVO 250gb+WD10EZEX + WD30EZRX/ 1x WD1500 Black
Display(s)	AOC Q2963PM+Acer S200HL / Acer S200L+ LG 22LD350
Case	Fractal Define R4 / NZXT Trinity
Audio Device(s)	Asus Xonar DG / Asus Xonar DG
Power Supply	Seasonic 750X / ROSEWILL RG630-S12 630W R
Mouse	Razer Deathadder Chroma / Roccat Kone+
Keyboard	Razer Blackwidow 2013 Stealth / Roccat Isku
Software	Windows 8.1 Pro / Windows 7 Ultimate
Benchmark Scores	one time I scored a 3 on 3dmark 11

System Name	Lazyman 9000+
Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 3800X
Motherboard	X570 Aorus Ultra
Cooling	Arctic LF II 280
Memory	2x8GB Crucial Ballistix 3600 MHz DDR4
Video Card(s)	PowerColor Red Devil 5700XT
Storage	Never Enough
Display(s)	ASUS VG248QE+ Dell E2420H
Case	LIAN LI Lancool II Mesh RGB
Audio Device(s)	Sennheiser HD518 / Logitech Z623
Power Supply	FSP AURUM PT 850W
Mouse	Logitech G600
Keyboard	Logitech G810 Orion Spectrum
Software	Win 11
Benchmark Scores	All over the bench

Processor	Intel i5 3550
Motherboard	ASRock Z77 Pro4-M
Cooling	Thermaltake Performer 2.0 AIO Liquid Cooler
Memory	32GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600mhz
Video Card(s)	EVGA GTX 960
Storage	Corsair Neutron 256gb Boot drive, ~7tb storage combined on other drives
Display(s)	AOC 27" 1920x1080 IPS and Wacom Cintiq 13" HD
Case	Fractal Design Node 804
Audio Device(s)	Realtek HD audio, Pyle Pro PTA2 Amp, Sony SS-B3000 Speakers, Sennheiser HD595 headphones
Power Supply	Antec 750W "High Current Gamer"
Mouse	SteelSeries Diablo 3
Keyboard	Rosewill Mechanical with cherry black keys
Software	Windows 7 Ultimate 64

Processor	Intel i9-9900k @ 5GHz
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro Wifi
Cooling	ThermalTake Riing 240
Memory	2x8GB G-Skill 3600 CL19 @ 16-19-19-20
Video Card(s)	Zotac RTX 2060 Amp!
Storage	2x Samsung 860 Evo 512GB, 4x Seagate 8TB
Display(s)	2x Dell U2713H
Case	CoolerMaster M500P
Power Supply	ThermalTake Toughpower 730W
Software	Windows 10 Pro

System Name	natr0n-PC
Processor	Ryzen 5950x-5600x \| 9600k
Motherboard	B450 AORUS M \| Z390 UD
Cooling	EK AIO 360 - 6 fan action \| AIO
Memory	Patriot - Viper Steel DDR4 (B-Die)(4x8GB) \| Samsung DDR4 (4x8GB)
Video Card(s)	EVGA 3070ti FTW
Storage	Various
Display(s)	Pixio PX279 Prime
Case	Thermaltake Level 20 VT \| Black bench
Audio Device(s)	LOXJIE D10 + Kinter Amp + 6 Bookshelf Speakers Sony+JVC+Sony
Power Supply	Super Flower Leadex III ARGB 80+ Gold 650W \| EVGA 700 Gold
Software	XP/7/8.1/10
Benchmark Scores	http://valid.x86.fr/79kuh6

Post your first FAIL

Sir B. Fannybottom

Doc41

vawrvawerawe

burtram

jihadjoe

natr0n

Wile E

Power User

cdawall

where the hell are my stars

natr0n

drdeathx

natr0n

pigulici

Wile E

Power User

drdeathx

t77snapshot

Jetster

hat

Enthusiast

Solaris17

Super Dainty Moderator

Millennium

Techtu

n3rdf1ght3r

natr0n

[XC] Oj101

Animalpak

agent00skid

System Name	The ClusterF**k
Processor	980X @ 4Ghz
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 BIOS F12
Cooling	MCR-320, DDC-1 pump w/Bitspower res top (1/2" fittings), Koolance CPU-360
Memory	3x2GB Mushkin Redlines 1600Mhz 6-8-6-24 1T
Video Card(s)	Evga GTX 580
Storage	Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB, 2xSeagate 320GB RAID0; 2xSeagate 3TB; 2xSamsung 2TB; Samsung 1.5TB
Display(s)	HP LP2475w 24" 1920x1200 IPS
Case	Technofront Bench Station
Audio Device(s)	Auzentech X-Fi Forte into Onkyo SR606 and Polk TSi200's + RM6750
Power Supply	ENERMAX Galaxy EVO EGX1250EWT 1250W
Software	Win7 Ultimate N x64, OSX 10.8.4

System Name	All the cores
Processor	2990WX
Motherboard	Asrock X399M
Cooling	CPU-XSPC RayStorm Neo, 2x240mm+360mm, D5PWM+140mL, GPU-2x360mm, 2xbyski, D4+D5+100mL
Memory	4x16GB G.Skill 3600
Video Card(s)	(2) EVGA SC BLACK 1080Ti's
Storage	2x Samsung SM951 512GB, Samsung PM961 512GB
Display(s)	Dell UP2414Q 3840X2160@60hz
Case	Caselabs Mercury S5+pedestal
Audio Device(s)	Fischer HA-02->Fischer FA-002W High edition/FA-003/Jubilate/FA-011 depending on my mood
Power Supply	Seasonic Prime 1200w
Mouse	Thermaltake Theron, Steam controller
Keyboard	Keychron K8
Software	W10P

System Name	Halloween Boo!
Processor	Intel Core i7 3770K
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z77-Up7
Cooling	Custom Water/ Thermalchill TA 120.3/ Swiftech Apogeee XT/ MCP655/ Swiftech M icrores/ XSPC RX 240
Memory	16G G.Skill trident 2400MHz
Video Card(s)	3 x Radeon 7970
Storage	OCZ Revo Drive 240G
Display(s)	24 inch Viewsonic
Case	Phobia WayCoolIt Test Bench
Power Supply	Nexus 1100 watt

Processor	i7-9700
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO
Memory	32GB DDR4
Video Card(s)	msi 1080
Storage	Samsung SSD 850 pro 2TB+1tb hdd 7200rpm+ 1tb 970pro
Software	Mageia 6 + Windows 10

System Name	New Build - Oct. 2021
Processor	Intel i7 10700k
Motherboard	Asus TUF Gaming H570-PRO
Cooling	Corsair H100i
Memory	Corsair Vengence 16gb 3600 mhz
Video Card(s)	Gigabyte RTX 3060ti 8gb
Storage	1Tb Samsung 970 EVO NvMe m.2
Display(s)	27" LG Ultragear 144hz
Case	Fractal Design- Meshify 2
Audio Device(s)	Onborad dts
Power Supply	Corsair RX 650 W
Mouse	Roccat Kiro
Keyboard	Razer Tarantula
Software	Windows 10 Home x64

System Name	Juliette // HTPC
Processor	Intel i7 9700K // AMD Ryzen 5 5600G
Motherboard	ASUS Prime Z390X-A // ASRock B550 ITX-AC
Cooling	Noctua NH-U12 Black // Stock
Memory	Corsair DDR4 3600 32gb //G.SKILL Trident Z Royal Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 3600
Video Card(s)	ASUS RTX4070 OC// GTX 1650
Storage	Samsung 970 EVO NVMe 1Tb, Intel 665p Series M.2 2280 1TB // Samsung 1Tb SSD
Display(s)	ASUS VP348QGL 34" Quad HD 3440 x 1440 // 55" LG 4K SK8000 Series
Case	Seasonic SYNCRO Q7// Silverstone Granada GD05
Audio Device(s)	Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 // HDMI to Samsung HW-R650 sound bar
Power Supply	Seasonic SYNCRO 750 W // CORSAIR Vengeance 650M
Mouse	Cooler Master MM710 53G
Keyboard	Logitech 920-009300 G512 SE
Software	Windows 10 Pro // Windows 10 Pro

System Name	Starlifter :: Dragonfly
Processor	i7 2600k 4.4GHz :: i5 10400
Motherboard	ASUS P8P67 Pro :: ASUS Prime H570-Plus
Cooling	Cryorig M9 :: Stock
Memory	4x4GB DDR3 2133 :: 2x8GB DDR4 2400
Video Card(s)	PNY GTX1070 :: Integrated UHD 630
Storage	Crucial MX500 1TB, 2x1TB Seagate RAID 0 :: Mushkin Enhanced 60GB SSD, 3x4TB Seagate HDD RAID5
Display(s)	Onn 165hz 1080p :: Acer 1080p
Case	Antec SOHO 1030B :: Old White Full Tower
Audio Device(s)	Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro - Bose Companion 2 Series III :: None
Power Supply	FSP Hydro GE 550w :: EVGA Supernova 550
Software	Windows 10 Pro - Plex Server on Dragonfly
Benchmark Scores	>9000

System Name	RogueOne
Processor	Xeon W9-3495x
Motherboard	ASUS w790E Sage SE
Cooling	SilverStone XE360-4677
Memory	128gb Gskill Zeta R5 DDR5 RDIMMs
Video Card(s)	MSI SUPRIM Liquid X 4090
Storage	1x 2TB WD SN850X \| 2x 8TB GAMMIX S70
Display(s)	49" Philips Evnia OLED (49M2C8900)
Case	Thermaltake Core P3 Pro Snow
Audio Device(s)	Moondrop S8's on schitt Gunnr
Power Supply	Seasonic Prime TX-1600
Mouse	Lamzu Atlantis mini (White)
Keyboard	Monsgeek M3 Lavender, Moondrop Luna lights
VR HMD	Quest 3
Software	Windows 11 Pro Workstation
Benchmark Scores	I dont have time for that.

System Name	this_is_so_leet_it_needs_no_name
Processor	Intel I5 2500k @ 4.5Ghz
Motherboard	Asus P8 P67-M Pro
Cooling	MUX-120 with Dual Fan
Memory	Samsung Memory DDR3 2133 Overclocked (non LP)
Video Card(s)	XFX ATI/AMD 5870 1gb @ [tbc]
Storage	2*2tb Samsung Raid 0 + 64gb Kingston SSD
Display(s)	BenQ G2420HDBL LED monitor
Case	Lian Li PC-60 old skool alu case
Audio Device(s)	Asus Xonar DX/XD PCI-Express (great)
Power Supply	Corsair 650 TX
Software	Win 7 64bit

System Name	That computer
Processor	Intel I7 960 OC @ 4GHz
Motherboard	Gigabyte G.1 Guerilla
Cooling	Corsair H80
Memory	12gb G.Skill DDR3 1333MHz
Video Card(s)	Gigabyte Radeon 6950 2GB
Storage	120GB Samsung 840, 2x 1TB WD Black Raid 0
Display(s)	2X ACER S232HL
Case	Thermaltake Amour A90
Audio Device(s)	Asus Xonar DX
Power Supply	600W OCZ MODXSTREAM PRO
Software	Windows 7 Ultimate x64

Processor	Pentium II 400 @ 516MHz
Motherboard	AOpen AX6BC EZ
Cooling	Stock
Memory	192MB PC-133
Video Card(s)	2x Voodoo 12MB in SLI, S3 Trio64V+
Storage	Maxtor 40GB
Display(s)	ViewSonic E90
Audio Device(s)	Sound Blaster 16
Software	Windows 98 SE

Processor	i9 9900KS ( 5 Ghz all the time )
Motherboard	Asus Maximus XI Hero Z390
Cooling	EK Velocity + EK D5 pump + Alphacool full copper silver 360mm radiator
Memory	16GB Corsair Dominator GT ROG Edition 3333 Mhz
Video Card(s)	ASUS TUF RTX 3080 Ti 12GB OC
Storage	M.2 Samsung NVMe 970 Evo Plus 250 GB + 1TB 970 Evo Plus
Display(s)	Asus PG279 IPS 1440p 165Hz G-sync
Case	Cooler Master H500
Power Supply	Asus ROG Thor 850W
Mouse	Razer Deathadder Chroma
Keyboard	Rapoo
Software	Win 10 64 Bit

System Name	Waterfall \| xe
Processor	Core i3-12100F \| i5-1240P
Motherboard	Gigabyte B660M-DS3H \| HP laptop
Cooling	Custom Watercooling \| Stock laptop
Memory	2*16GB \| 16GB DDR4
Video Card(s)	RX 5700 with WC blocks \| Iris Xe
Storage	Intel 660 1TB + Crucial BX100 500GB \| 1TB SSD
Display(s)	U24E850R+U2515H \| Internal 16"
Case	Be Quiet! Dark Base 900 \| Laptop
Audio Device(s)	Audio 2 DJ + Xenyx Q802USB \| Realtek
Power Supply	Seasonic Focus Plus Gold 750W \| 65W USB-C Power brick
Mouse	Logitech M330
Keyboard	Logitech G610 Orion Brown \| Laptop
Software	Gentoo + Windows 10 Pro \| Gentoo