Boneheaded Tech Moments

[Hotobu]

For something more on the lighter side of things...

Yesterday I had a serious brainfart when I didn't realize that I tweaked a setting on my TV which prevented me from seeing most Windows screens past my mobo's splash screen. Because I thought this was a Windows error I ended up opening up my computer, unplugging hard drives, repairing the Windows startup, downloading and then reinstalling Windows at least 5 times, calling MS tech support, restarting dozens of times, cursing loudly, and questioning my existence (not necessarily in that order) and wasted about 5 hours of my life. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have done something stupid like this. Anyone else have a story to share about a boneheaded tech moment?

 

[Solaris17]

The first time I ever tried to install an OS I set it to boot from the disk (back then you had too) and I dont ever remember the media telling me to remove it. I thought I was doing something wrong or the OS needed to copy more files so every time it restarted at the end I let it install the OS all over again. I did this several times until I got pissed and removed the drive and it booted into OOBE.

 

[robot zombie]

I recently spent over a month troubleshooting BSODs, reflashing, tweaking settings, and rolling back drivers... just doing everything under the sun to diagnose what I thought HAD to be bad ram. I'm going back and forth between two computers, swapping DIMM's, trying different slots... you name it.

All I had to do the entire time was look down at them and realize there was dust on the pins.

 

[OneMoar]

I once spent 5 hours trouble shooting a rig that wouldn't power on testing multiple psus and motherboards
then I realised the power button was unhooked

 

[Papahyooie]

I spent a good six months trying various things to fix the fact that my PC randomly started taking two minutes or more to get past the bios splash screen. Once it did get past that, it would boot up instantly with an SSD. But it would take forever just to post. Changed BIOS settings, trying to fix IRQ conflicts, all sorts of things. Never could fix it.

One day, I unplugged my DVD drive to back up a hard drive I was going to format for another PC. It booted up in about 5 seconds.

I had had a DVD in the drive the whole time, and it had been trying to boot from it...I hadn't used the drive in forever, and didn't even guess there was anything in it.

Sad trombone.

 

[MrGenius]

Just recently I decided to do something seemingly benign that ultimately led to breaking my Windows 10 install to the point that it couldn't be repaired by any means, and corrupting the BIOS on my motherboard to the point that I needed to reflash it. 3 straight days of total WTFery trying to get that all diagnosed correctly and straightened back out again. And I'm still completely clueless as to how such a seemingly harmless thing as trying to run my overclocked DDR3 with a little less voltage(like .02V less) could cause such massive mayhem. But...somehow...it can...evidently.

 

[hat]

How about overclocking (and overvolting) an OG Phenom 9500 on a crappy budget board, resulting in ruining the board, throwing the chip away (never truly confirmed if it was actually bad)... and somehow damaging my then new and fast 9800GT to where it would even artifact in the BIOS...

 

[dark2099]

Was building/rebuilding a rig. Have it all together, go to turn it on, powers up, but doesn't do anything. Spent a couple minutes trying to figure it out, getting all frustrated, till I noticed the CPU sitting in the plastic protector on my desk, right in front of my keyboard.

 

[Bones]

Bonehead move and yet it wasn't - Years ago when I was first learning about PC's the very first one I had was a 90MHz Pentium machine with Win 95 and only had it for about two days.
Was messing around in the OS settings and came across one that looked like I could do something with it to "Tweak" it so I did.
And after hitting reset to apply the settings it didn't reboot.

Turns out with Win 95 allocating memory to the floppy drive was an OS killer - The guy that setup the machine for me earlier said it was so bad it even knocked out the HDD partition, completely blanking the drive!

Never did that again.

 

[enxo218]

Right after assembling my first desktop top I tried installing intel hd graphics drivers but I would get an error message saying I don't meet the requirements. I spent what I think was 6hrs downloading and installing 3 older driver versions, checking drivers compatability with windows, trying to get intel driver utility install them, checking ms forums and arguing on intel forum with a guy claiming I didn't install cpu right, verifying cpu and mobo compatability and finally verifying cpu id and functionality itself...untill I unplugged nvidia card and connected to mobo vga and well it installed and I was like oooooh

 

[witkazy]

Recently had to open my kid msi apache for cleaning only i hoped(loud fans) and i've focused on prying all those flimsy plastick sides that i did not realised i've left one tiny screw unscrewdluckily after some huffin and puffin i came to my senses and got it right.
Alas cleaning did not cut it,bearings on gpu fan is gone.All ready order was placed and in a week or two i gotta do it all over again plus riping heat sink off ,me sad .Not a fan of laptops no siree.

 

[qubit]

@Hotobu Love it, that reminds me of the time not so long ago that I ripped off my PCIe connector on the mobo, because I couldn't get a GTX 1080 out that was stuck solid in a crooked position. I wasn't in a very good frame of mind that day, which got the better of me that time and caused this. Thankfully, it was the lower connector on my SLI mobo (see specs) so it still works fine as a non-SLI mobo. I can't be bothered to replace that connector.

See my siggy for the gory details.

 

[Caring1]

The first time I ever tried to install an OS I set it to boot from the disk (back then you had too) and I dont ever remember the media telling me to remove it. I thought I was doing something wrong or the OS needed to copy more files so every time it restarted at the end I let it install the OS all over again. I did this several times until I got pissed and removed the drive and it booted into OOBE.

I did the exact same thing, but I blame the software
It basically holds your hand and walks you through every step, but neglects to say remove the disc at the end.

 

[chaosmassive]

installed new video card
everything hooked up, turned pc on, heard windows welcome sound but no display at all
reset the system like 3-4 times only to realise I didn't press power button on monitor

 

[bug]

Not quite the same category, but here goes.
Thinking about selling my AsRock P67 + i5 2500k combo. The board could support Ivy Bridge with a BIOS update so I thought I should be nice and do the update myself, in case the next owner isn't too tech savvy. Turns out that BIOS set my graphics to IGP and PCIe 3.0 (which Sandy Bridge doesn't have). Never got any video output from that mobo ever since.

 

[newtekie1]

My first computer I completely built myself from scratch, including picking out every single piece, was a socket 478 build including a completely clear acrylic case. I used a Thermalright all copper cooler. Thermalright was still new back then, and their products didn't really come with a lot of documentation like heatsinks do today. So there was no real mounthing instructions, just kind of a diagram and that's it. I ended up installing these two bracket pieces upside down.

Initially I built the computer, and installed windows and everything with the computer sitting on its side, so everything was working great. But then when I stood the computer up, it would boot and then shut itself down after a few seconds. If I tried to boot it again it would shutdown almost instantly. I trouble shooted this problem for hours, even calling in other tech friends. The computer would work on its side for hours and hours, but never when turned upright. Finally it happened. I turned the computer upright from being on its side, and started it up, then out of the corner of my eye I see the Thermalright cooler shift slightly, drooping away from the board ever so slightly but not enough that you would notice if you didn't see it happen! And the computer shutdown almost immediately after this happened! The thrmal paste suction was supporting the heatsink for a few seconds, but then letting loose. It's only because I had the clear case that I saw it happen. If it was in a normal case, I never would have noticed the heatsink move.

 

[Ahhzz]

Had a friend take a new job with a tech company, but they put him in the dungeon, reimaging computers until he settled in. Extremely intelligent guy, who needed to be "challenged" to keep occupied, and obviously, this wasn't going to do it. He took it upon himself to "improve" their imaging server, and inadvertently loaded a virus onto the server, causing a complete wipe.... Had to find a new job.

Once "upgraded" my Dad's work computer with more Ram, and didn't unplug the computer. Static "fried" one of his memory sticks, and he had to get them both replaced.....

Another tech friend of mine, just started in tech area, went to help salesman hook up projector to laptop. Came to get me 15 minutes later, sweating in a panic, couldn't get the laptop connected. Physically. Went in, and he had managed to get the VGA connector mostly warped enough to try to push it into the laptop upside down. fortunately, had only bent one pin, got that straightened, turned it right side up, and it was ok. He's a really sharp guy, just got flustered under fire.

Once spent 9 hours trying to get a computer to either repair WinX, or finally reload it. Tested all components with built in Dell diagnostics, ran two different hard drive tests on a winX box, ran another from a Win7 box, changed the RAM, used 4 different WinX images to load, 3 different DVD drives, absolutely refused to complete an install cleanly. Finally gave up and stuck a 2Tb WD Black in the box, and it ran like a charm. There were no errors on the drive, used the same cables on the new one, the original just refused to work properly. Should have went with my first instinct.

 

[bug]

Once spent 9 hours trying to get a computer to either repair WinX, or finally reload it. Tested all components with built in Dell diagnostics, ran two different hard drive tests on a winX box, ran another from a Win7 box, changed the RAM, used 4 different WinX images to load, 3 different DVD drives, absolutely refused to complete an install cleanly. Finally gave up and stuck a 2Tb WD Black in the box, and it ran like a charm. There were no errors on the drive, used the same cables on the new one, the original just refused to work properly. Should have went with my first instinct.

For some reason this part reminded me of the days when certain WD drives wouldn't work on otherwise standard setups. Unless you physically cut one of the outer wires on the IDE cable.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Mine was a classic newbie mistake with one of the first IBM clones, a "ZEOS" Computer way back 1986 or 87. I was replacing the motherboard for a client. I knew the board was slightly different, but it was an official ZEOS supplied replacement board. It was the same size and shape and almost all the mounted components were identical and mounted in the same place. So I "assumed" (my second classic newbie mistake) it would just be a simple R&R (remove and replace) repair.

This is when I learned, the hard way, that cases often came (and still come) with more motherboard mounting points than many motherboards have mounting holes. The original board used an extra standoff in the case and I did not verify that before mounting the new board. The extra standoff immediately shorted out the new motherboard so when power was applied nothing happened. Was the new board faulty? Did I zap it with ESD (a relatively unknown phenomenon back then)? Did I cross-connect something or forget a cable?

So I tried another PSU - and this was no easy task because this was before ATX. It was an "AT" Form Factor system and for those not familiar, AT power supplies were hardwired with a full wiring harness which then needed to be routed from the supply in the back up to the case's front panel power buttons. You did not start the computer by shorting two pins on the motherboard with a "remote" front panel case button switch like you do with today's ATX systems. When you pressed the case's power button, you really were powering up the power supply directly.

Still didn't work.

Took everything out of the case and assembled the computer on the work bench. Pressed the power button and it fired up.

Put everything back in the case, verified a dozen times I had connected everything properly, pressed the power button and nothing.

Took everything out of the case again and that's when I noticed there was a tiny bit of black stuff on one of the standoffs that I though was odd. When I touched it, it wiped right off.

Then I looked at the underside of the motherboard and saw more black stuff (carbon deposits) across two circuit traces on the board and realized there was no motherboard mounting hole there.

Luckily (because replacement motherboards cost a fortune back then), after removing the extra stand off, verifying two dozen times I only had a standoff where there was a corresponding motherboard mounting hole, I put everything back in the case, crossed fingers and prayed to the Gremlin Gods, the computer fired right up.

Lessons learned:

1. Cases are made to support 1000s of different motherboards. While the Form Factor standards dictate that standoffs can only be located in specific locations, the standards don't require standoffs (or corresponding motherboard mounting holes) must be in every one of those locations. Always, as in EVERY SINGLE TIME verify there is a motherboard mounting hole where there is a standoff.​

​

2. Never assume.​

 

[trparky]

Boneheaded mistakes? Yeah, I got one. This was back in the days of FDISK, which as many of you know it's an old time utility used to partition disks. I think you may know where I'm going with this one. So anyways, I knew I needed to delete some partitions to repartition one of my drives but as you may have guessed, I accidentally chose the wrong disk and blew away my system drive. That was a fun evening. From that moment on FDISK become known to me as Fucked Disk.

 

[qubit]

Boneheaded mistakes? Yeah, I got one. This was back in the days of FDISK, which as many of you know it's an old time utility used to partition disks. I think you may know where I'm going with this one. So anyways, I knew I needed to delete some partitions to repartition one of my drives but as you may have guessed, I accidentally chose the wrong disk and blew away my system drive. That was a fun evening. From that moment on FDISK become known to me as Fucked Disk.

This one's especially dumb, love it. It's always the ones where a small error has a large consequence that are the best.

 

[natr0n]

Other day I plugged my x-fi pci sound card in my caseless server and fried the card by not realizing the notch placements.

 

[trparky]

Other day I plugged my x-fi pci sound card in my caseless server and fried the card by not realizing the notch placements.

Oh... that poor, poor card. *bows head for a moment of silence*

 

[neatfeatguy]

Still not sure if it was me or just bad luck, but after doing some basic cleaning (case fans, GPU fans and blowing out dust from the CPU AIO radiator) my system wouldn't power. Tested different outlets, verified the power switch on the PSU was set to "ON", tried different PSUs, even verified the PSUs power on with the paperclip test. I then resorted to pulling the computer apart and just having the MB, CPU and heatsink on a cardboard box - still wouldn't power. Make a 20-25 minute drive out to MicroCenter, get a new MB and make the 20-25 minute drive home. Setup new MB on cardboard box, install CPU and heatsink, connect PSU - no power. Seriously.....what the F? Tried all PSUs just to make sure, but no power. Time to call it quits since it's now past midnight.

I make the trip out MicroCenter the next morning. Tell the customer service desk the board is DOA - they look at me funny, but let me exchange it out. I picked up a second new MB and make the trip home......screw testing it outside of the case. I install everything into the tower and try a spare PSU instead of my main (in case it's the culprit). System boots. I power it off, install my main PSU and the system boots. Whatever. I don't care as to why it all happened, I'm just satisfied that it's finally fixed.

From my last job, working tech help desk I've fielded a few of awesome calls:

Spoiler

1) Get a call from a guy that just got spare memory from us. 99.9% of all stores that call in about new memory are referring to the 2-4GB flash cards that they install in their registers that houses the XP Embedded, POS software, drivers and such. The guy said he installed the new memory and the computer wouldn't power on. After about 90 seconds of some questions and his answers I finally found out he ordered system RAM for his server/office computer. He told me, "I installed the new memory and the computer shut off." I had to mute the phone and laugh for a moment. I come back and I reiterate what he told me so I can make sure that is exactly what happened. He says yes, the computer was on, he installed the new memory and then the computer powered off and won't turn back on.
While I got a good laugh (as well as the rest of the help desk guys) out of his mistake, I had to spend the next 2 hours on the phone with him getting his store up and functional in a somewhat usable manner since he was located in the Florida Keys and the closest thing that resembled any kind of computer shop was a Best Buy that was over 2 hours away and his business was opening in 2 hours - he couldn't be closed.

2) Answer a call and the guy on the phone was telling me he was cleaning out the office server computer because it was really dusty. When he was done, the system turned on for about 5 seconds and then turned off. He tried turning it back on multiple times with a similar result and now it won't turn on anymore. He said he's used canned air to clean out computers before so it's not entirely new to him. He said the fan on the CPU was really dirty and the dirt was caked on bad so he removed it. He said there was a bunch of gunk on both sides of the fan and he had to wipe it all off. Once the gunk was cleaned off he put the fan back on, closed the case and tried to power on the computer.
I got another good laugh at this customer's stupidity (as well as the other help desk guys working). Come to find out he pulled the HSF and cleaned off the thermal paste and put the HSF back on with no thermal paste on it. Fried out the CPU. Sadly, I had to spend a couple of hours with this store getting a new computer (thankfully they were close enough to a computer store) setup online, configured with the store databases, software and so on)

3) (Not really a stupid hardware issue story, but one of my more irritating customers we handled) A store had a software upgrade about 2 weeks earlier. The owner is a pain in the ass to begin with, but he called in one Saturday complaining the the software upgrade broke his register. He said he was getting a boot disk failure message on a register and it was because of the POS software upgrade we just did and he wanted a software downgrade. I informed him the POS software has no impact on the HDD and it's failure, not to mention that even if the upgrade did cause the register's HDD to fail, why didn't all the other registers at all his other locations have a similar fate? Not to mention the hundreds of other stores that had the software upgrade? He argued with me for 30 minutes, even after I did some basic trouble shooting with him. He had IBM registers, but he dropped the IBM repair service in his contract years ago, so he couldn't just setup a tech call with IBM. Come to find out his registers, they run actual 4GB HDDs (4GB spinning hard drives....the hell? When did they last make 4GB HDDs? Considering the time of this call was around 2012 and the smallest HDD I personally owned was 250GB that I had purchased 4 or 5 years before that). Anyway, the owner started cussing at us and calling names. He called back half a dozen times and spoke to every tech working that day, only to cuss and call us names. I told him he was no longer allowed to call in due to his rude behaviour. If his stores had issues, the store managers were welcomed to call, but he could not speak to the tech support desk anymore. He then calls in a couple hours later (owner's name was Patel, he has a thick Indian accent) and we all know it's him, but the tech that answered the phone asked him for his name.....there was about a 5 second pause and Patel say, "Bob". I was listening in on the phone call and damn near fell out of my chair laughing.

4) Customer calls in and complains that their registers aren't connecting to the server computer. I asked what the manager sees on the register screens. They're all showing error 3043 (they're giving a Dr Watson error code 3043, so they're not connecting on the network to the server/office computer). I ask the manager on the phone to go back to the office and tell me if the office computer is powered on. He tells me, "No, there is no power light." I have him do the most basic thing first - press the power button. No power. I then ask him if he can locate where the computer power cable is to make sure it's still plugged in - maybe it was accidentally kicked/unplugged. The guy says he needs a moment to get a flash light.....he said he followed the power cable and it is still plugged into the surge protector. I asked him if he could make sure the surge protector's power switch was turned to on - he said it was. I then asked him to make sure the surge protector was still plugged into the wall outlet - he said it was. I asked him if there was anything else plugged into the surge protector - he said the printer and computer monitor. I asked if either of those devices have power - he said no. I asked him if he could try plugging the surge protector into another outlet. He said it's really hard to see in the back office because at the moment there is no power to the office and it's really dark, even with the flash light. I have the manager locate the fuse box for the store and he confirms that he has a breaker tripped - I have him flip the switch off and back on and the power is restored to the office.......the guy has me trying to fix the issue of his office computer not being on when the office doesn't even have power going to it.....nice guy on the phone, but some people....

 

[natr0n]

Oh... that poor, poor card. *bows head for a moment of silence*

I was saddend for a bit about it. Yesterday I ebayed a fancy x-fi fatality version for $18.