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Stupidest thing you did

post #1 of 40
5/19/05 at 3:46pm
Thread Starter 
What was the stupidest thing you did before you actually discovered about how computers work?

I thought DDR-I Ram was the upgrade from SD-Ram, which it is technically, but I thought you could put DDR-I Ram in SD-Ram slots!!! Luckily it didn't fit so I didn't roast the system, but I did waste $200 on Ram

I found NBF about a year later and have started down a divine path!
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post #2 of 40
5/19/05 at 3:52pm
I took apart my old notebook, and found out that it didn't work when I put it back together again.
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post #3 of 40
5/19/05 at 3:56pm
I sanded down the gpu on my GF4Ti4400 to try to get better heatsink contact. Then I ripped off one of the ram chips trying to get the ramsink off. Poor card. Good excuse to get a 9800pro though.
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post #4 of 40
5/19/05 at 4:28pm
In putting back together my desktop from taking it apart to install hard drive pullout bays that ended up being to large to fit, I plugged in the floppy connector the wrong way. I had to get a more technically literate friend to figure it out for me
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post #5 of 40
5/19/05 at 4:58pm
On my desktop, after installing Win2KPro, and playing around, not exactly sure what the feature I was setting but I think I either; converted my disk to a dynamic volume or converted my disk back to a basic volume from a dynamic volume, at any rate I ended up erasing everything I had on my disk.

I had to re-install OS and everything else. Ofcourse at that point (this was roughly 5-6 years ago) I didn't even know that when you lose files they don't actually get deleted and that 90% of the time if you're careful and keep your disk activity to a minimum you can retrieve most if not all of your deleted data.

What a night, I swear I was ready to chuck the pc out the window I was so pissed. Whatever I did to the disk, there was never a warning that I will lose the contents on my drive. You would think that MS would at least have the forsight for a simple warning dialog to show up, something, anything.
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post #6 of 40
5/19/05 at 5:16pm
I don't know if this counts, but on my clunker of a desktop (1ghz Athlon, 256MB Ram, 4 years old) I unplugged it because it needed major dusting.

That caused the entire house to short out.

Turns out the power strip needed replacing, too.
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post #7 of 40
5/19/05 at 5:20pm
Trusting the sale person when I was buying my 1st laptop years ago that it was D3D capable (this is back in the days of the Riva 128) then not able to get my D3D games to work. Luckily got them to take it back after they called Sharp to verify that it does not support D3D. Never trust a sales person!
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post #8 of 40
5/19/05 at 5:25pm
Well, this isnt something that I did but...

My brother asked me if I could download a processor. I just looked at him.

-jcll2002
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post #9 of 40
5/19/05 at 5:40pm
wow D3D capable.. thats soo old skool..
it was all about glide back then (3dfx's voodoo lines)
about 8 years ago when i was in gr 7, now i'm done university 2nd year.. i told my friend to put all her mp3's on a floppy for me.. and i sounded soo sure that it would fit ..
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post #10 of 40
5/19/05 at 6:17pm
Used TweakUI to remove all profile names from the XP login screen. Then realized I couldn't log on (Safe Mode is there for people like me).
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post #11 of 40
5/19/05 at 6:41pm
my wife tried to plug the power cord into a usb port in the back of my old HP laptop. needless to say, that one was dead on contact. she's no longer allowed to touch any power supplies or plug anything in.
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post #12 of 40
5/19/05 at 6:48pm
well i think mine is the worst not because of the damage or anything but because the fact that i knew alot about comps at the time. U know that switch on the back of some desktop that says 110-220 well since my comp didnt want to switch and i know that my Motherboard needed more energy(PSU=300 watt motherboard needed=400) i thought that i could just do that. well my theory had worked and i got into windows and then it went dead. After i talked to one of my friends much later about that he said that my PSU was on its last leg and i just killed it.
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post #13 of 40
5/20/05 at 1:31am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZMad2000
well i think mine is the worst not because of the damage or anything but because the fact that i knew alot about comps at the time. U know that switch on the back of some desktop that says 110-220 well since my comp didnt want to switch and i know that my Motherboard needed more energy(PSU=300 watt motherboard needed=400) i thought that i could just do that. well my theory had worked and i got into windows and then it went dead. After i talked to one of my friends much later about that he said that my PSU was on its last leg and i just killed it.
lollollollol you just reminded me of a story that isn't mine, but my friends. He was a hardware noob and told me he remembered hearing somewhere that when you turn up the voltage it automatically ocs the CPU, I have no idea where he heard that, but he switched that same switch that you did, but Windows didn't boot up and smoke came out from the fans!

Needless to say he has never messed with the voltage of anything since
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post #14 of 40
5/20/05 at 1:46am
Back on my 486, I put a PCI modem in an ISA slot. Must have tried for hours to get the thing working before I gave up. To my defense I was only around 12 at the time and this was before we had the internet to educate us on such matters.
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post #15 of 40
5/20/05 at 1:47am
Back in the DOS days, I wrote a gag COMMAND.COM that would, on random occasions, swear at you. Fine.

Unfortunately, I also wrote in a portion that would scramble your keystrokes as well. Oops.

Then I forgot how to turn off the program. Double oops.

And then my dad started using the computer. Triple oops.

Needless to say, I spent a few furious hours trying to undo my little handy work.
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post #16 of 40
5/20/05 at 1:55am
well hardware-wise i haven't done much

but I just (today!) tried to fix winamp and ended up deleting my media library and the winamp's list of what was in my media library and all my playlists

thankfully it was backuped but it had to be re-added to winamp's media library at the expense of 10 minutes.
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post #17 of 40
5/20/05 at 11:16am
Quote:
...Needless to say, I spent a few furious hours trying to undo my little handy work.
Yeah, but fixing DOS is easy - Reformat and Reinstall!!!

Quote:
Originally Posted by jcll2002
Well, this isnt something that I did but...

My brother asked me if I could download a processor. I just looked at him.

-jcll2002
Man...

Is there any way we can give you brother or NOTW nomination?
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post #18 of 40
5/20/05 at 12:23pm
Years ago I purchased a top of the line 15" desktop replacement, a whopping 10 lb 333 Mhz PII. I was so proud and curious I investigated and investigated till I got into DOS and tampered with either the autoexec.bat or the config.sys files. I was so surprised and stunned when the thing would not boot. Upon calling the tech (all of them back then were oriental) I explained my depressing dilema. As heartsick as I was I had to chuckle at the way the tech replied; with a solemn tone of a reprimanding schoolteacher he gently replied, "Well, you rearry messy op dis-a-time...din' you..."

The Sager tech gave advice though and I had it running soon thereafter.
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post #19 of 40
5/20/05 at 12:44pm
ya um.... i bought an emachines, sure the Arima whitebox is a very nice unit with good battery life, 3hrs, (4 if you get the battery recelled), but damn does emachines tech support suck.
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post #20 of 40
5/20/05 at 2:27pm
Before I had my own computer (with much more HD space), I had to delete all my Cowboy Bebop just to clear up some room. What a sacrifice back then

But now I have them all back, so all is good in the world
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