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Requiem For A Motherboard
JimLynch writes "In my last DIY column, I discussed what it was like to build my first system. As time went by, unfortunately, my DIY system wasn't all wine and roses. This column tells the story of how I destroyed my motherboard through a series of ill-planned and stupid actions. It should stand as a shining example of What Not to Do for DIYers everywhere."
"I shouldn'ta broke off the white thingie."
"It's a wonderful idea. But it doesn't work." -- Tad Danielewski
He tot it was da ganja, mon.
"It's a wonderful idea. But it doesn't work." -- Tad Danielewski
I'm so happy that there are so many people out there like this, otherwise a lot of us would have to go out and get real jobs...
01:36AM up 426 days, 2:46, 1 user, load average: 0.14, 0.11, 0.05
Another one bites the dust
Wow, he knocked a 'white doohickey' off his motherboard, walked around with it while his arm hairs were standing up straight from static electricity, and still expected the thing to work? What a chump. But not nearly as chumpy as someone who would do these things (i.e., me, with my first DIY system):
1. jammed a DIMM in backwards (this is hard -- the slot is asymmetric to avoid this very thing), turned the machine on, and quickly smelled the sweet smell of burning plastic as the DIMM holder melted, then tried to turn the machine off but forgot that you have to hold the power button down for several seconds, and stinking up the entire house before just pulling the damn plug...
2. vacuumed the dust out of the inside of the case while the machine was running, accidentally tapping the spinning CPU fan with the tip of the vacuum attachment, and snapping one of the fan blades off, making it spin out of control like a unbalanced centrifuge and making a horrible loud noise...
3. speculated that random machine crashes were being caused by a poorly-mounted heat sink, so removed the sink and turned the machine on, heard a loud "BEEEEEEP" and no start-up, then put his finger on the exposed die of the CPU to feel what was going on--OHDAMNIT'SHOTHOTHOTHOT, and enjoying the sweet smell of burning fingertip flesh...
Your screwdriver license has been revoked.
A friend of mine bought an ASUS P4 mb here a few months back. I walked him through installing it in his new fancy case. I thought he understood.
Well, the next day at work, he's got the mb box under one arm, and an RMA in the other.
"What happened?"
"Well, I put the motherboard in the case like you said. I was a little hard getting it in, but I got it in and screwed it down. You were right, it was obvious where the screws went.... But they woudln't screw into anything so I just went ahead and plugged in all the cables like you said, and the power, etc.... But when I turned on the power it made a loud buzzing sound and there was a little smoke."
"Holy shit." I said.
He didn't use the little brass posts. The motherboard was flat-out grounded against the case.
I thought it was common sense.... I was wrong. Some people should stick to playing games.
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...I once had "LM7805" branded backwards on my fingertip, by seeing 'What is hot in here?" ..But that wasn't nearly as bad as the other tech who ran his finger across the inkjet printer head while it was printing. (They design them so you can't do that anymore)( without major effort)
The ink almost made him have to have his finger amputated; It is very toxic, injected under the skin like that.
You could clearly read "The quick brow" backwards, fairly distorted, across the tip of his index finger, afew days later, after all the swelling went down.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani