Build Fails and Horror stories

Jsmucker

Ever had a water-cooling system break in your PC? A graphics card catch fire? Did you touch all the CPU pins? Or maybe you just used the wrong RAM? Well, this contest is for you!

Starting today, January 11th, we want to hear your PC disaster stories. Tell us all about your cracked cases and DOA graphics cards, your bad RAM and failed PSUs. Then, when the entry window closes on January 31st, 11:59 PM EST, we’ll be randomly selecting one entry to win a brand new 3070 graphics card!

And be sure to check out the Micro Center Asks section of our forum for more light-hearted PC discussions, as well as our Service Center for assistance with builds, including build repairs and full-build services.

Winners will be contacted the week after the contest ends.

 How to enter (see terms and conditions for full contest rules):

·         Join the Micro Center community

·         Post a comment below describing your most disastrous PC building experiences

 We can't wait to hear from you!

Good luck!

See attached contest terms and conditions.

Contest submission window: 1/11/21 – 1/31/21

1 winner will receive a 3070 Graphics Card.

Jsmucker

Several years ago I was building a computer for a friend. Installed all of the hardware without an issue. We left to grab some food to bring back and when we returned we found that his dog had decided to urinate on the interior. Fortunately nothing was permanently harmed though cleaning it was less than fun. That was the last time I left a computer, with an open case, on the floor.

Jsmucker

Over the summer I was unloading lawn bags at the local dump with my dad. My dad who was there a week earlier found an older receiver that someone had just thrown away my dad an audiophile noticed the brand and how it looked barely used picked it up. It turned out he was luckier than me as when I was there I noticed a prebuilt pc that looked barely used. After taking it home and using a power cord I had I plugged it in a light came on so I hit the power button but as I did the CPU fan did not turn on. Seeing this I tried to turn the system off and as I did a capacitor short-circuited or something blowing it up this fried every component and caused the cheap graphics card that was in the system to catch on fire. I only kept the DVD drive so I could harvest the laser diodes. Needless to say, don't pick up random pcs out of the dump only the pc, and my ego was damaged.

Jsmucker

I once was watching a TV show on my computer and knocked an entire glass of orange soda over and pretty much every last oz poured in to the top of my case. The case was the type that has triple 120mm fans in the top, so needless to say it just poured right in there perfectly. I powered it off as quickly as I could and started ripped every last component out as quickly as I could while making noises that varied between a dying raccoon and anger. I spent the next day at Micro Center buying new parts for what couldn't be salvaged. The build itself went fairly smooth, and to this day I keep my PC under my desk instead of on the side. A hard lesson to learn...

Jsmucker

I was building my first PC with my high school friend back in 2001. This was around the time where older CPU's didn't need thermal paste, but the newer CPU's required them. Well, we decided that it was not needed for my build...and we didn't have any on hand. Needless to say that this was the wrong decision. CPU lasted about 2 seconds before it was zapped. Costly mistake, and lesson learned.

Jsmucker

Never dropped a glass panel, or knowingly shorted out anything, but I've definitely had that moment, after carefully building my rig & plugging it in, that it wouldn't turn on, spent half an hour stressing over everything, only to have it work on the next (5th) try! Haven't built anything in a minute because parts cost money & Covid decimated my earnings this past year, but this card would be a sweet place to start a new box

Jsmucker

My first PC that I built myself nearly gave me a heart attack. When I was about to put my cpu in the motherboard, my clumsy fingers bent a few pins on the motherboard while opening the latch, so rather than having to buy a new mobo, I opted to try and fix it myself.  So I bought some magnifier goggles, and an ifixit kit, and with my shaky hands, I tried my best to straighten the pins as best I could, it took a while as I was very nervous, but thankfully I managed to fix it enough for the cpu to fit, and have been using it for a couple years now. Hopefully I never have to do that again.