I just done something daft

Associate
Joined
26 Jan 2005
Posts
1,586
Location
Newcastle, UK
I'm busy fixing 3 machines at the same time and I needed to swap a CD drive in my brand new system. I power down the machine that I want to swap the drive and remove the old drive. I then, for some unknown reason power the machine up (with no drive).

I go away for 10 mins and I come back and begin plugging in the IDE and the power cables, but hold on... nope it's too late... I've already plugged the cables in (while the PC was on) and I just clean forgot, whoops.

I didn't notice the fans spinning because the system is pushed in the corner as the wires are tight so I just squashed my arm in and because I've got other machines running I didn't hear it on (it runs quiet anyways).

When I half-plugged in the power cable, the whole system juddered for a second as if I just turned the power off but windows was still on and it seems ok.

I just want to know if I could have damaged anything (the mobo or the power etc) by accidently attempting to plug in hardware while the PC is still on. I am planning on leaving this PC on 24/7 as a download box and I don't like the thought of the power supply packing in because I've been an idiot.

Has anyone done this before? Does it cause any damage?

Thanks in advance,
Scott.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
26 Jan 2005
Posts
1,586
Location
Newcastle, UK
Ah right, there are just 2 SATA hard drives plugged in at the time I done it. The only IDE device is the one I was plugging in, and it appears to be working ok. Its a brand new and not too cheap DVDRW Combo, so I hope it still copies stuff :rolleyes:
 

Nix

Nix

Soldato
Joined
26 Dec 2005
Posts
19,841
Scott Salisbury said:
Ah right, there are just 2 SATA hard drives plugged in at the time I done it. The only IDE device is the one I was plugging in, and it appears to be working ok. Its a brand new and not too cheap DVDRW Combo, so I hope it still copies stuff :rolleyes:

Hopefully you wont have damaged anything then. Just keep a close eye on it.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
26 Jan 2005
Posts
1,586
Location
Newcastle, UK
The $6m Dan said:
I made the same mistake a few years ago with a hard drive. The nice blue spark reminded me that I'd not powered down. I lost both hard drives :(

Aww :( that sucks.

Yeah I didn't see any sparks, nor electricute myself. pretty lucky I think. I'm surprised the PC even stayed on and didn't restart or crash.

I'll do some tests on it later.
 
Associate
Joined
26 Jun 2005
Posts
1,135
speaking of sparks....ever rammed a screwdriver into the back of a power supply coz the fan was being noisy? I did, one HELL of a big spark out the back of that, thort I was gona electrocute myself or sumin, lol
 
Associate
Joined
26 Jun 2005
Posts
1,135
nope but it was plugged in and the comp was turned on....fortunately the rubber handle of the screwdriver insulated me from the huge spark which shot out the back
 

ob1

ob1

Associate
Joined
16 Apr 2006
Posts
200
If the psu is good it should be fine. I had a molex lose on a hdd earlier, pretty sure it was powering on and off a couple times before I noticed, no problem with it
 
Permabanned
Joined
11 Mar 2004
Posts
5,884
Scott Salisbury said:
I'm busy fixing 3 machines at the same time and I needed to swap a CD drive in my brand new system. I power down the machine that I want to swap the drive and remove the old drive. I then, for some unknown reason power the machine up (with no drive).

I go away for 10 mins and I come back and begin plugging in the IDE and the power cables, but hold on... nope it's too late... I've already plugged the cables in (while the PC was on) and I just clean forgot, whoops.

I didn't notice the fans spinning because the system is pushed in the corner as the wires are tight so I just squashed my arm in and because I've got other machines running I didn't hear it on (it runs quiet anyways).

When I half-plugged in the power cable, the whole system juddered for a second as if I just turned the power off but windows was still on and it seems ok.

I just want to know if I could have damaged anything (the mobo or the power etc) by accidently attempting to plug in hardware while the PC is still on. I am planning on leaving this PC on 24/7 as a download box and I don't like the thought of the power supply packing in because I've been an idiot.

Has anyone done this before? Does it cause any damage?

Thanks in advance,
Scott.


Ten years of building pc`s, ive done this myself a couple of times... just keep building it, run it for 24 hours and use it as best you can but i would be willing to put money on it being fine. there pretty tough :) hell i had a faulty hard drive once and the only thing i could do to wake it up was unplug its power and plug it back in while the system was live lol, never had a problem with the system over all :) (although i really dont advise that method...)
 
Back
Top Bottom