Scared

Soldato
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Jaffa_Cake said:
Dropping the mobo just before you lower it into the case ( yes i did that :( )

Yeah, I very nearly broke my shiney new 6800GT. Took it out the box and it slipped from my grasp. Luckily I managed to grab it with both hands. Nearly £300 down the drain.
 
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Soldato
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First few times on my own building i was nervous, but after years of building and a course in PC repairs i'm relaxed when i fiddle with PC parts.

I tend to make more mistakes when i worry more, a calm and collected approach actually prevents mistakes and oversights on my behalf most of the time.

Last 10 pc's i've built and repaired have booted and worked perfectly on first power up, havnt been able to say that in a while, i usually miss something simple.... :rolleyes:

Of course there's always that chance that something arrives faulty, but that's why i tend to keep at least 1 spare component of the main parts, PSU, CPU, Memory, etc..... even if it's old, as long as it works, at least that way you can find the problem and convince the supplier you have properly tested the hardware and they'll issue an RMA without a hitch. I do this out of preference as it just makes life easier when it comes to building, as problems do happen, and if you're not prepared you'll be stuck playing the guessing game.

Luckily we have 3 pc's here anyway, but not everything is interchangable, and mother dearest has lost a few pieces of hardware in my dabbling, which i always kindly replace with better hardware... ;) .... She's gone from an internet browser to a semi-decent machine for running games like GTA:SA...

2700 Sempron
Abit AN7
1gb DDR 400
Sata HDD
Akasa Zen
FSP 350W PSU
Radeon 9700
Audigy 2 ZS

Not bad considering..... i had to replace a lot of that, but with the use of the MM and the other popular place i've paid for most of it and just given some of it to her as i've upgraded.

Anyway i've gone off-topic at this point, so i'll go hide in a corner or something now.... heheheh ;)
 
Soldato
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i always have a powder fire extinguisher handy, as in lid off, pin out and checked for pressure. then i usually turn it on and nothing happens cos i always forget to switch the psu switch on heh, so yeah quite nervous and everthing crossed usually.
 
Soldato
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its nothing new to me these days, put on average 27 machines together a day, iv seen lots of crap happen. you just get used to it and nothing surprises me any more these days when doing a build.

there are some case exceptions where i have to use a dremel to cut bits off certain cases etc to do custom mounts etc.

funny thing is these days i don;t treat hardware as gentally as i used to, just slapping it all over the place and don;t give a crap about static since iv never had static kill anything in the last 16 years of my pc building .
 
Soldato
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Agree,

I've built over a hundred machines i'd say.

Always tinkering... done over 15 variations of machines that i've had.

Used to get a bit tense in the beginning... but with new, fancy, expensive kit i find i'm simply excited and a little impatient! ;)

Great feeling though - even though that makes me sound like a PC purve! :p :D

gt
 
Soldato
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Lost the thrill years ago. I remember putting together a 486 rig in 1993 or 94 as a kid (13yrs oldish) and thinking theres no way this'll work, booted fine and since then i've pretty much kept it together when building stuff. Don't be fooled though theres a lot of dead hardware in olde Justins locker over the years that are victims of experimentation and sometimes ignorance. From my days building pcs for a fairly big PC retailer to my own college-funding business and personal play toys i've prolly built a few thousand pcs up to now.
 
Soldato
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Cyber-Mav said:
funny thing is these days i don;t treat hardware as gentally as i used to, just slapping it all over the place and don;t give a crap about static since iv never had static kill anything in the last 16 years of my pc building .

Found that too, always think 'noob' when i see someone use a strap or hold it like a baby :D Seen a supposed boss of mine take 10 mins to put some RAM in and STILL screw it up by not pushing it in hard enough. Killed one thing ever by static, and thats not 100% certain, Radeon 7500 (Radeon 64MB DDR VIVO as it was known back then), put it down on a shelf unbagged and it never worked again when i tried it a few months later.
 
Associate
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Ive never really had any problems with PC's except for the bloodey socket A cpu's, must be the most fiddly things in the world!
 
Soldato
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4ndy89 said:
Ive never really had any problems with PC's except for the bloodey socket A cpu's, must be the most fiddly things in the world!
Yeah!

I remember balancing my Aerocool Deep impact on my 3000XP. :eek:

Cooler was nearly 700g with fans attatched which for the time was massive!

Can remember thinking as i put my tower case into it's upright position... the heatsink's either gonna chip the naked core or tear the whole socket off the mobo! :p

Darn great thing only kept my chip just under 60 degrees C too. :rolleyes:

Ahhhh... those were the days!

gt
 
Soldato
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Heh, most damage i've done on socket A was chip a Duron 750 or 800, thought it was a goner but it worked just fine :D Quite amazed though with the amount i built that was the only scary moment, especially with the force needed for it!
 
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Yeh I worry a bit that something wont work. The agro involved sending stuff back and then having to wait for the replacement to come.
 
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I've built so many rigs now i could probably do it blindfolded! The only thing that worries me about building rigs is if a part is faulty which then delays the build while i go through RMA hell.
 
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I'm just awaiting the nice man at the bank sending me the cash to fund my first build. It's a bit of a worry. Take today at work - I bent the pins for the modem connector on the back of an IP phone (worth a few hundred). Managed to straighten them and all is well. But it's the sort of thing I do. Just clumsy. I've visions of me standing on the motherboard, or resting my weight on the graphics card. Anyone have a hamster? What do they do when you put them in a ball? That's me - a hamster in a previous life.

It's still referred to even today in my family - the clock. Me and my dad decided to fix a broken clock. Took the screws out the back. Was about to lift the back off when it flew off and springs, cogs and other essential clock parts went in all directions. It was gathered up and binned. So now, when we attempt anything tricky, it's mentioned - "It'll be the clock all over again" :D
 
Soldato
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Tombles said:
Does anyone here ever get scared when putting a new PC together?

I got my new components at home waiting to be put together but i always worry i forgot to back something up or i will not connect something properly or manage to break something.

Who else gets the build jitters? :D

Not scared of putting them together, but I am scared of getting faulty parts.

With one of my built PCs I had 3 faulty motherboards in a row which was wonderful.
 
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Rice Fiend said:
My first build I screwed my motherboard directly onto the side panel and turned it on. Whoops.


A local pc shop back in the mid 90's called XTEK located in Bristol had to replace a motherboard for a system builder who screwed his motherboard directly to the case. Was it you? :D If it was I can still remember the owner telling me the story and they went out of business in about 2000. :)
 
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