This thread starter that I initially made on another forum waaay back in April 2017, is a humorous confession of my biggest PC cockup ever that I'd like to share and facepalm with you all on here. I've slightly edited it for context.
Note that I've since upgraded my PC, so the mobo, CPU etc are all different:
nerdzone.uk
Go on, confess, we've all been there and done something really daft that resulted in us physically breaking our expensive PC in some way. I did something like that recently.
My Asus mobo doesn't have the world's best PCIe slot retention tab mechanism on it. Pulling out a graphics card, especially a large, bulky one, can be tricky, because the little retention tab has a habit of not letting go. It then requires some very careful manipulation and a great deal of patience to make it let go and get the card out, all the while not being able to reach it properly due to the size of the card.
Anyway, I was trying to remove a faulty Palit GTX 1080 from the lower slot. The little retention tab wouldn't stay down and I was already pretty frustrated about this second faulty card which was intermittent that I would now have the hassle of returning and figured the shop would try to fob me off as working, so wasn't quite thinking straight.
But that %^!& tab just wasn't letting go, no matter how I tried to coax it. In the end, I was pretty steaming and thought sod it, just yank the damned card out of there and let the tab break! I pulled pretty hard. The tab was harder: it held fast, with the card getting wedged in at an angle, half out of the slot.
The tab part of the metal backplate of the card was stuck, pushing hard against the rear bracket of the case and no way was it gonna budge, either forwards or backwards.
Now I was really frustrated. I tried to free the card with gentle manipulations, but it just started to pull the PCIe connector off the mobo instead. In the end, I just said eff it, never mind that connector and pulled the card out again, hard.
This time the card came out, along with the PCIe connector and the little retention tab which broke off and went flying! What a pretty sight. Not. Great to know that this tab will hold on for dear life no matter what.
At least the graphics card wasn't damaged.
I now had two rows of pins on the mobo, some sticking out at very weird angles, with the ones at the bottom left, to the left of the slot divider looking the worst and pretty mangled.
Thankfully, the power was switched off at the back of the PSU and I'd let the capacitors discharge before I tried removing the card, so there was no possibility of a short circuit. I splayed out the pins with a screwdriver so that they wouldn't short out and now the mobo still works fine other than that connector. It does mean no SLI though and I've got twin GTX 590s to play with for quad SLI.
In the end, it's not so bad, as I'm due to upgrade my 2700K to a Kaby Lake 7700K soonish anyway and the shop refunded my money without quibbling.
Moral of the story: when you're beginning to get too wound up over something with your PC, just leave it for a bit and come back later when you're calmer. This is the only time I've busted something by doing something stupid.
So, can you top this story?
Note that I've since upgraded my PC, so the mobo, CPU etc are all different:
Retro's PC upgrade
It's high time that I upgraded my PC as it's now really needed and here's why. I built a 2700K based PC with 16GB RAM back in November 2011 which was so good and fast in games, plus further CPU performance improvements per generation were so marginal, that it just wasn't worth upgrading. So, by...
nerdzone.uk
Go on, confess, we've all been there and done something really daft that resulted in us physically breaking our expensive PC in some way. I did something like that recently.
My Asus mobo doesn't have the world's best PCIe slot retention tab mechanism on it. Pulling out a graphics card, especially a large, bulky one, can be tricky, because the little retention tab has a habit of not letting go. It then requires some very careful manipulation and a great deal of patience to make it let go and get the card out, all the while not being able to reach it properly due to the size of the card.
Anyway, I was trying to remove a faulty Palit GTX 1080 from the lower slot. The little retention tab wouldn't stay down and I was already pretty frustrated about this second faulty card which was intermittent that I would now have the hassle of returning and figured the shop would try to fob me off as working, so wasn't quite thinking straight.
But that %^!& tab just wasn't letting go, no matter how I tried to coax it. In the end, I was pretty steaming and thought sod it, just yank the damned card out of there and let the tab break! I pulled pretty hard. The tab was harder: it held fast, with the card getting wedged in at an angle, half out of the slot.
The tab part of the metal backplate of the card was stuck, pushing hard against the rear bracket of the case and no way was it gonna budge, either forwards or backwards.Now I was really frustrated. I tried to free the card with gentle manipulations, but it just started to pull the PCIe connector off the mobo instead. In the end, I just said eff it, never mind that connector and pulled the card out again, hard.
This time the card came out, along with the PCIe connector and the little retention tab which broke off and went flying! What a pretty sight. Not. Great to know that this tab will hold on for dear life no matter what.
At least the graphics card wasn't damaged.I now had two rows of pins on the mobo, some sticking out at very weird angles, with the ones at the bottom left, to the left of the slot divider looking the worst and pretty mangled.
Thankfully, the power was switched off at the back of the PSU and I'd let the capacitors discharge before I tried removing the card, so there was no possibility of a short circuit. I splayed out the pins with a screwdriver so that they wouldn't short out and now the mobo still works fine other than that connector. It does mean no SLI though and I've got twin GTX 590s to play with for quad SLI.
In the end, it's not so bad, as I'm due to upgrade my 2700K to a Kaby Lake 7700K soonish anyway and the shop refunded my money without quibbling.
Moral of the story: when you're beginning to get too wound up over something with your PC, just leave it for a bit and come back later when you're calmer. This is the only time I've busted something by doing something stupid.
So, can you top this story?
I'll DM you.
TBH, I think it shouldn't have even turned on if it wasn't attached properly.
