Computer Upgrade Horror Stories

[Chris Gohlke]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.maximumpc.com/article/[primary-term]/coin_winners_15_worst_user_upgrades_all_time?page=0,0' target='_blank'>http://www.maximumpc.com/article/[p...l_time?page=0,0</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"We extended an offer to our loyal readers: Tell us about your best/worst PC upgrade story, and earn yourself two of the kick-ass, custom-made Maximum PC coins we featured on the cover of that issue. We had no idea what we were in for. Hundreds of submissions later, we emerged traumatized. Drained of all emotion. We laughed. We cried. We got angry. We felt your pain. And, in more than one instance, we literally had no idea what the hell you were talking about (but thanks for trying!)."</em></p><p><em><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1279715555.usr10.jpg" style="border: 0;" /></em></p><p>Those are some pretty neat little coins they minted up for prizes, I bet you'll see some popping up on ebay soon. &nbsp;Check out the horror stories, some are pretty funny. &nbsp;I don't really have any good ones myself. &nbsp;Back in the day I would build my own computers since you could save some significant money that way. &nbsp;Nowadays, I just don't find it worth my time for the&nbsp;aggravation&nbsp;and minimal cost savings.&nbsp;</p><p><em></em></p>

[Hooch Tan]

Probably my worst upgrade story wasn't so much an upgrade but a re-install. Back in the Windows 95 days, I decided to re-install Windows for my computer as it was getting bogged down with a lot of crap that would take ages to clean up manually.

So the install itself went fine. No problems with the hard drive, drivers, installing my initial set of programs, etc. However, when it came time to download updates, things just were not working. Thinking it might be a network problem, I checked the network cable, made sure that the router was lit up, and I even reinstalled the NIC driver with several different versions. About 4 hours later, I discover that I cannot pull updates because my ISP was having problems with routing, so while my router got an IP, it couldn't actually communicate anywhere.

Second to that would've been the time I fried an AMD DX4-100 chip by putting it in the wrong way. That was the fastest I went from excited to disappointed.

[Reid Kistler]

One of the "best" things we managed to do was to assemble a system while somehow ignoring the fact that the power supply was set for 220v instead of 110.

Took us a fair amount of time to figure out why the dump thing Just Wouldn't WORK!!!

:o