[CLOSED] Share your PC Building Horror Story and enter to win a 3070 Graphics Card!

pzuidema

My horror story dates back to 1997 when the Intel Pentium II was just released. I had started my career in web design and finally got a really nice paycheck. And what better to do when you get that first paycheck than to spend it on building the best machine money could buy at that moment.

And so I did. I ordered a new full ATX tower, a top notch motherboard, enough memory to last me through - well - a few years, and the shiny jewel: my beloved Pentium II. I lived in the Netherlands back then and had to order each part from the US which added to the delivery time. It would just add to the anticipation. Waiting the weeks before that big box of stuff would show.

And of course I was terrified that things might break during shipment. But Lo and Behold, three weeks later there was this perfectly intact cardboard box waiting. Each and every separate unopened box a sight to behold all wrapped in their individual cellophane wrapping. Everything was in pristine condition. 

So I waited for a moment I simply had all the time in the world to hook things up. I had been building PCs for a long time then, and this would be that wonderful event - and so, on the next Friday night, I started. All happy and excited. And the moment supreme, sliding that encased processor into the slot and hook it up. It was so beautiful...

But hey... what was that?

There, right on the bottom corner of my motherboard lay one single low power cable. All by itself. Everything else was hooked up. Just not this one. It's plug had no description like the other ones had, and it came straight from the ATX tower. And as we all know by now: Just leave it be. But I was young and it all needed to be neat and correct. So I read up on the manual, and there was no description in the manual of the tower as well. 
But the manual of the motherboard shed some insight. Or a solution more or less. As there was, right near that lose cable, one little tiny socket that actually was assigned "unused" or something like that. Well... there you go. I have an unused cable, and an unused plug. A match made in heaven. 

Yes, I am smarter now.

So, after weeks of waiting, that moment was finally there... turning on the power. Drum rolls all over. The fans came on, that beep from the motherboard, and everything started to smell nice and toasty and... wait... what? In a flash and a bright flame I saw my beautiful new processor burn to a crisp.
For a few minutes I was sitting there, mouth open, seeing the plastic processor case crumple up in a nice sweet sizzle.

I took the computer, put it right in the attic and thus started my first and only computer-free-month I have experienced ever since (until the new paycheck came in). I ordered a pre-built one

BigChungus44

Not the worst, but when I built my friend his system I couldn't find the motherboard standoff screws and so I decided I would try to see if any of the other screws fit. The radiator screws from his cpu aio fit semi decently. (I had not yet screwed the radiator in and did not know that they were the radiator screws, as all of the parts were just sitting out on the table.) I went about screwing all of them into the motherboard as far as they could go. I was using this really bad screwdriver that he had there though and most of the screws were stripped though. I had not stupidly thought to put the radiator first, and I had a whopping total of 1 screw for the radiator. It was pretty late at that point and I decided I was just going to go home and finish it for him tomorrow. The next day when I went back I somehow managed to find the correct standoff screws from under a few boxes and I was going to try to put them in instead of the radiator screws. I then realized that the fact that most of those screws were stripped was going to be very time consuming. Took about an hour and thirty minutes to wrench out all of those screws and put in the new ones. There were enough screws left to securely screw in the radiator. We had 4 screws that weren't stripped so we screwed in the radiator with that. Then when cable managing I had to take out the radiator and remount it twice because I had a bunch of cables that it was blocking. Thankfully though, his build did get completed and is still up and running to this day.

InfinityNieR

Friend wanted me to replace the AMD cooler for an AIO cooler inside his PC. Accepting this was my 1st mistake knowing that it's a really small case (InWin a1). 2nd mistake was everyone knows that if you don't warm up a am4 CPU, that sucker will come out from the motherboard and attached the cooler. I did warm up the CPU but the problem was removing the air cooler out. So little space to work with and sure enough. The CPU was was attached to the air cooler with so many bent pins. My heart stopped and it wasn't my CPU, I could just imagine what my friend thought too. I was able to straighten out the pins with a tiny flat head. Made sure the CPU dropped into the motherboard easily, applied the thermal paste and put the AIO on there. Crossed my fingers and PC turned on but you best believe my heart was beating really fast right before that boot.

Corporal_BC_76

Had an FX8370 stick to the stock heat sink and pull the CPU out of the Socket.  It looked like the CPU was going to be fine, but when I went to remove the CPU from the heat sink, the CPU let go the second I touched it.  It hit the work bench and down to the floor it went.  Bent pins down one side.  Tried to straighten them out, but one broke.  So sad.  Had to buy a new FX8350 to replace it with.
B 

Dil

Back in the day, I built a Pentium 3 computer with 256 Ram 8mb VGA. When I turned the PC on for the first time. It started smoking. I quickly turned off the electricity but damaged was already done. One of the ram sticks did not sit properly and it started burning. Fortunately, only the slot and the ram got damaged. Motherboard had 4 slots and I had use just 128 for a while.

Zantaric

I have built 2 different PCs over the years and both came with their own headaches. The first PC I ever built was a rig made from spare parts from coworkers who were upgrading their own PC. I was 16 at the time and didn't think that I should put the motherboard in a case before I started putting things on it. After all was said and done, I had built my computer with no case resulting in it not fitting in the case I had bought (the graphics card was too big). So I ended up using an older case from a computer that was being scrapped, it had jagged bits of metal on the inside.

Fast forward down the line to a couple of years ago when I finally had the finances to upgrade the PC I had built so long ago. I completely forgot that lesson I learned that day and tried to upgrade it using the same case before giving up and picking up a new case from your parkville store (Thank you again to the associate who didn't question the man with thermal paste and blood on his hands). After finally getting a good sized case and replacing just about every part since I didn't realize my new motherboard wasn't going to work with any of my older parts, I finally had what is my current gaming rig setup. I had cut myself on the old case so many times that I am pretty sure the watercooler has bits of my blood in it, thus I have named the machine Vlad.

KWottrich

I was sending my used computer parts off to a friend after getting an upgrade for myself.  I was putting the CPU cover back on the Intel motherboard, but I didn't realize the cover went on OVER the metal bracket.  I had put the plastic cover directly on the CPU pins, and was trying to close the metal bracket, and it jammed the pins in the cpu socket down!  I have built multiple computers, and I can't believe how stupid I was in that moment.  The motherboard was effectively dead at that point... I'm just glad I didn't do that to a brand new motherboard!

NAP

Ohhh, the horror!
This, will be the ‘readers digest’ version of a doomed relationship AND failed pc build.  Trust me, the short version will spare all readers from unnecessary drama and details!!
So, there was this guy.  Handsome, smart, charismatic, and had a ‘computer background’.  He also had an eye for Nurse(s), me.
We dated, off and on, I mentioned that I needed a simple and easy to use desktop. He said “we should build one, it’s real easy and you’ll save a lot of money”.
Enter parts ordering, credit card receipts, and well, TIME.
Reminder:  I’m a nurse.
After two weeks, of placing parts, seating and reseating, plugging and replugging, I listened to my intuition and bravely asked him if he had “really ever built a PC before”.  
He, sheepishly said, “no”.
Reminder:  I’m a nurse.  We, bury our mistakes!
We parted as friends, because posers gonna pose.  He, became the proud owner of some fine computer parts and I hope he was able to find a REAL builder and a more gullible gal. 💔
Thanks MicroCenter.  Your team has never failed me!!!!

AYOXONE

Ok so here we go this 100% a true story of my pc story. Took a year to get it done.
I bought a pre-built used on Facebook Marketplace. It was so underpowered and I was ripped off honestly, thought of it as a learning experience. Unfortunately I couldn't afford another so I figured I'd upgrade as I go. First I found a ryzen 1700x for $80 I mean yea that's a score and it's definitely better than the 1200 in there. So I drive an hour to get it. Bring it home and make a huge mistake putting it in. Didn't seat it correctly and when I put on the cooler I bent the pins. Not only that but it broke the motherboard chip slot. Ahhh this computer is bad luck I say. Now I have nothing because I sold the original cpu to keep my cost down, and the motherboard was more than my cpu. My wife was hounding me already and I just started. I watched a jayz2cents video and after a couple days I was ready to try the fix. I did it. Wasn't perfect but after a couple wiggles on the lock that made it perfect. Yay I'm back up and running. 

Next was the gpu and rx 550 2gb? Nope wouldn't do. Found an rx480 8gb reference for $100 again. What could go wrong!?!  Took it home and plugged it in. Unfortunately didn't think and about the power output difference. Boom its smoking!!! Literally. The 300w stocking power supply couldn't hold up. Yea gold rated my butt. So I make another mistake 🙃.  I ordered a raidmax from Newegg. It was cheap and now I have no computer again until it's fixed. Gets in and computer turns on but for some reason it's flickering green omg I can't take this. 😫 I try every solution possible thinking it's drivers. I find hanging it slightly out of the hdmi ports works best. Ghetto but I gotta make it work. The card has 1 hdmi slot and 3 display ports so I had no choice. Microcenter actually helped me with this later on.

I went into microcenter for a new case. Go in an find this awesome lian li on sale. Yes less complaining from the wife. In her defense rent in Boston is high lol. Also microcenter helped me get an dp to hdmi adapter I hoped would work. Take it home and find the proprietary motherboard in the omen doesn't have an io and it doesn't line up. Great... now my computer is in pieces. So I decided to put it back in the old case. Whippy wasting money. Except when I'm put it back together I smell smoke again while I'm enjoying my Apex Legends. It's the power supply again. Except it also blew my motherboard with it. Found that out after I went to microcenter for a new psu. I wasn't touching "raidmax" ever again.... Bronze my butt.
Now with a new new power supply, motherboard (not proprietary), cpu, gpu, case, and side. I'm ready and after putting rebuilding it over 10 times. I'm ready to go. Right? No even after all this I kept going. Yea it was a horror story, but my computer was like one of my kids. I had to sell it due to being laid off. Covid. I'm looking to build a new one but prices are so high for everything now. It's gonna take longer. But when the time does come I can honestly say I learned everything about building computers. Feel like a pro now!

TLed3

Around 10 years ago, I went to build my first computer.  I ordered a "combo" which included CPU, motherboard and RAM, along with two monitors, case, and everything else I needed to complete the build from a big mail order company.  The order was placed around Thanksgiving.  It shipped out in two boxes, but a week later I had only received one of them.  After arguing with the company for a couple weeks, they finally sent out the replacements for the items I was missing.  I finally had all the components just before New Years Eve.  I went to assemble the computer, and quickly found out that this company's combo included DDR3 RAM when the motherboard needed DDR4.  After a fair amount of swearing, I decided the best course of action was just buy the needed RAM locally.  So the next morning I was at my local MicroCenter when they opened the doors to buy this component.  In retrospect, I should have stuck with MicroCenter through it all.  Lesson learned!

DrPlanarian

I am getting ready to build a replacement for a computer I built for myself (from all MicroCenter parts!) back in 2010.  It was very high-end at that time but, at the ripe old age of eleven, although it is still going very strong (and I am using it now to type this) it has many parts that are no longer supported by their manufacturers, so I think that it is time now to retire my trusty old steed to pasture.

When I first built it so many years ago it almost worked right "out of the box," but not quite.  It did not come up the first time, but I just opened the case and discovered that I had plugged the system drive into the wrong SATA head on the motherboard, and after I fixed that (it took about two minutes start-to-finish) it came right up -- the feeling of satisfaction was exquisite!

I loaded the O/S and was in the process of loading my most essential applications when it was bedtime.  We had a storm that night and I remember being awakened by a particularly loud clap of thunder, but we have lots of thunderstorms in northern Virginia and I thought nothing of it and went back to sleep.

I got up the next morning and could not get onto the Internet.  I could not even get to my router.  I checked everything out and it all seemed to be working, but I could get no network connection at all.   I could run Windows and MS Office, play games, watch saved videos and do everything self-contained that the computer had on it, but no contact with the outside world.  I could not even see the Network Interface Card in my Control Panel.

It turned out that a bolt of lightning had actually struck the outside wall (which is brick with wire mesh reinforcement) to my office, and my Ethernet cable was touching the inside of that wall.  The bolt of lightning had fried the NIC on my brand new motherboard, and all I could do was disassemble it and replace the motherboard.  What a royal PAIN!

But all's well that ends well.  MicroCenter, which stands behind what it sells like no company I have ever known, replaced it for free, and after I rebuilt it nearly from scratch the replacement is still chugging along just fine (if you consider obsolete, no-longer-supported hardware and little annoyances like Bluetooth v. 1.0 and 802.11n wireless to be "fine").

(The odd thing is, the lightning bolt did NOT damage my router (a D-Link), which continued to work for years afterward.)

Nev

A while back I had bought the rtx 2080 gpu just when it came out, I was excited to build my first pc then around mid-build I tripped over one of the psu cables fell and spilled coke all over the build.

sniperwhg

A year or two ago, I was traveling between my university dorm room and my permanent residence which involved transporting my computer through the airport. When I got home, reassembling the PC seemed to be normal. Upon booting up, all the fans twitched and nothing would happened. After hours of diagnosing, I proceeded to Microcenter to purchase a new PSU while the old one was in RMA. Successfully, the computer booted and all the components whirred to life. Except the AIO pump, which decided that it had lived a long and fulfilling career, and would end its run by emitting grinding noises before completely seizing. After replacing the AIO, I was finally able to start using my PC again, running a few benchmarks to test stability before resuming full use. A few months later, I decided to upgrade to an M.2 SSD and a few other components, which once again took my PC out of commission for a week. Although it was hard to tell, I was eventually able to prove that the SSD unit was DoA and replaced it, leaving me a system that I'm still using to this day.

Eht

One time, as I was getting new parts to migrate my PC to an ITX case, before I knew a lot about part compatibilities, in the process of upgrading my computer, I played around with BIOS settings, including accidentally changing my RAM to an incompatible frequency. In a panic, I thought that I had bricked my new parts, or old parts, and had no clue what to fix, so I spent the next two weeks and 30+ hours buying new parts, side parts (like different GPU riser cables), exchanging parts, returning parts (including getting the same RAM kit replaced twice), and disassembling and reassembling my ITX PC trying to individually test each part, before a friend mentioned to me that I had just set the ram frequency incorrectly. And that it should have taken me 5 minutes to fix.

FamilyJoules924

Recently built a pc for a friend's brother in another state, 4 months later i get a call saying it doesn't boot. still need to call gigabyte and troubleshoot with a 12 year old. so far i've eliminated the ssd, ram, psu, bios settings, vga, and cpu i'm pretty sure it's either os or MOBO.

GTech

Oooo I've got some good stories
- There was the time when I was helping diagnose the built-in fan hub in my buddy's NZXT Noctis 450 and I plugged the 5-pin power header into a 4-pin fan connector and caused magic smoke

- Or the time when I completely shattered my side panel by accident

- Or the time that I did this because I could

Ed_H

Tried to improve the air flow in a case. Moved an SSD (OS) and HDD (data) out of the case's basement. The HHD went on top of the PSU shroud. The SSD went behind the motherboard.
Turned on the computer. No boot device. Tried again. No boot device.
Opened the back panel, everything was connected. Rechecked power and SATA cables on both drives.
Restart. No boot device.
Put the two drives back in the basement. Boots straight to Windows.
Remount the drives to behind the motherboard and on top of the shroud. No boot device. 
Double check the modular SATA power cable for the SSD. It was not quite pushed in all the way. In the basement, no problem. Behind the motherboard, just enough tension to pull the connector out of the PSU a tiny bit. Reseated the SATA power cable at the PSU with a good click, and the computer was good to go.

Vince123

In 2014, my family decided to splurge and buy a new computer for the household. My parents decided upon a all-in-one pc which basically looked like an oversized iPad with a desktop. While in the process of setting up the wires and cables through the desk holes, my dad accidentally nudged the pc off the desk. Unlucky for us, the desk was near the station that my dad uses for his home improvement projects. There were power tools just laying around the and pc just happened to slid off the wrong end. The screen goes straight down onto the tools. BAM! The whole screen is dented and the most of the display won't even light up anymore. 
It's a good thing we got a warranty for the pc since we would just spent more than a thousand dollars on a pc we can't even use. We, of course, moved my dad's station into the garage instead of the basement where we used to have it. 

AcerPmbiifDbv

I was happy after finishing my first custom loop build a few weeks ago.

with EK 3080FE special water block, which I have been waiting for a long time.

I was so much happy, like a child playing in the water.

Two hours later, the sound of grilling meat was heard in the EK 3080 FE special water block and.. finally water leaked out.

To find out why, I dismantled the water block and looked at it, and there were no two screws in the important part.

Fortunately, there was no flood damage to all electronic parts.
https://imgur.com/gallery/wEBSSP6 << When I was happy
https://imgur.com/gallery/PPalxD2 << When I was in despair

Artoosa

I press power button and PC go KABLOOEY. 

ShiroBlade

I used to be a big fan of the bulky heavy Hyper-212 air cooler and I liked adding a 2nd fan to it for the push/pull configuration. I even helped a friend build one with the same cooler. However on my most recent build after I got everything up and running my ram sticks weren't registering... I fiddled around with it and discovered 2 of the 4 memory lanes were dead but everything else worked... So I went back to the store to replace my motherboard returning with the new one. The thing is I had the exact same issue again as well as the same dead memory slot locations! That weekend I went back to the store with my friend. I put the motherboard on the roof of my car to dig out my keys. Now this was A VERY BAD IDEA!!! I got so distracted I forgot to throw my motherboard into my car. We drove off to the store and when I got there I looked everywhere in my car for it so I could return it to discover it was gone... Both my friend and I looked at each other and had a very bad feeling not to mention the words that came out of my mouth shortly afterwards... On the way back we kept an eye on the road and saw nothing... Just in case we thought I grabbed it but didn't we tore apart the place looking for it. Then we decided to drive the route we took to get to the store. After driving about half a block we discovered it fell onto the road about a block away! At this point I can't tell you how happy and upset I was to have found it... I have NEVER seen a motherboard look so beat up in my life... I can't tell you how many cars must have driven over it... After waiting in customer service/returns It was my turn to talk to the store clerk. The conversation was very awkward and involved some strange looks and hesitation. By some miracle the store took it back! Simply put from now on any new build I make I will be using an AIO water cooler if I plan to overclock it. If not then I'll be getting something not so hefty in weight as I believe the culprit was caused by the backplate brackets damaging my motherboards with the extra weight!

Solarak

My PC building experience took a few turns for the worse...

In 2017, I was looking for an affordable way to get a gaming PC. I came across some videos online where you could take a Dell Optiplex, throw in a graphics card, and it could (reasonably) play games. I decided to try this out and found one for about $120 on Craigslist. It had an i5-2400, 8 gb of Ram, and a 500 gb hard drive, including a motherboard and power supply.

The idea was simple: I was using my father's computer while I was thinking of buying the Optiplex, and realized that his prebuilt system had a GTX 970 in it! My father doesn't play computer games, so I asked if I could remove it and use it in mine. He agreed and everything went well.

When I finally went to buy the dell optiplex, something happened. The one that I had planned on buying was no longer available, but they were willing to accommodate me by giving me a slightly BETTER Optiplex for the same price: this one had an i5-3470 and a 1 TB hard drive. I agreed, and was excited to put the 970 into the Optiplex.

This is where things went downhill. I went home only to find out that the inside of this Optiplex had slightly different dimensions. This meant that I could no longer fit the gtx 970 into the Optiplex! I was without a graphics card! I tried sawing off the metal bits inside the computer that was blocking my graphics card, but it didn't work and managed to cut myself on the sharp metal. After a few days of trying to figure out what to do, I conceded and bought a GTX 1060 3gb evga card online. I also decided to upgrade the power supply because I didn't want to take any chances with my new card! Everything eventually worked out in the end, and I had a pretty decent gaming computer for around $350!

P.S. I also bought a refurbished monitor for my new system that managed to die within a week of buying it. So there is that as well...

guacamole777

Back around 2005, I had a computer on which I had upgraded the ram and video card. For some reason it kept restarting, so I decided to investigate. I opened the case and started looking at possible problems. At first glance there was no obvious issue, but suddenly, I saw my life flash before my eyes! Actually, it was a flash before my eyes! I accidentally touched the motherboard with the screwdriver I used to open the case and saw a circuit burn brightly in slow motion from the middle of the motherboard towards the top (To this day I can still remember the jagged pattern of the bright white flash and the smoke). I kept beating myself up for forgetting to disconnect the power and was greatly saddened as I did not have any other computer. Thankfully, I had some money saved up and went to MICRO CENTER right away to check out new hardware. They’ve always had great prices and have always been very helpful with helping one build their own pc. I went home a very happy customer! I bought a Micro Star International board and I forget the specifics of the other hardware. That night I built a new computer without any flowing electrons! 😊

Asquared0310

In 2018 my pc with a EVGA gtx 1080 FTW randomly shut off and wouldn't power back up. I heard a ticking noise coming from the PSU (also from EVGA) so I called up tech support about the power supply. After some basic troubleshooting the guy on the line told me to disconnect the pcie power cables and leave the graphics card in the mobo. The system powered on but a FLAME shot out of the GPU's VRM. I put out the fire but the card was a month out of warranty and since then I've made do with a 1050 ti.

DarkStarr

My worst build was probably back when the 2600k was new.

I got it all built but after a few days it shut off and wouldn't come back on. Turned out the motherboard died and after swapping the board I found out it killed the 2600k! RMAed the board and CPU and was left with no PC for a while. Later used the RMAed board to build a new machine and it failed within a few hours and killed the CPU yet again!

P67 boards were the buggiest I have ever dealt with in terms of needing RMA, features disappearing from the bios due to corruption, killing chips etc.

jhaluska

When I was younger, dumber and broker, I had a PSU where the fan would have trouble kicking on.

So once I turned on the computer, I would stick a thin screw driver into the back of the PSU and give the fan a kickstart.  I did this
pretty routinely.  Till one day I got careless and must have touched a component in the PSU, sparks flew where it left a gouge in the screwdriver and the computer never turned on again.  I felt fortunate I didn't electrocute myself in the process.

Clash

1. Bought all my Parts for my very first build.
2. Built the computer and it won't post.
3. Return the case and the mobo, try again.
4. it posts
5. test everything via TimeSpy and the like and it's all good.  Next day it crashes during gaming.
6. Spend 2 months trying to figure out what's wrong(it was the my AMD 5700 GPU) and apply the fixes that worked for others with my setup.
7. Realize it's too late to return the graphics card so I end up buying a 2060 Super and it finally works consistently.

MikeG

A few years ago, I bought all the components for a great PC from Microcenter. I lived a few hours away from the closest Microcenter. I took the parts home, assembled everything, and it just didn't start. I tried removing everything unnecessary (discrete graphics, etc) that wasn't necessary to start. I tried various diagnostic tools. In the end, I had to return all of the parts, because I couldn't determine whether the problem was the motherboard, RAM, CPU, or power supply. Felt like an idiot that day. I've built several other computers without a problem.

zobfish

I got into building PCs as a way for my brother and I to bond when we were little. We spent endless hours huddled over the same keyboard together taking turns playing Unreal Tournament on the one PC we had built. Then Diablo 2 was released. Peace, after all, was never an option. No more were the halcyon times of switching every life. No, this was the time of endless Mephisto runs to get that next Stone of Jordan (it was the meta at the time, don't @ me). It was time to build a second computer. Of course, this being the shiny new and presumably faster computer, there was fierce competition for whose it would be. We worked late into the night checking and double checking that every part had its place and not wires were cross. Everything worked the first try, even! For whatever reason, there was an unspoken understanding that whoever it was that would put the disk in the tray to install the game would be the first to get to play it and during the entire build we had been strategically placing the disk closeby to grab it. The build was done, now, and the standoff began, which quickly escalated into a wrestling match. We were moments away from returning to the harmony of days past when the struggle for the disk to get into the tray....snapped the entire tray off the drive. It would be another week of brutal waiting before we got the store to get another. So, folks, just let your brother play first. We're in it together.

lymanamyl

Around the time the 2nd gen iPod came out I got it stuck in my head that I was going to get one and I needed a computer with Firewire. Since I wasn't going to build a whole new computer I just bought a new motherboard with a Firewire port and quickly reassembled my PC with all the other existing parts. The 3rd gen iPod came out and I bought it. I plugged it into the Firewire port and looked in horror as the pixels on the LCD screen of the iPod slowly went all black and killed the iPod. I pulled out my PC and opened the case and saw that I had plugged in the Firewire incorrectly into the header pins. In my haste to reassemble everything I did not properly center the female side of the plug into the Firewire pins on the motherboard and they were shifted over by 1 column. I assume one of the data lines got voltage instead and that fried my iPod. Luckily I was able to get it replaced and everything was fine after that.