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

Basti · January 2021

After leaving for college a year back I decided it was time to upgrade my graphics card and CPU. After learning how to disassemble and upgrade the parts I headed off to school. Maybe a week later (PRIOR TO COVID) My house was having a party that turned into an absolute rager with almost 200 kids packed into my off-campus house. Although I had an absolute blast at the dinger, the horror story comes around 1 am. I finally decided to kick everyone out and shut the party down, walked into my room turned on my PC only to be greeted by white electric smoke rapidly coming out of my GPU. After weeks of trying to figure out what happened apparently some chick spilled a white claw into the top vent of my case, thus leaking in and destroying every part and frying the motherboard. Along with it all my memories and great times I had with that computer. Currently working to save enough to build another one, don't like charity but thought id share my story.

- Basti

DontDisplayThis · January 2021

I was building a computer for a neighbor's kid. Inserted CPU, added thermal paste, and attached the fan. I tested the fan to make sure it wasn't loose and when I pulled on it, out came the CPU which then dropped off and bent a lot of the socket pins on the MB. I had in my haste (or old age) forgotten to lock down the CPU. Expensive lesson.

Big_Boosh · January 2021

I had finally convinced my mom to let me put some new components in her 4 year old Dell desktop because it was running super slow (and her having 50+ chrome tabs open). I bought her a recent intel CPU w/ mobo, 16 gb of RAM and an SSD from microcenter and was all good with the rest of her prebuilt parts. My cousin was over and offered to help which was fine because he had built a few in the past and we quickly got everything installed and powered up. We then went to download windows to a usb on the computer (her hard drive was still the boot drive) and when we went to format the usb, my cousin formatted the wrong drive and completely erased my moms backup hard drive with 1-2 tb of family pictures, important financial documents (she is a financial planner) and tons of other files. We were FREAKING OUT as you can imagine and we had to hide this from her while we were frantically googling how to get all this back. We spent 60$ a well known data recovery software and THANKFULLY it got most of everything back just somewhat unorganized. That was one of the scariest moments of my life but let me tell you does her email load fast.

Jotarby · January 2021

Once I was on my computer and all of my games were laggy. I asked my friend what the hell is happening he said check the cpu temperature to see if it’s all good. I checked it was at 100. He said oh that’s Fahrenheit you’re good. So I thought maybe i have like no storage. Couple hours later my friend that knows a lot about PCs got on and I asked him what’s up as well and I told him about how my temperature on my cpu was 100 which is fine and he said that’s not Fahrenheit that’s Celsius. I looked inside my pc and a wire was blocking the fan. So I turned off my pc took the fan off and the cpu was fine just was brown on the top which I wiped off and added new thermal paste. Still use that cpu til this day. But I had it on for hours upon hours

A11ehandro_ · January 2021

As a squirt, I once had a dusty little computer that I used to play one of the only games I had, Star Wars Battlefront 2! The game ran slow so I made sure to save up money by helping with practically every chore and getting paid extra for my allowance, I was able to save up money to buy a new graphics card and could not be happier. Once I got the card and was placing the new card in, I was a kid on a mission and could not be bothered to clean the dust bunnies out of the pc, I just placed the new card in. An hour after some beautiful playtime, I heard a loud crack and a blue flash of light come from my pc... Scarier than a super battle droid. The pc turned off immediately after the flash and I could smell smoke, the power supply had given way because of the dust.

AppBan · January 2021

My first build wasn’t a big disaster but I certainly made some mistakes. The first mistake I made was with my thermal paste. I bought liquid metal thermal paste and I didn’t understand how to use it so I used the whole tube. This resulted in a giant mess that I’m still cleaning a year later. The next mistake I made wasn’t serious but is very hilarious. As this build was my first build I couldn’t find where to plug-in the hdmi cable as my motherboard didn’t have a slot for the cable. My graphics card also didn’t seem to have an input slot for a cable. Therefore I spent 2 hours researching my motherboard and watching videos to see how and where I plug-in a hdmi cable. After 2 hours I finally realized that there were plastic covers over the slots in my graphics card. I felt extremely stupid after a couple months of research on parts and building computers. Luckily those are the only problems I have dealt with building PCs so far.

Noo · January 2021

My brother had bought a pre-built pc from his friend and used it for about another year or two so this system was decently aged and my brother would always leave the side panel open no matter how many times I would tell him to close it and the dust and dirty had started to pile up and it was noticeable then when it finally died on him, not sure why, it once again sat for another year or so without the side panel attached and once i started to build my pc I figured how bad can his old pc really be and thought about taking the gpu (msi 1060 3gb vram) and the psu (evga 500w 80 plus) to save a few bucks, especially since the gpu prices have increased, and use it temporarily untill I had enough to replace them and after what I did I felt like I earned them. I started by laying the pc on its side on the bed and there were so many loose dust clumps everywhere it felt impossible to clean. Then when I got to disconnecting the gpu and all of the psu cables, I felt the urge to clean my hands anytime I could. Eventually I got through it and once the gpu and psu were free I decided to clean the gpu first since it was pretty open and it wasn't that not that bad untill I had to clean the backplate where there was A LOT of dust that had stuck to the back plate and pins pretty well and I felt like just abandoning the idea but with enough pass through with clorax wipes I was able to clean it properly and air cans to clean the fans then eventually took the gpu apart and saw the the thermal paste was barely even thermal paste and that most of it wasn't even on the cpu in the graphics card it was more on the chips around it so once again I cleaned it ordered some thermal paste and finally put it back together. After putting it all together it looked pretty clean so now I had to clean with the psu at first I just blew air in the holes and the fan and though that it was enough since a lot of dust had been knocked loose when I did that but when I installed the psu the cables still had some dirt so decided to just take it apart amd be safe. After many hours of pulling apart the sides of the power supply to finally take the top off I was so happy that I decided to take it apart seeing all of the dust that was hidden under the cables and components inside. Finally I got it clean put it all back together and felt so much happier that I decided to clean these components before actually using them especially when their fans are on because they wouldve thrown around all of the dust they had stored inside of them. This whole process was really exhausting, but at least I have a temporary gpu and psu to use meanwhile I get money to complete my build which shouldn't be that long I hope since all I need is a cpu and ram.

MikeBB · January 2021

I recently upgraded my custom loop computer with a new Aorus Z490 Ultra mobo, new CPU, fancy Corsair RAM with yet more RGB, and so forth. This is the third or fourth time that I've rebuilt this PC so probably most of the parts except for the fans are different than the original. In any case, it had been working fine for several months and then a few weeks ago, Gigabyte posted a new version of their BIOS. I usually flash from a USB stick, but was lazy and decided to use their @BIOS utility to do it from within Windows. It seemed to run, system rebooted to a black screen. I tried shutting it off and starting from cold, same result. The diagnostic display gave an error code that was 'reserved' according to the manual so no help there. After some research I found the Q Flash Plus function which should flash the BIOS by pressing a button on the mobo with the USB stick inserted into the designated port on the back, no joy. I went to bed dreading working on it again the next day. A number of videos said that Q Flash only worked on a bare board (others said that it worked with everything installed, which it did not for me). So I spent over an hour draining my cooling loop and stripping the mobo. It still wouldn't flash. I had been trying the version that was working right before the one that broke things. I decided to try the original version that the board shipped with. I pushed the button, the LED started blinking... and then kept on blinking like it was supposed to. I put it all back together again and it had worked! PC is alive again.
I still find it interesting that you can find places that advise not updating BIOS unless you have an issue, and others that say you should always run the latest version. In any case, mine is now running the last one that ran without issues and I'm going to leave it at that!

armelie · January 2021

So it was a dark cloudy day, perfectly cozy. I had just come back from microcenter with all my parts ready to build my first budget (because i'm a broke grill) PC with my boyfriend. We finish the PC no problem, it runs beautifully. But since it was a dark cozy day I decided to get some soup to embrace the coziness... keep in mind it is still day one with my brand new PC that I am ultra psyched about (my first PC too... I was a laptop user all my life till then).

Well as I came back to my room with my literally boiling hot soup, I smelled it and thought it was kinda weird smelling. Now the soup is one of those microwavable soups in a cup (don't judge me). So I was looking for the expiration date which I realized was on the underside of the cup. I was now standing by my desk, and by my computer, and I lift the cup up in the air to read the underside to find the expiration date, and realize GOD DAMN THIS CUP OF SOUP IS FECKIN HOTTTTTTTTT. And I proceed to drop the soup all over myself, and my brand spankin new computer... Luckily my first instinct was to..... THAT'S RIGHT, PROTECT THE COMPUTER AT ALL COSTS. So I powered it down and in my panic I grabbed the first item I could think of to clean it with, which was my bed sheet that I had to throw away after because it was drenched in soup. I cleaned it as quickly and as thoroughly as a girl who was currently being scalded by hot soup could. I then proceeded to run to the shower to douse myself in its cold embrace. Luckily my quick computer protecting skills ensured that it was still working... but I still find hidden remnant soup bits in it to this day... LOL. I did however end up with semi-severe burns on my legs, with scars that have yet to leave. But it was worth it because at least my computer still runs...

So yeah, pro tip. Don't hold scalding hot soup over yourself next to a computer.

Scottconley · January 2021

I'm a 14 yr old I bought a 2080 super xc ultra and I had a water block on it I didn't want to water cool my pc so I bought a 2080 super xc ultra fan and I put the fan on the 2080 and I can't play and games only at low settings and it still crashes my pc bc my 2080 gets up to 100 degrees and my pc crashed and if I put my 2080 on medium settings it crashes automatically and I'm using a i5 10400 16gbs of ram a tomahawk b460 motherboard and the backplate on my gpu heats up and the heat stays in the backplate and makes the pc crash I have good airflow in my pc and I have never had this happen to me in my pc and idk what to do.

Prentai · January 2021

First time that I had ever built a pc.

Thought videos like the verge was great and decided to go balls deep. First things first, I ordered and bought some parts from microcenter/amazon. I open the box containing my pc case. Shards. I'm talking glass all over the floor with three cats in my room. Great. Decided to vacuum up the floor first and sweep the rest of the remaining glass. I then proceeded to do what anyone else does and fiddle around with the motherboard and CPU. Cat jumps on table, knocks cpu down while I'm grabbing the rest of the stuff from behind me. Ahh a broken pin (Turned out to be something unimportant, still worked).

Had no idea that RAM went in a certain way (I had watched a video where someone said to apply force). Broke a RAM stick. Wasn't expensive but it was a G.SKILL RGB stick. Left with one stick of 8GB G.Skill RAM.

Ran two M.2 1TB Sabrent without M.2 screws.

280MM Rad with 2 fans. Couldn't fit two 140mm up top. Decided to push it up against the heat sinks of the motherboard. Threw the 280 against some weak 120mm fans. LOL

24-Pin connector (fine). Pins for the case. Not fine. I had broken two off while plugging the +/- plugs in. : ^
Yes I kept the case. For how long? Pretty long gone.

Spent 40-ish minutes trying to figure out why it wasn't going in. Was too scared to push it in like the RAM, as seen above. It was a 2080 Super.

Bought a PowerSpec PSU-750W. The PC wouldn't stay on for long. It posted don't get me wrong, but when I ran some heavy duty games (Assassins' Creed, Fallout) it would shut off like the fuse went out. Thought it was the wiring. Rewired my entire PC. Every. Single. God. Damn. Cable. Turns out just one single 4-Pin was shorting the entire system out :c .

Didn't know what monitor to get, thought 1440p was a myth. 120$ 60hz ASUS monitor. Thought something was wrong with the monitor when clearly 720p isn't what a 2080 can perform its best at.

Oh and I almost forgot. I really thought you were supposed to spread the thermal paste. It looked like your average bathroom if you were to have 10 kids brush their teeth at once with Colgate 3D white.

Moral of the story: Do your research. Wonder why a certain a video has so many dislikes.
Things I replaced: CPU/Case/Fans/Fan controller (broke it with super glue- please don't ask how)/RAM/Motherboard/1 M.2 lost 300GB of space, wasn't anything to do with formatting./PSU/Monitor/Keyboard x2

PS: I rebuilt everything correctly after staying up 24hrs researching what every little thing means/does. I had no idea what I was doing tbh with no help and a couple of random videos at the time to guide me. If you have seen the verges pc build video you would know what I mean.
Please don't roast me >.<

plonk420 · January 2021

double checking my ordering history just now, i think this was 2006 or so, but i bought a socket 939 mobo. i'm not quite sure why i had to do it, but i brought it to a LAN party in order to assemble/upgrade my system. you know, Beige cases, heavy, MASSIVE CRTs. literally cheetos, doritos, mountain dew, the random stack of energy drinks. power strips and sometimes almost dangerously overloaded extension cords. LAN parties!

for some reason, i had to remove the backplate in order to install the CPU cooler. or there was some reason i thought i had to remove it. well, in my haste in building my computer, i got a bit TOO vigorous in trying to remove the backplate, and it ripped a bit off the paint layer off the board. now, i could be dramatic and say that resistors and ceramics came flying off. pretty sure that didn't happen. all i know is that it wouldn't start up. it wasn't my first build by far, so it was quite dead. oh, the numb, mildly uncomfortable feeling having to put the old parts back in the case and then game the shorter remaining bit of the night (after fixing the usual networking issues every other LAN party, lol) with your old setup.

few details of the night remain except for gleefully prying away at the backplate, it eventually coming off, and within moments knowing something was very, VERY likely quite wrong.

so now, if something requires MORE force than i'm comfortable with (LOOKING AT YOU, Foxconn TR4 SOCKET), i youtube the CRAP out of install videos to verify how much elbow grease an install is supposed to need.

also, woo! (my) first post!

oh, and i'll be VERY happy if i won this. my RX580/GTX1060-like performing Fury will happily retire ...or more likely take an easy retirement vacation entertaining my roomie's kids.

NATB_35 · January 2021

First time building a pc. Read a lot online on how to build so I didnt make too many mistakes. Installed everything and plugged in the power cord. I press the power button and nothing... Motherboard powers but that is about it. Spend the next few hours frantically troubleshooting everything with my limited knowledge. Eventually call a friend who comes over the next day and looks over everything and says it all looks good. Tells me to press the power button. PC starts right up and boots to bios. Found out a had a doa hard drive but a simple return and pickup from micro center fixed that issue. Just find it funny how my friends mere presence helped my pc boot, never underestimate the power of friends!

Zakabog · January 2021

In early 2002 I bought a brand new Athlon XP 2100+, it was ~$400 and my friend gifted me a ThermalTake Volcano 7+ for helping him build his PC. I installed the CPU and the beastly new solid copper heatsink, completely forgetting to put thermal paste on the CPU, back in a time where when CPUs had no throttling and would just burn out if they overheated.

Well that CPU quickly became a keychain...

Josias · January 2021

The year was 2020, I began ordering parts one by one as they went on sale, my first part was the Ryzen 5 3600x that I got from microcenter for $159.99. The pandemic had not shown its ugly face just yet, but at that time it was also difficult to get graphics cards. After a few months of ordering parts I had assembled all of my pieces like the avengers, and I felt like Thanos with all of the infinity stones. I rushed home as soon as I received the “your item has been delivered” notification from amazon. When I get home, I start my build as normal, and everything is going smoothly until I had to install the cpu cooler. I had the corsair h100i elite, it wasn’t damaged or anything just none of the screws would go in so I couldn’t mount any fans or mount it to my case. I was heated at this point like the hulk I wanted to smash my pc, but instead I decided to use the stock cooler for the time being, until I could go back to BestBuy to get a new cpu cooler. The next day comes around I exchange my cooler and go home to switch the coolers out, what happens next was the most horrifying thing that has ever happened to me. So, I unscrew the Amd cooler, but the thermal paste just was not letting go, it was like the cpu had the gorilla grip pus… nvm, it had the grip of gorilla glue and would not let go for dear life. After pulling and twisting on the cooler it finally comes out, but underneath it was the Ryzen 5. My heart sank faster than the titanic, and I was freaking out because the socket was locked. I was thinking to myself, is this supposed to happen? I was like oh crap I should’ve bought that protection plan that guy from microcenter offered me, I was sure that I had torn some pins off of the cpu thereby killing it. After I calmed down, I decided to finish the build. I press the power button, and when the post cycle gets to cpu it takes a little longer than it had before and I was like yup I killed it, but then it was like a phoenix coming back to life it fired up and I got straight to gaming.

OhGodPleaseHelp · January 2021

Queue the creepy music fellow nerds, for this is a PC building story filled with teeth grinding and unsettling images, if you have built a computer or find yourself a computer enthusiast, prepare to be filled with rage as you see the newest and rarest PC parts are gruesomely mistreated. And now I am proud to present, Holy $h1t, I broke the PC. After waiting in a ridiculously long line, filled with your average Nvidia and AMD fanboys/girls, our character emerges with the last 2 3090s. Envy hits the crowd as they realize he is also carrying a Ryzen 9 5950X. While proudly striding back to his mothers station wagon, a opportunist approaches. He snags a 3090, attempting to get away with it. Little does he know our 34 year old neckbeard is not going to let his "child" be stolen by a common thief. He beats the thief with the other 3090, taking both rare and prized GPUs and driving away. As he gets home, he moves his parts to a table. This is the moment he has been waiting for, the moment he quit his job for so he could wait in hour long lines. His face goes white. The 3090 is shattered. Panicked, he drops the other 3090, then his motherboard, and then his Ryzen 9 5950X. Distraught rains upon his studio apartment. In a fit of bitter crying rage, he drops his hoagie on his old rig. The juices from the hoagie short out everything, every possession he has is now gone. To add to the carnage, the wall outlet shorts out. What happened to the man, you may ask. We will never know. And thus concludes, Holy $h1t, I broke the PC.

Karsten_Cook · January 2021

Around this time last year I was building a dedicated mining rig. I had ordered some new riser cables and found that these were powered through a SATA cable which I hadn't seen before. So I picked up some SATA to 6-pin adapters and hooked everything up like I thought it logically should. I had the SATA to 6-pin hooked up to an ASIC power supply and as soon as I "fired" it up.... POOF!!!.... The adapter cable popped and caught fire nearly setting my carpet on fire as well.

Sad part is, I thought that maybe I had faulty hardware so I tried swapping out the adapter and riser and proceeded to do the same thing again... POOF!!!.... Needless to say I went and got a different type of risers after that experience.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me LOL

BDKaleb · January 2021

I remember having some easy problems building PC's and some hard ones from two i9 9900k's melting on me, to the real nightmare I experienced building a PC for a friend. So it all started off with me wanting to help my buddy Miguel out and finally convert him to be a PC gamer since we played and met on Xbox back in 2013 and I hadn't played with him since my big switch to PC in 2017. I finally convinced him to let me build it and we decided on a "huge budget" of $650 total (including everything) to make a gaming pc. So I took my old motherboard a Z390 ATX (since I switched to Micro for sizing purposes) and combo'ed it with a i5 9400F, then gathered a list of parts that were solid and worked around the budget. Then I finally got all the parts in the mail(except the ram), all in perfect condition, nothing wrong. Then I started building...
As per usual I began with motherboard out of the box and I slotted the new CPU in the motherboard and didn't have their ram yet so I took a extra DDR4 stick from my PC and inserted it for the time being then Proceeded to mount the CPU Cooler and set it up for the case. It was all going well, building was going smooth and everything looked in good condition until I got it all corded and situated. At first, I thought it was the SSD, originally got a boot drive of 240gb SATA SSD and loaded a fresh install of windows, but it wouldn't boot; it wouldn't even boot the windows installer on there. Then I proceeded to suspected that the RAM was the problem and tried new sticks to diagnostic it, eventually I tested everything and came to a conclusion that would drive me in circles for a month. I ultimately decided that the SSD was the issue as to why it wouldn't post, then I returned it and got a different brand SSD but this time it was NVME; all still while the first RAM sticks still hadn't come in. Two weeks have gone by and I've tried everything and I've exhausted myself reading about the solutions online and what it could be so I buy new RAM that comes in the next day and return the SSD and buy yet another one to hopefully solve this problem.
Two more weeks have passed, I'm nearing a month of no results and I am losing my mind as to what it could be. I have come to grips and decided "It couldn't be the SSD or RAM, right? It couldn't be, I'm crazy!". So I started thinking about what could be wrong on the motherboard, CMOS? or something else, Idk I'm not expert. So I look at the build online again, for whatever reason at that moment I realized something I hadn't before, There's always that warning of "...Motherboard may need a BIOS update prior to use..." on the build site. I let that sink in for about 20 seconds before I started to find the BIOS update online; the thing is, I never thought that was the issue because they were compatible without the BIOS needing to be updated. But, nevertheless, I was wrong. Some how, in some way coming from my original CPU to this one I hadn't updated the BIOS at all and I neglected to do it once I did until now. Finally, I updated it and selected my boot drive from the SSD and... IT POSTED; I was beyond excited when I finally got it working and relieved too. I updated the rest of the pc and configured it, then boxed it up and shipped it to my buddy, thankfully who was so understanding of the situation and was happy that it was finally working. In conclusion, sometimes the simplest things cause you the biggest problems and in my case unfortunately it was something as simple as a BIOS update.

Eli_Neris · January 2021

About 10 years ago I was helping a friend build a PC we went to microcenter to buy all the parts. On the way back home to build it my friend insisted on getting coffee, ok no problem. The coffee was really hot so he removed to lid so it would cool faster. Once we start building the PC I told him to put his coffee on our coffee table away from the table we were building the PC. He said he would just hold on to it, I guess you know what happened next as we was peering over to see what I was doing he spilled about a 1/4 of it onto the motherboard and CPU. At this point I looked at him and said it's your money I warned you and I laughed because it was comical. I cleaned it up with 91% iso alcohol right away and told him we'd have to wait at least a day for it to dry to be safe. The next day before he came over I put it all together and it fired right up no problems. He ran that PC for a good 6 years then sold it and last I heard it's still running.

JCMXVI · January 2021

My current PC case has been cut back with my Dremel a few times - the first time, I forgot to include clearance for the height of the motherboard components when looking at where to place the 140mm push-me/pull-you double fan heat sink for my AIO water block. I cut out the top grille and mounted the radiator on the top outside of the case, with both fans doubled up on top of that to make a chimney.
Then I cut a few slices into the drive bay, and folded back a flap of metal into an L shape to make an opening for the overlong three-fan Red Devil video card last year, since I'm all NVMe drives on the mobo and not in drive bays any more.
Seriously, learn from my mistakes - measure twice, cut never.
Most tedious PC build problem has just been the stupid graphics card market over the last few years. No joke, I've been searching for the replacement for my GTX970 for three full years now (my current slightly-defective XT5700 Red Devil RMA wouldn't be the answer even if I did RMA it for a less crashy one, AMD drivers are so, so bad now. ugh.). I'd have already bought a 3070 if I could, but I missed the first wave, and I'm not giving the price-gougers the satisfaction now, so I'm still just waiting it out. Throw me a bone, Micro Center!

Kingvic · January 2021

Finally finished building my pc and it was time for cable management. I was cutting off the zip ties and realized I cut off one of my fan wire as well. Being the genius that I am, I thought I could put it back together using a wire connector and black tape. I went to turn on the PC and... the wire caught on fire. Luckily I plugged the plug right away or I could have burned down my whole house

AlexS · January 2021

geomah619 said:

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

alexdinh · January 2021

It was my first time upgrading the GPU on my motherboard, but I didn't know how to unseat the GPU. I asked my dad for help and he ended up ripping off the entire PCIE socket along with some pins. He ended up buying a whole new set of parts for me! Good times.

AdamMorel · January 2021

I'll keep it short and simple
When I made this current build, I was installing a Hyper 212 Evo heatsink and I knew something was going to be off. When installing, i accidentally sliced my finger open on one of the fins and blood was spilled on top of the motherboard. Because of this I named my PC Build Shezmu after some blood demon (lol). What I didn't anticipate is that the build was going to be cursed and not even a month later, my Hyper 212 Evo fell off its bracket and shorted my entire PC (or so I thought). It apparently fell on my GPU and it shorted it, killing the most EXPENSIVE part of my entire build. At the time i didn't know anything about troubleshooting so I ended up replacing every part (CPU, Mobo, PSU) trying to find the issue until I realized it was the GPU. I ended up RMA'ing the GPU and got a new one but man that one heatsink gave my PC a LOT of trouble, it must have truly been cursed.

TheZmajCap · January 2021

So I began building my computer in 2018. I had all the parts, ryzen 2600, motherboard, and even got a swanky 1080 ti from MSI. Everything was going to be fan-freakn-tastic...until my 1080 ti randomly decided that it no longer wanted to have functioning fans. I tried to return it to where I bought it but the 15 day return window had closed so I had to RMA the thing. I did this and got a new 1080 Ti. Awesome! ...Andddd it had the same fan issue. I sent it in for the second RMA to which they tried to "fix" the card. They sent it back to me only for it to eventually have the same issue and I did not notice this until midway into a gaming session so it really messed up the card. I had to send this one back in and by now they had run out of 1080 TIs and offered me an upgrade to a 2080 TI. I was excited for this and gladly accepted the offer. However soon this card began to develop endless artifacting errors only for it to eventually only give me BSODs. I had to RMA this card, obviously, and was sent another 2080 TI. I put this card in and instantly it had issues, my motherboard would not recognize it and gave me a white led error code(It cant detect a GPU.). I got it to work SOMETIMES by repeatedly boot cycling the device but ultimately it now can't seem to be detected at all. Right now I am trying to get my sixth card from MSI...and I am going to bet this one will be another nightmare as well. Never buy from MSI...please...don't end up like me.

A little side note here, I also tried all my cards in my roommate's rig and they had the same issues. As well, if I used his 2060 it would work like a charm. So I know these are GPU errors without a doubt.

pizzacat · January 2021

A couple years ago I'd decided to build a gaming PC and my timing coincided with the bitcoin mining craze so my GPU options were very limited. I ended up settling with a very humble GPU with relatively little vram and I'm quite certain it was meant for mini PC builds given its small form factor. Surprisingly, it ran pretty well for the majority of my games for the next few years. One day, my friend invites me to play Monster Hunter and things go smoothly for the first few hours. Then we get to a walking volcano boss - I looked it up and its called Zorah Magdaros - and apparently its thousands of spikes each render individually and I believe that is what finally killed the GPU. It looks like GPU availability is tight again but I'm lucky to have console games to play in the meantime. I await my revenge on the Zorah Magdaros.

Cursed_Toast · January 2021

In late 2012 I built my first pc. I had waited all week for my components to slowly come in the mail. So by Friday I was itching to build my first pc. Once everything was there I cleared off a spot on my desk and got to unboxing everything. I go to install the cpu and I drop it. I hear a loud clank as it hits the glass desk and right after the hardwood floor. When I picked it up, I noticed I had bent some pins. I start freaking out because I ruined my first build. I rushed to find something to straighten them but I could find anything small enough. So I ask my roommate for her some tweezers. She luckily had multiple and I could pick the one that would fit. I straighten them and continue my build praying it worked. On the mother board it had a spot for multiple case fans and I don’t know how but I managed to plug in a fan between two connectors. I didn’t notice until I turned the pc on and the fans spun for a second before I heard a small pop. I turned everything off and I check. I had blown something. After rebuilding the pc I powers it on and noticed the fans would only spin on high and I couldn’t use software to turn them down. I had to buy a case fan jumper/splitter and connect them all to the only working case fan connector. To this day I still use the same pc I built back then. Fully upgraded ram and new ssd, but everything else is the same. Still running a 760 but it’s time for an upgrade.

Archo · January 2021

If 2020 was a PC build...
About 20 years ago I was a bright-eyed highschool student that decided building a PC would be fun. I did my research, used PriceWatch to find all the components, and spent about 6 month's pay on it. Everything arrived and with a mix of teenage giddyness and sheer terror I assembled it. I made a lot of first timer mistakes, like if a drop of thermal paste is good then a tube is better. The screwdriver slipped off the heatsink retention clip and stabbed the motherboard, but there was no visible damage. It was a bit of a train wreck. After managing to get everything in I turned it on. And I waited. And I turned it on again. And I waited. And I turned it on a third time. And I waited. At this point the crushing depression of a dead computer set in.
After a couple days of moping I decided that the issue must be the motherboard. I stabbed it and killed it. The only possible solution would be to buy a new board. So that's what I did. Replaced the board, hit the power button, and sunk back into my post-build blues.
I had to wait for a few more paychecks before I could afford to replace any other parts. This time I thought it must be the CPU, so I went and bought a new CPU to try. When I opened the CPU package I noticed one of the pins was bent. As the panic started to set in I realized that I could just bend the pin back. Problem solved!! I was able to get the pin bent back and the CPU dropped snuggly into its home. Put everything back together and hit the power button again.
Nothing.
Well, that bent pin must have really been problematic. That CPU must have been ruined, so I'll save up more money and buy a new CPU again.
Fast forward another month (PC parts are expensive when you're a student working part time for minimum wage) and I had a new CPU in hand. Dropped that in and fired it up. Again, nothing.
The fallacy of sunk cost has taken hold. I've spent too much to give up. Let's get a new power supply, and RAM to boot. Paycheck after paycheck is dumped into more parts to try. Nothing works.
At this point I am fed up. It's been nearly a year and more paychecks than I care to admit. In a final effort I decide it's time to go full on Doctor Frankenstein. I grab all the parts I've accumulated from the beginning. Some combination of these must work! The living room becomes my lab, with boxes all over the place. The coffee table is my build station. This is full on surgery. No case, just put a motherboard down, and plug in the parts, grab a screw driver and short the power button pins on the motherboard. Rinse and repeat this process until I have tried every combination of hardware I have, and if that fails I quit.
I get the first set of parts assembled and I short the power button pins. Wait, what?? It turned on??? IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!!!
Astonished, I turn it off, and clean up my lab. I put my working rig into the case and bring it to its new home. I get my peripherals connected and get ready to enjoy my new custom built PC. I hit the power button and nothing.
I pop off the side panel and make sure everything looks good. It all checks out. So, I disconnect the power button and try shorting the pins again and it fires right up.
All of that madness for a faulty button.

MaxC · January 2021

Was building my first computer. Nothing fancy, just something to run the games I wanted to play. After I gathered the parts I built it but when I booted it up finally was getting nothing to show up on the monitor. After hours of troubleshooting, reseating the memory, cpu, I realized the display port cable was plugged into the motherboard. I have a ryzen 7 3700x. Gave myself a heart attack, but at least the computer worked.

Ironthorn · January 2021

A Computers Journey...

My wife (at the time) and I agreed on a generous budget for a gaming rig. Back in the early days of YouTube, I enjoyed videoing and talking about my computers, parts, benchmarks, gaming etc. So once I received all my parts from Newegg (before Microcenter was here!!), I immediately videoed them. I still have the video, it's humorous because you can tell I'm still huffing and puffing from bringing everything downstairs then immediately making the video. Anyway...After assembling the computer, it would not fire up. As many of you know, deducing bad parts can be a pain. After a couple hours of trying this and that, it came down to the motherboard. So I called EVGA and they said they could not replace it because they were out of that motherboard. They offered another one instead.

After receiving it, I quickly learned this was a B spec motherboard. To those who don't know what B spec is, it's basically something assembled from left over parts from other projects. So everything was mix matched and out of place. But it worked. So while putting my computer to good use, I found out my wife was pregnant. Then the guilt AND wife started getting on me about how much I, not we, spent on MY computer. So we, I mean I, decided to sell it. If any of you have tried selling a slightly used, high end computer, it's not easy. You get a lot of low ballers. Crap talkers. People offering bizarre items for trade....some spoons, a 30 year old collection of magazines and some yard furniture (true story). And you get the ever famous know it all's. Who message you telling you how overpriced you are, and how they can build something better for cheaper, yadda yadda yadda. I did get a guy who seemed serious however, but lived in Nebraska (I live in the KC area). He offered me a certain amount of cash and a nice shotgun. Honestly if it was a genuine offer, I'd be coming out ahead. So I reluctantly said yes and he asked if we could meet him half way the next day.

After driving 2 hours with a pregnant and pissy wife, we get to the place that's in the middle of nowhere. Not even a gas station close by. We wait and wait and wait. Tried calling him, goes straight to voicemail. So now, my wife is even more pissed and it's all being directed at me. Throwing the shotgun in my face vs all cash kinda wifey fits. As we're (shes) bickering, a car zooms in the empty lot with a police car quickly in tow. The cop car has its lights on and everything. So a guy gets out of the car, and runs up to my window...freaking us both out. He immediately starts yelling, "Don't go anywhere, I want that computer!". So the cops jumps out of his car and pulls his gun on this dude. Makes him lie down, cuffs him etc. Searches his car and finds a shotgun in the front seat with 2200 bucks in cash. He's immediately suspicious. I guess transporting a gun across state line within the reach of the driver is illegal. Searches our car, finds my wife's tampons and she's even more pissed now. So after some conversation and a few laughs the cop leaves before my wife wrecks him. The buyer is one of those, weird, quiet types that doesn't say a lot, like the buffalo Bill, Silence of the Lambs, kinda guy. Looking back, I should have told him to put the f'ing money in the basket, but somehow I don't think either him or my wife would have found it as funny.

No more than an hour of getting home and my wife becoming human again, the dude calls and says the computer isn't working. So I try and talk him through a few things and he says he just wants the money and gun back. Now I'M pissed. Needless to say the next day I'm driving 2 hours to meet buffalo Bill. Alone, and that can be interpreted as good or bad, depending how you look at it. He's late again. Finally gets there, doesn't say two words, and then I'm on my way back home for two more hours of driving. When I get home, I plug the computer in and guess what, it fires right up. So the next day, Bill calls me and says he had a bad outlet and wants the computer still. I'm like...you gotta be kidding me man. I tell him no thanks, I'm already in the doghouse with the wife and spent over a 100 bucks on gas. He persists. Says he'll give me 3 grand all cash. I tell him if he wants to come here and meet me at a police station I'll do it. The next day I'm waiting at this police station, and get the guy calling saying he's gonna be late....again. 20 Minutes later I'm about to leave AGAIN and guess who shows up. He gives me a wad of cash takes the computer and never heard another word from the dude haha.

Which brings me to today (1/30/21), I drove to Microcenter in Overland Park KS to get a 3060 Ti they said they had in stock. And of course when I get there, they don't have it, Microcenter tsk tsk.....haha! Sold out of every single graphics card, except a 6800xt they wanted 1100 bucks for! lol Another wasted trip for computer stuff....kidding kinda

. But for humors sake, here's a link to the video I made way back when after getting my parts and being out of breath lol. But that "wasted" trip, brought me to this thread and reminded me of a computers journey 10 years ago. Thanks Microcenter!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db3ka2RSLcg
PSS: Why is it when you edit and save on here, it just deletes your entire comment??

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

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