Brick Makers Unite!

ScardyBobScardyBob ScardyBob Join Date: 2009-11-25 Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">Have you recently bricked your hardware? Post below!</div>So yesterday my SSD boot drive decided to get bricked on me, leading to a fun two days of troubleshooting/reinstalling my OS/programs/games/etc on a backup drive. So I thought I might poll the UWE forums to see how many of you have bricked hardware. So post a) what hardware you bricked and b) any interesting tidbits relating to the bricking below!
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  • Konohas Perverted HermitKonohas Perverted Hermit Join Date: 2008-09-26 Member: 65075Members
    Whenever I get a new PC I literally shoot or blow up the old one and it's hardware, does that count?
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  • ScardyBobScardyBob ScardyBob Join Date: 2009-11-25 Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    <!--quoteo(post=1896545:date=Jan 21 2012, 08:10 PM:name=Konohas Perverted Hermit)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Konohas Perverted Hermit @ Jan 21 2012, 08:10 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1896545"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Whenever I get a new PC I literally shoot or blow up the old one and it's hardware, does that count?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    As long as the end result is a brick, then yes!
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  • TalesinTalesin Our own little well of hate Join Date: 2002-11-08 Member: 7710NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators
    edited January 2012
    Eh. A couple of smartphones (rooting and/or flashing new ROMs when I didn't know how and on a 'twitchy' rooting process... along with countless soft-bricked and recovered), a video card (bumping the firmware to the workstation-grade version), a PSP (again, rooting/jailbreaking/custom firmware fun). One hard drive by setting it down on the case while troubleshooting the system, and shorting out the control board as a result.

    Is there a difference by your definition between 'bricking' (ie: attempting to modify/enhance something and messing up) and just having a component break/fail during normal operation?
    Failed hardware... uh. A stack, going all the way back to VESA video cards, UW-SCSI control boards, 2400bps modems, countless optical drives, handfuls of bad SIMMs and DIMMs, at least a hundred case fans..
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  • lolfighterlolfighter Snark, Dire Join Date: 2003-04-20 Member: 15693Members
    edited January 2012
    Mysteriously nothing has ever bricked for me. My hardware failures tend to be of the intermittent, infuriatingly hard to diagnose kind. I'd MUCH prefer that my RAM chips or graphics cards just out and out died instead of developing a tiny error that locks up the system every few hours.
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  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    I once dropped a floppy disk...
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  • sherpasherpa stopcommandermode Join Date: 2006-11-04 Member: 58338Members
    <!--quoteo(post=1896617:date=Jan 22 2012, 01:06 PM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lolfighter @ Jan 22 2012, 01:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1896617"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Mysteriously nothing has ever bricked for me. My hardware failures tend to be of the intermittent, infuriatingly hard to diagnose kind. I'd MUCH prefer that my RAM chips or graphics cards just out and out died instead of developing a tiny error that locks up the system every few hours.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Amen to that. My screen intermittently spazzes out when in a game (often BF3). Sometimes I get a balloon on the desktop saying "Nvidia driver has crashed and recovered". But because it only happens once or twice a week I'm too lazy to try and sort the problem. I figure it's the graphics card having problems.

    Semi-related; yesterday I dug out my PSP that I hadn't used for some years and figured I'd give it the homebrew treatment. Massive headache! At one point I got a corrupt data error when starting it up but the damned thing is sturdy and recovered itself at the push of a button. Unbrickable! Thought I'd enjoy reliving old school PSX/SNES games but now I'm just seeing how terrible they are! Resident Evil has gone from a scary game to a comedy thanks to the soul-destroying movement and <i>superb</i> voice overs.

    I don't know if I should ruin my memories of Metal Gear Solid and FF7?!
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  • TemphageTemphage Join Date: 2009-10-28 Member: 69158Members
    edited January 2012
    Does this count?

    Bricked a $25,000 power supply by dropping a test lead while shooting voltage. Had the live lead between the 900AST and the unit, and when I moved I got caught on the line, lead fell out and right into some other contacts. Shot 115V 3Y 400Hz through the LVPS, fireballed, and melted its guts. Did I mention the unit was isolated from the protection circuits?
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  • ZaggyZaggy NullPointerException The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-12-10 Member: 24214Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Onos, Subnautica Playtester
    Hit my PC case when I was doing some rendering or something very disk intensive.
    One disk crashed, PC speaker made a long beep until I power cycled the PC.
    RAID 0 broke, reasons not to run 2x 500GB in RAID 0: ↑
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  • lolfighterlolfighter Snark, Dire Join Date: 2003-04-20 Member: 15693Members
    Presumably, anyone running RAID 0 would have a solid backup policy, right?
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  • That_Annoying_KidThat_Annoying_Kid Sire of Titles Join Date: 2003-03-01 Member: 14175Members, Constellation
    I once broke a HDD that contained time sensitive data that wasn't backed up that was worth millions of dollars until next Wednesday


    we wound up soldering the broken pin back on, and never told my friends mom.
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  • ZaggyZaggy NullPointerException The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-12-10 Member: 24214Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Onos, Subnautica Playtester
    <!--quoteo(post=1896731:date=Jan 23 2012, 12:42 AM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lolfighter @ Jan 23 2012, 12:42 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1896731"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Presumably, anyone running RAID 0 would have a solid backup policy, right?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    It was on my home PC, didn't have anything noteworthy on it.
    RAID 0 is silly, especially without backups!
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  • ObraxisObraxis Subnautica Animator & Generalist, NS2 Person Join Date: 2004-07-24 Member: 30071Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, WC 2013 - Supporter, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
    I stupidly fitted an old AMD cpu fan the wrong way round...you know, before most cores had heat-sheilds?

    Found broken bits of the CPU core in the thermal paste. Killed my 1.4Ghz Athlon :(

    Upgraded to an AthlonXP 1900+ tho. Was nice in the end :)
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  • lolfighterlolfighter Snark, Dire Join Date: 2003-04-20 Member: 15693Members
    Heat shields? Do you mean a safety shutoff feature at overtemp?
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  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    <!--quoteo(post=1896820:date=Jan 23 2012, 12:31 PM:name=Obraxis)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Obraxis @ Jan 23 2012, 12:31 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1896820"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I stupidly fitted an old AMD cpu fan the wrong way round...you know, before most cores had heat-sheilds?

    Found broken bits of the CPU core in the thermal paste. Killed my 1.4Ghz Athlon :(

    Upgraded to an AthlonXP 1900+ tho. Was nice in the end :)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    A buddy of mine once installed his 1.4Ghz Thunderbird with the plastic still on the thermal paste... It burned rather quickly...
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  • WolpertingerWolpertinger Join Date: 2011-12-24 Member: 138958Members
    My second monitor, why setting up my new desk. The thing stood on the ground, fell over. Backlight was broken. It was not even from height...

    Going back to only one monitor is strange. But now I am playing with the thought of getting a 30" main monitor.
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  • ObraxisObraxis Subnautica Animator & Generalist, NS2 Person Join Date: 2004-07-24 Member: 30071Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, WC 2013 - Supporter, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
    <!--quoteo(post=1896828:date=Jan 23 2012, 09:09 AM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lolfighter @ Jan 23 2012, 09:09 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1896828"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Heat shields? Do you mean a safety shutoff feature at overtemp?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    No, most CPUs now have a metal shield to cover the core, where you place your thermal paste.

    With the old CPUs, the actual silicon core was visable and you had to put thermal paste on it, and then the heatsink. Scary stuff.

    Now with the metal heatshields, it's so much easier to fit.
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  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    <!--quoteo(post=1897086:date=Jan 24 2012, 01:28 PM:name=Obraxis)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Obraxis @ Jan 24 2012, 01:28 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897086"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Now with the metal heatshields, it's so much easier to fit.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    SCARY STUFF? -> LESS OF A CHANCE TO CRACK THE CORE NOW! :D
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