Death of a Fallen One.... Hardware Edi[t]ion

[wolf]

This is a thread about your dead hardware, mainly after gfx cards..

please include the Brand, model, and any relevant specs (as they were your precious's before they died)

and then tell us a story about how they died, what led to the death, and in what manner they are dead, for example, my story.




BFG Geforce 6800 Ultra OC AGP
- BIOS for 450mhz core, 1200 mem, and Arctic cooling NV5 VGA Silencer.

this card gamed well for 18+ months until it was superceeded by an AGP x1950Pro, months later when i wanted to give her another go-round, when i boot there are mass visual artifacts.... and i can't get anything from her apart from that.... the thing is ahrdware like that (even working) is worthless now, however i paid like 600 USD for it at the time, so to me its still worth that, thus i keep it on my desk as a constant reminder of the good old days.

very very sad, and still considering an RMA from BFG...

oh and this is my first story of many to come, lots of dead hardware with interesting stories :D



i look forward to reading many compelling stories of our fallen comrades, i tip my hat to thee.

i will endeavor to make this thread as awesome as i can, so any suggestions are welcome, and i can even compile all the stories into post #1 if you all like.

[HTC]

I have this (http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=59817) story: the card is screwed, permanently :(

[wolf2009]

My first laptop, probably first ever computer and only pc in house at the time. I was so careful with it, not letting it near the edge of a table so that it should not fall off and break screen. And a strict warning to everybody for no drinks near it. One day water spills on it, i immediately shut it down. Let it dry for 2-3 hours and try to start, does not start . tried many times , does not start. THis is friday night, and all the repair shops or the menovo shops r closed for the weekend. I am like wat am i going to do all these days. I couldn't sleep all night. Next morning i go about market trying to find any shop that may be open . None. Finally i find one but they sell laptops not repair them. I go in there and they r like we can take a look. The guy turns on the laptop, doesn't turn on, tries few more times and its on. Now my heart is in my mouth as this may be the last time electricity runs thru its circuits b4 it gets shorted. Luckily it keeps on running. Wow wat a relief. Back from the dead.

Laptop : IBM R51 , 1.5 Ghz Pentium M , 512 MB RAM ,40GB HDD, 64MB 82855 video accelerator with Pixel Shader 0.1 ( i know 0 but that's wat ubisoft's system checker showed me ). I have lot of memories with that laptop,

SOme of the oddest memories :
Prince of Persia Sands of time refused to run on it due to lack of pixel shader, but the other 2 following pop games ran fine .

[OzzmanFloyd120]

My previous system I had bought an XFX 7900GS AGP, served me well for about six months until one day it had some artifacts when in 2D mode, I was a little worried but they dissapeared after a reboot.
A couple weeks later the artifacts came back in full force with a vengeance, engulfed my screen and shut down my PC. I rebooted and the artifacts were showing up in bios. I was pretty upset. Luckily I was able to RMA it.

[Solaris17]

My 8600GT died :(

bios: 850/2000/2000 volt modded

she was my baby......lapped polished ASC etc..i dusted her everyday...i loved that card ..some would say it wasnt healthy..

at the time i was obsessed....it was the best card i had ever owned...8 series just came out..i paid like $275 for it at CC i babyied it...but then i wanted to prove myself...i was known on tpu..but i saw people like damulta and other hardcore guys...i wanted to do that..i want to break records...but maybe just maybe not even records..i wanted to PROVE that this card was not "mid end" o i pushed insane clocks i wanted a 1gz GPU...i was so close...and after seeing how my card scaled i knew i could do it...but radio shack didnt have the right resistors so i waited...than 1 day she couldnt do 825 without artifacts...i was confused...so i took my fluke meter and measured...1.4v core..thats not right...needs to be 1.5v my graphite must have worn..so i decide to vmod while the system is on.....i was not practicing what i preach...it went well...but was fluctuating between 1.4 and 1.5...so i pencil and put my fluke probs on it 1 more time..i cough...my hand slips and my probe moves right tword the core resistors.....my computer immediately shuts down i bolt up..i was terrified.....i start my computer.......artifacts in the bios...and weird characters.....so i tweak...i pull out my back up floppies way to many (5 lol) i was paniking...i find the one i need a bright pretty yellow one..i restart A:\ still artifacting......i try to calm down....any damage can be perminent if i dont fix this now.......i strain and remember the blind flash code A: nvflash -4 -5 -6 -a -y.....i here a beep no screen i reboot...artifacts...i failed...flashing to stock did nothing..so i run over and rub my hand all over wiping my traces measure...1.2v...still artifacting 4 rebuilds later i was devistarted.....my sweetie...i still remember how the copper smelled.

[scoutingwraith]

My PSU burned on me (Antec 480W) a while ago while i was trying to put an 6800GT into my system. The thing had smoke and dont even ask me how bad it smelled.

[OzzmanFloyd120]

Opty 185

In the same system I had mentioned earlier I was upgrading my CPU from a 4200+ to a 185 hoping to get to 3.0Ghz, however when I removed the stock heatsink to test it against my XP-90 the AS5 acted like glue and ripped the cpu out with the sink. Somehow I must have bent a pin getting the CPU and HS separated, becuase when I put the CPU back in the slot it seated fine. I put my machine back together and booted to a black screen and no beep code.
I reset my machine eight or nine times and started looking for where I may have grounded something, on a hunch I took out my Opty to find that it had two bent pins, one was flat against the chip, the other was just bent very little, When bending the flat one back into place I broke the pin off. I panicked.
On erocker's recommendation I sent it back to newegg and those smucks refunded it even though I broke it.

[Solaris17]

these are sad tales indeed...:(

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

some ram burnt on me in my 1+1 rig, i never new ram could fit the wrong way :(
thena generic psu crapped out after 2 mins of operation in teh rig in my specs .. never bought a generic again, im just glad it didnt damage teh rest of my stuffies.

[pagalms]

Greatest loss was my 600W OCZ StealthXstream PSU, who died in thunderstorm two days ago. I was out at that moment, but when i came back, i couldn't turn on my pc, PSU was dead :(

Also i have Nvidia FX5200 vga and PCChips M906 mb in my dead hardware list.
FX5200 was started crazy artifacting because i ran i @ max clocks 24/7.
MB was non overclockable, but i took random clock generator in ClockGen's list, overclocked it an after few days it died.

[francis511]

Greatest loss was my 600W OCZ StealthXstream PSU, who died in thunderstorm two days ago.

Damn storms. I lost a Dreamcast that way AGES ago. More recently a 80gb harddrive I removed from a p.c. for a few days cashed in its chips. I couldn`t figure out why at first until I realized I`d been keeping it on a solid steel tray with no insulation.

[psyko12]

Lost my amd xp barton clocked at 2.7 ghz and msi delta k something mobo because of internal phone modem + lightning storm, dead mobo, fried proc... artificing GForce5500 :( and those were 3 year old parts :-s