Date   : Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:47:04 +0100
From   : afra@... (Phill Harvey-Smith)
Subject: Tales of woe and stupidity

Rick Murray wrote:
> Pete Turnbull wrote:

> Who else has an amusing tale of woe and stupidity to share?
> I have several more, but none are computer related, sorry.

Ok I'll bite...

Back in 1992, I was trying to upgrade my Sinclair PC200 to something 
more powerfull, like a real boxed 286. I had a case that had been an old 
Honeywell XT class PC (I still have that box), and so the PSU had a 
single 12 pin connector instead of the 2x6 pin that AT motherboards had.

I had installed the 286-16 board in the case, plus EGA video, floppy and 
MFM hard drive cards. I had borrowed a small 50W AT PSU from a friend 
and had this sitting on top of the XT one annd plugged into the 
motherboard with the wires actually quite tight. I'd tested things a 
couple of times powering the machine on things seemed to work, I got a 
bios screen etc.

Then I slipped up, or nudged something and one of the power connectors 
got disconnected, I didn't notice and turned the machine on, at that 
point I got no video on the monitor and the computer went 
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.... (like a beeb with no keyboard), and I 
thought that's not right and I hit the power.

I then remember looking down at the board and thinking hummm I don't 
remember this motherboard having a power light, then it dawned on me 
that's not a LED that's a flame ! S*IT ! I frantically pulled at the 
video card which was on fire, but I'd already screwed it into the case 
so then I had to frantically find a screwdriver, unscrew the board and 
pull it out. The damn thing had got so hot that it had melted the solder 
on the back of the expansion slot and a couple of the edge connector 
pins came with it !

Needles to say I was pissed off ! Mostly because the Video card and hard 
drive controler where borrowed, and I had not yet paid for the motherboard !

Ok, what died :

The motherboard, The video card, The hard disk controler.

Everythinbg else pretty much survived, including the 286 CPU.

It taught me to be very very carefull with things like that and to check 
and double check.

Needless to say it's never happened to me again.

Are you still sure you want to see the AtomClone........

Cheers.

Phill.

-- 
Phill Harvey-Smith, Programmer, Hardware hacker, and general eccentric !

"You can twist perceptions, but reality won't budge" -- Rush.