Date   : Tue, 11 Aug 2009 09:08:45 +0200
From   : anders.carlsson@... (Anders Carlsson)
Subject: Tales of woe and stupidity

Phill Harvey-Smith wrote:

> Ok, what died : The motherboard, The video card, The hard disk controler.

I once damaged an important motherboard too, at the computer club in the 
late 1990's. It was a 133 MHz Pentium back in the day when those were 
usefufl. For some reason I had been playing with jumper settings and was 
about to restore the last jumper. Unfortunately I put it across the chassis 
fan power connector, not the intended place to short circuit 12V and ground. 
It didn't take long after powering it on before it said BANG and the 
motherboard became an un-motherboard. We did have another spare motherboard 
but not quite as capable in terms of memory compatibility. Fortunately it 
seems no other components were lost in this accident.

Once I also went through a pile of unknown power supplies. I had plugged one 
in, had my palm rest on top of the PSU chassis and powered it on. It was not 
properly grounded, I could tell as a rush of 220V went into my hand. Ouch! 
Still I managed to pull it away and yank the power cable from the wall. 
Since that day I'm very careful about testing unknown power supplies, 
although I must admit I experienced a visit from Mr 230V as recently as a 
few weeks ago when testing some other rescued equipment.

Now that I have ordered parts, some of these days I'll tackle the task 
trying to repair one of my Beeb PSUs. I guess I will be careful not to hold 
it in my hands before ensuring I haven't managed to make the metal chassis 
live.

Best regards

-- 
Anders Carlsson