Date   : Tue, 11 Aug 2009 09:34:33 +0100
From   : zeem.uk@... (Alex Taylor)
Subject: Tales of woe and stupidity

2009/8/11 Julian Stenning <julian_stenning@...>:
>
> ?> Ok, what died : The motherboard, The video card, The hard disk controler.

When I was at school, I once borrowed a 486DX4/100 CPU off a friend on
the basis that I'd buy it for ?20 if it would work in my motherboard,
because it appeared to have jumper settings for a DX4 but I couldn't
be entirely sure it would work.

I tried a few times with various settings, it would usually attempt to
boot but crash on the BIOS screen and things like that. Each time I'd
put my previous DX2/66 back in so I could use the PC again. Then I
decided to have one more try with the DX4 - this time it did nothing
at all. Then I realised that this time, I'd forgotten to change the
voltage jumpers from 5V to 3.3V. I put them on 3.3V and tried it
anyway, at which point it made a brief crackling sound and that smell
of burning electronics.

I couldn't admit what I'd done, so I told my friend it worked fine and
I paid him the ?20 for it.

-- 
Alex Taylor