Greatest IT Screwups You've Ever Done

[the_randomizer]

Or perhaps the time when I put too much thermal paste on an AMD Duron back in 2000 that ended up frying the CPU soon after

 

[Niksy]

I used to search for images of naked ladies. Instead of videos of them. Oh, the shame...


Um... have you not installed 8.1 yet? It's free, and... there's a start button.

Which sends you back to the start screen and is basically useless?

 

[Pedeadstrian]

Which sends you back to the start screen and is basically useless?

How is it useless? What did you use the start button for before Windows 8? Your favorite applications, files, and/or folders? Yep, the screen does that. Did you use it for a quick search of your files? Yep, the screen does that. Did you use it to turn your computer off? Um, you can either use ctrl+alt+delete or move your mouse to the side of the monitor to do that. So what's left, really, other than stubbornness to change?

 

[Niksy]

How is it useless? What did you use the start button for before Windows 8? Your favorite applications, files, and/or folders? Yep, the screen does that. Did you use it for a quick search of your files? Yep, the screen does that. Did you use it to turn your computer off? Um, you can either use ctrl+alt+delete or move your mouse to the side of the monitor to do that. So what's left, really, other than stubbornness to change?

Whoah, hold on there. Don't act like a condescending prick. Please go back and see my first post - I said that I like Windows 8 and that I don't find the changes irritating. I know what the Start screen does and what I can use it for. I, however, prefer to use the shortcuts provided.

 

[Pedeadstrian]

Whoah, hold on there. Don't act like a condescending prick. Please go back and see my first post - I said that I like Windows 8 and that I don't find the changes irritating. I know what the Start screen does and what I can use it for. I, however, prefer to use the shortcuts provided.

You said it was useless, so I disagreed and offered a counter-argument, but you're right, I did come off kind of dickish. Sorry, I'm a little on edge at the moment. This damn Candy Crush level is kicking my ass... but yeah, the older start window was better, but I find I don't really need anymore.

 

[Fat D]

The reason that bringing up the start screen makes the start button useless is that there are plenty of other ways to get to the start screen. The criticism of removing the start menu stems from the fact that the start menu was a lot more compact (and nested) than the screen. The category view in the programs section of the start screen does not lend itself to deep trees.

As for my greatest mistake - not double-checking if a DDR(1) DIMM was locked into place correctly - it was slightly angled and shorted out, smoking the board, the RAM and maybe also the CPU, though I could not test that. Luckily, starting with DDR2, things got a bit more resilient and the only thing that happened with an angled DIMM there was that the PC refused to boot.
And yes, I have learned to hate the locking system of DIMMs as a result.

 

[FAST6191]

On windows 8. There is a tool called classic start, I suggest all suffering with windows 8 install it. It even comes as an option on https://ninite.com/

Probably my greatest IT mistake was paying many thousands of dollars to go to school earning my A+, N+, MCSE

No arguments that the A+ is not worth the paper it is written on but was the MCSE truly that useless?

Personally I never went the certificates route and any education I actually paid for* was more self indulgence with none of it really being anything about IT other than electronics is kind of related.


*student loans in the UK at the time were not quite as nice as the grants given elsewhere in Europe but "You will pay 9% of anything you earn over £16,365 before tax per year." and interest is around inflation are hardly bad terms.

 

[PityOnU]

Whoah, hold on there. Don't act like a condescending prick. Please go back and see my first post - I said that I like Windows 8 and that I don't find the changes irritating. I know what the Start screen does and what I can use it for. I, however, prefer to use the shortcuts provided.

I'm really glad I'm not the only one who didn't miss the start button.

The keyboard shortcuts are much, much faster. I don't think I will ever use the start button again now that I'm used to them. Now all the start button is going to do is take up space on my task bar. :/

Microsoft has been pretty wishy-washy on their decisions lately. Oh well, give the people what they want, I suppose.

P.S. - I love how this has turned into another Windows 8 thread.

Probably my greatest IT mistake was paying many thousands of dollars to go to school earning my A+, N+, MCSE... I managed to work for almost 2 years working for Dell doing level 2 tech support and that was pretty much the height of my IT career.

No arguments that the A+ is not worth the paper it is written on but was the MCSE truly that useless?

Personally I never went the certificates route and any education I actually paid for* was more self indulgence with none of it really being anything about IT other than electronics is kind of related.

I'm a MCSE, and I recently got my CompTIA Network+ just for shits and giggles (government sponsored class).

I recently graduated with my B.Sc. in Computer Engineering, and am currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program. That being said, earning my MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) is probably still the one accomplishment I am most proud of in my life.

I'm not sure how much water it holds in industry in general, but it has certainly opened doors for me, and is just incredibly useful for me in day-to-day situations.

As for paying for classes, though, that's definitely a crapshoot. They all overcharge, and you can learn just as well and just as fast by getting the (not so) little books from Microsoft and reading cover to cover. I assume it's similar for other certifications as well.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

No arguments that the A+ is not worth the paper it is written on but was the MCSE truly that useless?

Personally I never went the certificates route and any education I actually paid for* was more self indulgence with none of it really being anything about IT other than electronics is kind of related.


*student loans in the UK at the time were not quite as nice as the grants given elsewhere in Europe but "You will pay 9% of anything you earn over £16,365 before tax per year." and interest is around inflation are hardly bad terms.

The MCSE is not totally useless but the types of jobs that require it tend to have other requirements to go along with it. Bachelors degree in this or that and while I have a few credits I totally lack the patience to sit through psyc 101 learning about Maslow's pyramid...

Also the job market in my area (Tampa Florida) is completely flooded to the point where any IT job's that are at that level (The MCSE minus the BS.) are paying little more than what some one could make as a shift manager at McDonald's.

So I went the make my own job route and now am partial owner of a couple of companies, I suppose in a round about way I get to use my certifications that way...

 

[DinohScene]

Accidentally formatted an SD card which contained some valuable files.
Of which I only had a half an year backup from.

I lost many pictures and stuff that day ;c

 

[Costello]

Biggest screwup: I had this custom built media PC (worth $500), one day the graphics card died.
I wanted to have it replaced instead of buying a whole new PC.
The guys at the store told me they didn't have a card like this (a card that fits micro ATX cases).
I insisted and they said they had a high-end one but it was probably not going to end up well due to overheating in the small case.
Stupid me went ahead and bought it ($200), a couple of days later the CPU+GPU+PSU all died of god knows what.

At the end of the day I bought myself a new media center, with a normal case and good specs. Been happy ever since. But I did waste quite a lot of money on this all.

 

[pasc]

pulling the other usb stick from my pc while my ext hdd was copying stuff TO the pc...


-> HDD got ejected while not even being related to the USB stick.
=> ext hdd partially screwed.

Funny how that can happen when you only "seemingly" read data from it.

 

[Zetta_x]

My university required to dial 9 in order to dial outside of the university when using campus phones. I was trying to contact Dell which began with 1800...

I have never dialed outside campus and asked the receptionist and she looked at my number and said, "dial 9 1 then the number"

I didn't realize she included the 1 from the 1 800 part so I dialed: 9 1 1 800...

When I didn't hear a ring tone I hung up the phone and she dialed Dell for me.

While on the phone with Dell with this computer in like a million pieces, 3 cops came bursting into the room; that's when I realized I dialed 911 earlier.

 

[calmwaters]

You said it was useless, so I disagreed and offered a counter-argument, but you're right, I did come off kind of dickish. Sorry, I'm a little on edge at the moment. This damn Candy Crush level is kicking my ass... but yeah, the older start window was better, but I find I don't really need anymore.

Oh my god, you play Candy Crush Saga? You have my sympathy. As for Windows 8, I find that the touchscreen is unnecessary (unless it's on a tablet) and using keyboard shortcuts is a major part of my life now. I don't remember how to do stuff anymore; I use the keyboard shortcuts for them.

 

[Pedeadstrian]

Oh my god, you play Candy Crush Saga? You have my sympathy. As for Windows 8, I find that the touchscreen is unnecessary (unless it's on a tablet) and using keyboard shortcuts is a major part of my life now. I don't remember how to do stuff anymore; I use the keyboard shortcuts for them.

I don't know why, but I absolutely love match-3 games. It's my one true weakness. That and porn.

But yeah, keyboard shortcuts are all the rage. Win+X has pretty much everything you need.

 

[Sop]

my watercooling leaked and wrecked my mobo

 

[Deleted User]

My biggest screwup was to update my Windows 8 to Windows 8.1
now my GPU and TV Card don't work anymore ... they worked perfectly under Win 8

It doesnt sound too bad but if you imagine starting your favourite game resulting into a "critical process killed" Bluescreen is kinda bad
and not being able to watch TV anymore (i prefer watching @ pc) is kinda bad...

So i tried to go back to windows 8 again but it doesnt work... now i got a multiboot with win8.1, linux and windows 8 because i m just too
lazy to backup everything + delete windows 8.1.... it works that way and it remembers me to never ever update Windows again
when it gets a major release

Stick to Linux ... it doesnt fuck up your system that much

 

[FAST6191]

Stick to Linux ... it doesnt fuck up your system that much

This is at odds with accepted evidence on the matter
http://xkcd.com/349/
http://xkcd.com/456/

 

[raulpica]

Hm, probably my worst screw-up was turning on a 12-years old computer without disconnecting the ATX connector first, so the PSU blew up (literally.) and took the motherboard along with it.

Yeah, it's a pretty minor screw-up overall, luckily I haven't done anything worse than that during all those years, and I sure hope I won't in the next years

well it wa the RT version so idk about the full thing

So you installed Windows RT which only installs on ARM architectures on an x86 computer? Awesome, show us how! Or maybe, just stop hatin' on Win8. Win8 hate is getting OLD.

Biggest screwup: I had this custom built media PC (worth $500), one day the graphics card died.
I wanted to have it replaced instead of buying a whole new PC.
The guys at the store told me they didn't have a card like this (a card that fits micro ATX cases).
I insisted and they said they had a high-end one but it was probably not going to end up well due to overheating in the small case.
Stupid me went ahead and bought it ($200), a couple of days later the CPU+GPU+PSU all died of god knows what.

At the end of the day I bought myself a new media center, with a normal case and good specs. Been happy ever since. But I did waste quite a lot of money on this all.

IIRC, there are now special high-end cards made especially for micro-ITX cases. ASUS makes 'em.

 

[tickle.my.pickle]

left my pc on 24/7 (well always).. on a stormy night... then a lightning not that far from where i live strikes down and fried my mother board... that was the saddest day of my life...