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Home > Archive > alt.certification.a-plus > February 2003 > Your Biggest MISTAKE when 1st starting out....
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Your Biggest MISTAKE when 1st starting out....
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| NoNewz_is_GoodNewz 2003-02-23, 2:23 pm |
| Okay, since I've just completed my A+ class (haven't tested YET)... and
I've been making my share of brain-dead mistakes while putting my first PC
together, I thought it would be funny to know what mistakes everyone else
made when first starting out. Just so I know I'm not alone out there in the
A+ world with my goofy misdoings!
Have fun!
Linda
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| In article <9z96a.228901$HN5.961906@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>,
"NoNewz_is_GoodNewz" <lrideout01@TakeOutTheTrash.attbi.com> wrote:
> Okay, since I've just completed my A+ class (haven't tested YET)... and
> I've been making my share of brain-dead mistakes while putting my first PC
> together, I thought it would be funny to know what mistakes everyone else
> made when first starting out. Just so I know I'm not alone out there in the
> A+ world with my goofy misdoings!
>
> Have fun!
>
> Linda
I think my biggest mistake- way back when- was putting a CPU in the socket
90 degrees out of correct. It was like a socket 2 or socket 3 or
something like that- before they were keyed.
Fortunately, it did no damage at all. Once the CPU was aligned properly,
it POSTED just fine.
But, it had me sweating on my forehead until it POSTed... lol
Of course, sometimes I think my single biggest mistake was getting into
this business in the first place!!! lol
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| steve harris 2003-02-23, 2:23 pm |
| NoNewz_is_GoodNewz wrote:
> Okay, since I've just completed my A+ class (haven't tested YET)... and
> I've been making my share of brain-dead mistakes while putting my first PC
> together, I thought it would be funny to know what mistakes everyone else
> made when first starting out. Just so I know I'm not alone out there in
> the A+ world with my goofy misdoings!
>
> Have fun!
>
> Linda
Getting in a hurry.
Remember-sometimes the hardest thing to do is nothing.
Take a break, walk away for a while.
Steve
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| Tom MacIntyre 2003-02-23, 2:23 pm |
| On Sun, 23 Feb 2003 19:47:17 GMT, "NoNewz_is_GoodNewz"
<lrideout01@TakeOutTheTrash.attbi.com> wrote:
>Okay, since I've just completed my A+ class (haven't tested YET)... and
>I've been making my share of brain-dead mistakes while putting my first PC
>together, I thought it would be funny to know what mistakes everyone else
>made when first starting out. Just so I know I'm not alone out there in the
>A+ world with my goofy misdoings!
>
>Have fun!
>
>Linda
>
Ask this on a Mac group, and they'd tell you that putting the PC
together in the first place was a mistake... :-)
I've already stated some of my electronics repair mistakes in your
other thread. In my limited actual hands-on with PC's, I've not had
many misadventures. Toasted an old Hercules graphics card (probable
ESD damage), and that's about all I can think of. The first PC I put
together was a 286 in an XT case, and one of the drive bays was always
open and the cover was always off, and I used to let our hamsters run
in and out of the computer (doo-doo everywhere)...does that count? :-)
Electronics mistakes I very nearly made include almost answering the
soldering iron when my telephone rang (they were side by side), and
almost trying to catch the iron one day when I dropped it.
Tom
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| Michael E 2003-02-23, 6:23 pm |
| Heres something funny.. While installing a sound card The jack from my
powered on speakers hit something and gave the harddrive MBR a jolt thus not
loading my operating system. I was confused for a bit.. and got upset..
thought I had fried the mobo.. but all is good.
Now, anytime I operate.. I always turn off the speakers and make sure the
jack from the speaker is far awy
"NoNewz_is_GoodNewz" <lrideout01@TakeOutTheTrash.attbi.com> wrote in message
news:9z96a.228901$HN5.961906@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> Okay, since I've just completed my A+ class (haven't tested YET)... and
> I've been making my share of brain-dead mistakes while putting my first PC
> together, I thought it would be funny to know what mistakes everyone else
> made when first starting out. Just so I know I'm not alone out there in
the
> A+ world with my goofy misdoings!
>
> Have fun!
>
> Linda
>
>
>
>
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| mhaase-at-springmind.com 2003-02-23, 6:23 pm |
| On Sun, 23 Feb 2003 11:47:17 -0800, "NoNewz_is_GoodNewz"
<lrideout01@TakeOutTheTrash.attbi.com> wrote:
>Okay, since I've just completed my A+ class (haven't tested YET)... and
>I've been making my share of brain-dead mistakes while putting my first PC
>together, I thought it would be funny to know what mistakes everyone else
>made when first starting out. Just so I know I'm not alone out there in the
>A+ world with my goofy misdoings!
>
IN putting together a machine with an old 8088 AT MB, I managed to
slip the power connector on mis-alligned by 1 pin. Toasted the
motherborad.
Of course, now things are keyed, so that can't happen, but this had to
be around 1984 or so. Back when you still had to install the actual
RAM chips on the MB by hand....man am I old.
Anybody else remember how you would kind of "roll" the chip on a hard
surface (on both sides) to uniformly bend the pins in a bit so they'd
fit nicely in the socket?
I also remember paying $400 for my first 14.4 modem (which I think I
may still have somewhere <g> ), and I won't tell you how much a 10Mb
Hard Drive went for).
Sorry....I know this isn't supposed to be a "remember when
thread...just couldn't resist.
I resisted 'till I couldn't take it anymore.
(sigh) Address altered against Spam.
Replace the -at- and put the "spring-mind" in the correct order
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| SuperTech 2003-02-23, 7:23 pm |
| "NoNewz_is_GoodNewz" <lrideout01@TakeOutTheTrash.attbi.com> wrote in
news:9z96a.228901$HN5.961906@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net:
> Okay, since I've just completed my A+ class (haven't tested
> YET)... and I've been making my share of brain-dead mistakes
> while putting my first PC together, I thought it would be funny to
> know what mistakes everyone else made when first starting out.
> Just so I know I'm not alone out there in the A+ world with my
> goofy misdoings!
Mistakes? Oh tons:
My first day at Best Buy: a zip drive install into an IBM Aptiva.
Simple, right? I managed to cut myself and I was bleeding all over the
computer. Forgot to take the front drive bay cover off and
disconnected the floppy drive interface cable in the process. It was
about the poorest job one could do and I did it.
Or how about reversing the power plugs on an AT motherboard? (surprised
it didn't blow, remember: always black to black!)
Snapped the faceplate off the CD-ROM drive on a Sony VAIO when I
flipped it over and placed it laying on its topside (the face plate
extended past the top of the computer, STUPID design!). It was the
type of CD-ROM that matched the case (blue). I went out, got some
super glue and glued it back on. It worked!
Cracked a motherboard while applying too much pressure. To my defense,
I was working without any light in a dark hallway. Had to get an IDE
PCI card to get the harddrives to be recognized again!
More recently I tried to remove Internet Explorer from Windows 2000
SP3. Blew the OS up. Wee! Only took me 3 hours to rebuild it and it
actually works much better now.
Oh yeah, I ain't signing my real name to this! 
SuperTech
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| Navin R. Johnson 2003-02-24, 3:23 am |
| On Sun, 23 Feb 2003 19:47:17 GMT, "NoNewz_is_GoodNewz"
<lrideout01@TakeOutTheTrash.attbi.com> wrote:
Let's see........ well....... I can't really think of any in the past 25
years or so......... Well, maybe one..... I forgot to plug in the
cooling fan on an Athlon 1400 CPU once. The heat sink got so hot so fast
it literally burnt my fingers..... I just had to touch it to see how hot
it was. :-) After it cooled down though it worked fine. Yup. That's it.
Only one mistake........or maybe two...... Once, while tying up all the
wires to make a system look pretty, I accidentally cut some power wires
while trying to snip the end off of a tie-wrap....... with the power on.
That wasn't too smart - killed the power supply dead........ That's
about it. Just two screw ups.......... Oh yeah. One more. While working
on an old CDC 300 Megabyte hard drive (in 1984? - the thing was the size
of a washing machine) I accidentally touched a 220 volt line in the PSU
and was killed. No ....wait....I wasn't killed that time. It was the
time I was working on a 24-hour MAC machine (in 1978?). I was at the
back of the machine reaching for a screw that had gotten lodged in the
keypad. My left ear was pressing against a metal ground and my right
hand accidentally touched a 110 volt line. Zzzzzzap! Dead!........ Oh
yeah, I didn't die that time either. Lucky, I guess...... Linda, the
truth is we've all made mistakes. Some of us more than others. The true
measure of a PC tech is how adept he/she is at covering up his/her
mistakes. :-\
NRJ
>Okay, since I've just completed my A+ class (haven't tested YET)... and
>I've been making my share of brain-dead mistakes while putting my first PC
>together, I thought it would be funny to know what mistakes everyone else
>made when first starting out. Just so I know I'm not alone out there in the
>A+ world with my goofy misdoings!
>
>Have fun!
>
>Linda
>
>
>
| |
| Kathy 2003-02-24, 12:23 pm |
| Hi Linda,
You are not the only one that made brain-dead mistakes. This was my first
mistake so far. I deleted IE 4.0 from my computer. Big mistake! *LOL*. After
the deletion Win95 came back up, but I couldn't do anything. Couldn't
double-click any program and open it whatsoever, heck, I couldn't even bring
up the start menu. I wiped out the OS. Ended up having a friends husband
come over that day to show me how to reformat the HD.
I built my first computer back in 2001 and to be honest, I didn't even make
one mistake, maybe because I took my time because I was afraid of screwing
things up.
It's funny listening to other ppl's mistakes, but it's okay, it's how we
learn.
Kathy
A+
"NoNewz_is_GoodNewz" <lrideout01@TakeOutTheTrash.attbi.com> wrote in message
news:9z96a.228901$HN5.961906@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> Okay, since I've just completed my A+ class (haven't tested YET)... and
> I've been making my share of brain-dead mistakes while putting my first PC
> together, I thought it would be funny to know what mistakes everyone else
> made when first starting out. Just so I know I'm not alone out there in
the
> A+ world with my goofy misdoings!
>
> Have fun!
>
> Linda
>
>
>
>
| |
| Alan K. Martinez 2003-02-24, 12:23 pm |
| The first PC I put together was a 486/66. When I thought I had everything
in place booted up I had POST beep errors. At the time the Genoa
motherboard manual didn't have the beep codes in the back and I was worried
that I had destroyed something. After giving it a look over about 3 or 4
times I realized that I forgot to put the memory in.
It would have helped to have the beep codes handy. I guess I'm lucky that I
wasn't taking a physical exam and hooked up to a BP machine... it probably
would have been off the scale...
"NoNewz_is_GoodNewz" <lrideout01@TakeOutTheTrash.attbi.com> wrote in message
news:9z96a.228901$HN5.961906@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> Okay, since I've just completed my A+ class (haven't tested YET)... and
> I've been making my share of brain-dead mistakes while putting my first PC
> together, I thought it would be funny to know what mistakes everyone else
> made when first starting out. Just so I know I'm not alone out there in
the
> A+ world with my goofy misdoings!
>
> Have fun!
>
> Linda
>
>
>
>
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| |
|
| Hmmmm, I don't make mistakes.
But one time an elf managed to put a set of AT power cables on back to
front - luckily it only blew a fuse. I seem to remember another time when a
leprechaun turned a IDE cable without a locator blank upside down while I
.... ummm, he was installing a new HD - I .. ummm, he even returned it as
faulty. Then again my pet gremlin was once trying out a certain proprietary
suite of utilities and while making space on the hard drive deleted the OS.
--
RussS
MCP W2K Pro & Server, A+, Net+
http://www.techexams.net/
| |
| NoNewz_is_GoodNewz 2003-02-25, 6:23 am |
| Maybe your leprechaun, elf or gremlin fried my PSU by mounting my mobo to
the case then?
Linda
"RussS" <yeah_right@roflmao.com> wrote in message
news:AhE6a.105822$F63.2279059@news.xtra.co.nz...
> Hmmmm, I don't make mistakes.
>
> But one time an elf managed to put a set of AT power cables on back to
> front - luckily it only blew a fuse. I seem to remember another time when
a
> leprechaun turned a IDE cable without a locator blank upside down while I
> ... ummm, he was installing a new HD - I .. ummm, he even returned it as
> faulty. Then again my pet gremlin was once trying out a certain
proprietary
> suite of utilities and while making space on the hard drive deleted the
OS.
>
> --
> RussS
> MCP W2K Pro & Server, A+, Net+
>
> http://www.techexams.net/
>
>
| |
|
| haha - now I didn't tell you what the goblin or the Taniwha did .........
lol
--
RussS
MCP W2K Pro & Server, A+, Net+
http://www.techexams.net/
| |
| NoNewz_IsGoodNewz 2003-02-25, 11:23 pm |
| Hi...
I told the guys in my MCSE class tonight about what I did to the
motherboard...
Being that they are all electricians and telecom workers, they found it
hilarious!
Glad we can all laugh at our mistakes and learn from them!
Thanks everyone who responded to this post, it was fun!
Linda
"RussS" <yeah_right@roflmao.com> wrote in message
news:AhE6a.105822$F63.2279059@news.xtra.co.nz...
> Hmmmm, I don't make mistakes.
>
> But one time an elf managed to put a set of AT power cables on back to
> front - luckily it only blew a fuse. I seem to remember another time when
a
> leprechaun turned a IDE cable without a locator blank upside down while I
> ... ummm, he was installing a new HD - I .. ummm, he even returned it as
> faulty. Then again my pet gremlin was once trying out a certain
proprietary
> suite of utilities and while making space on the hard drive deleted the
OS.
>
> --
> RussS
> MCP W2K Pro & Server, A+, Net+
>
> http://www.techexams.net/
>
>
| |
|
| Russ - You wouldn't happen to be a Kiwi by any chance?? - Taniwha is a give
away.........
"RussS" <yeah_right@roflmao.com> wrote in message
news:0KP6a.106726$F63.2302260@news.xtra.co.nz...
> haha - now I didn't tell you what the goblin or the Taniwha did .........
> lol
>
> --
> RussS
> MCP W2K Pro & Server, A+, Net+
>
> http://www.techexams.net/
>
>
| |
| Navin R. Johnson 2003-02-27, 2:23 am |
| On Wed, 26 Feb 2003 04:32:32 GMT, "NoNewz_IsGoodNewz"
<SpamBlocker@SpamSux.org> wrote:
>Hi...
>
>I told the guys in my MCSE class tonight about what I did to the
>motherboard...
>
>Being that they are all electricians and telecom workers, they found it
>hilarious!
>
>Glad we can all laugh at our mistakes and learn from them!
>
>Thanks everyone who responded to this post, it was fun!
>
>Linda
>
You certainly have the right attitude for this stuff. Sometimes things
break of their own accord and sometimes we help them along. :-\
NRJ
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| costabeera 2003-02-27, 5:23 pm |
|
RussS <yeah_right@roflmao.com> wrote in message
news:8%t7a.110318$F63.2378200@news.xtra.co.nz...
> haha - yup
What's a Taniwha?
| |
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| Crazymiclo30 2003-02-28, 8:23 am |
| My friend in college had an old computer and it came up with all sorts of
errors everytime he started it. I decided to reformat the hard drive to fix
it all. When I restarted after it was done, it started crashing again.
Turns out that the sound card was only half-way in and need to be pushed in
more. I reformatted for nothing. And I couldn't get the network card to
work again because it was an old network card. Took me a while to get it
running again. I always check to make sure everything is seated fine first
now.
--
crazymiclo
A+, Network+
"NoNewz_is_GoodNewz" <lrideout01@TakeOutTheTrash.attbi.com> wrote in message
news:9z96a.228901$HN5.961906@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> Okay, since I've just completed my A+ class (haven't tested YET)... and
> I've been making my share of brain-dead mistakes while putting my first PC
> together, I thought it would be funny to know what mistakes everyone else
> made when first starting out. Just so I know I'm not alone out there in
the
> A+ world with my goofy misdoings!
>
> Have fun!
>
> Linda
>
>
>
>
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