Way back when I was in college I had an Amiga 500 and I was showing something on it to my friend, who suddenly and drunkenly spilled an entire cup of beer on the keyboard, which was housed directly above the motherboard. I dove for the power button on the separate power supply unit and switched it off. Instead of opening it up and drying and cleaning it, I put a fan on it for a couple of days, after which it ran just fine. Several months later, I opened the case to upgrade the RAM and found a mat of black mold covering half the motherboard - which had been functioning normally to that point. PC clone manufacturers and Apple wish they could produce hardware so resilient. Heck, I remember when the manufacturer sent out a batch of units in which a chip was improperly seated, and Commodore's fix was to drop the computer on a hard surface from an elevation of 18-24 inches.
Yooo I remember this!! You’re so right I tend to buy the same resilient equipment for my PC’s I’ve had so many accidents that I thought would’ve killed the parts. Nope still going
This is why you have your UPS software use hibernate instead of shutdown. You may need to activate hibernate in Windows. If the UPS software won't do this, it sux.
@@fido139 That's because Windows can detect when this happens and can repair it automatically, like sometimes when you power back on it'll say "Undoing changes made to your computer..."
0:43 Improper CPU Overclocking 1:55 Intel Performance Tuning Protection Plan 2:34 Poor Cooling & Ventilation 3:31 Not using UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) or surge protector 4:41 Deleting System Files 5:32 Interrupting Updates 6:35 Shaking a HDD (hard drive, especially a laptop's) 7:42 Messing with components while they're running 9:16 etherkiller 9:38 washing computer components, spilling liquid on a laptop keyboard, pouring an entire quart of motor oil into pc
Being a idiot and downloading io bit unlocker and then trying to free up the C hard drive with your windows on it and destroying your os without having a backup.....totally hasn’t happened to me😅
tbh iobit software is useless, if anything they actually make your pc slower, I find that PCs with advanced systemcare and that other shit on them consistently boot slower, for something that was supposed to make your pc faster that's amazing
@@chlorobyte_projects iobit unlocker is completely different from other iobit applications, it's a tool that gives you access to files that are apparently under use
In regards to _ventilation,_ if you smoke, *do it outside.* My careless young self gamed and smoked and when I opened up the case to clean it, *wow.* Clumps of black and sticky dust etc everywhere. I tore it all down and spent a day off thoroughly cleaning it and never did that again.
I remember the HD shake test - that was awesome. My worst mistake was to get distracted and yank a memory board out of a computer while it was on. (Nearly 30 years ago and I'll never forget!) No more trying to do too many things at once when a case is open. Thanks again.
In 1992, my supervisor's computer was so flimsy, it would crash from even small vibrations on her desk. I tried to explain to her that was not normal but she wouldn't hear of it.
My PC has a built-in battery backup that can keep the system running for hours. And it can be setup to do a shutdown when the battery gets below a certain level. It has another feature that makes it difficult for me to work on the guts inside while it is running. These features have been commonly available for years; the products using them just don't seem to be marketed to highlight these useful functionalities. The code name for this is "LAPTOP". With an external monitor and wireless keyboard/mouse it gives me all that I got from my last desktop, and more: I can now run dual monitors, and, if necessary, I can easily take it with me on trips.
6:10 this is where the NixOS Linux distro shines: since updates are done generationally, if the computer fails to upgrade there is no situation where your computer is completely unusable. You can just boot into the previous generation.
One other great way to destroy the mainboard is to allow a USB cable to come into contact with a 120-volt power source,. A year ago yesterday, that happened to me when a USB cable I had plugged into my computer touched the prong of a cell phone charger as I was plugging it in. There was a big fireball on the power strip and the computer immediately went dead. The accident left a visible burn mark on the mainboard :P
the fan placement one is actually super important. My friend fried his laptop since the cooling was failing and i had some bad thermal paste so my cpu was hitting 120 degrees playing valorant and the computer would shut down from overheating. put some new thermal paste and now its at 60 degrees max
I managed to break my PC by having too many wires. Basically, I have a wired mouse that is plugged into the back of the PC (which is on the outside of my desk) the mouse wire ran behind the desk and through a small gap between the desk and the wall. The problem was, my mouse wire easily got tangled with the wires connected my PC to the power outlet and also my external speaker wires. So, because of this, there were a few times were I'd be using my PC and then the whole thing would power off because the wires got unplugged from my setup. I'd fix it and continue on with what I was doing. That is, until when 7 months ago it happened, and when I plugged my PC back in I managed to kill the power supply. I haven't been able to fix it though because I've never built a PC or repaired one before, and my parents don't have enough for a power supply. I have a lot of files on there that I don't wanna lose (like, you know, a Windows XP ISO, game files, and my entire archive of Miiverse posts I made when I was younger), so hopefully I can get it fixed soon.
i've washed plenty of modern motherboards with water when they were completly felty. after the washing you have to hang it up some where and let it sit for around 2 to 3 days
1. Overclocking 2. Poor ventilation and cooling 3. Nost using a UPS 4. Deleting system files 5. Interrupting updates 6. Shaking HDD 7. Messing with components while computer is running
It's perfectly find to wash motherboards and other circuit boards with water as long as they is not power to them and they are completely dry before powering up. In my 21 years in IT as a developer I have dealt with lots of hardware also. If an electrolytic capacitor or a battery on the board leaks by all means remove the bad component, use a toothbrush under warm water from faucet to scrub the area that has the leakage on it. Then use some isopropyl alcohol (99% preferably) and clean it with that too. Replace bad component and you're good to go. I have fixed circuit boards with water damage that caused corrosion by scrubbing the corrosion off under a water faucet. Kind of ironic.
You can actually wash a mobo. As long as its 150% dry before you pit it back together. In fact, thats what they do at the factory. I have done it a couple of times before and it worked. Not only that but it "fixed" a dead mobo.
I just saved a motherboard by washing it. And not the first. Of course it's a last ditch effort. These were somehow sugarcoated by soda or something. The trick is to never use hard water (minerals will leave deposits) and keep it under a powerful fan (preferably heated air) for a couple days to make sure all water has evaporated from underneath components. During cleaning use a soft paint brush. The bristles on a toothbrush are very short and even a soft toothbrush may be too stiff. Don't push hard, and if you find that you have to, then let it soak first until you don't. It was crazy when I tried it, but it worked (more than once) and so it is now a valid technique as far as I am concerned.
Another thing with UPS : some can send some data to the computer to tell that it is currently in "battery mode" and how much estimated time is left; so the pc shuts down properly on its own (Not all UPS have that and not all pc either, you might need to install a program on your pc)
Don't build your office next to a water tower. 😁 Had a storm come thru one night and lightning hit the water tower. Fried every desktop network card (except one) in the bank branch we had next to the tower.
4:28 APC UPS devices may also come with the ability to show a notification in Windows in case of low battery and even "shut down" or activate "sleep mode" automatically if necessary.
I washed my display adapter - not these new ones with huge fans. I had a USB 2.0 card that blew and the soot messed the display adapter so that the display was garbage. I washed it with water and let dry properly and it worked for years.
I've learned so much from watching your vids the last couple months. I watch several a day trying to get up to speed. Even my wife is impressed with our new network. (and that's saying something) lol.
In Venezuela power outages are extremely common, almost every day your PC will have a chance of being damaged by that cause. With that being said, it's strange to me that, even without protection, all of my PC and Laptops (that only work plugged in due to a broken battery) were not damaged. I guess I'm extremely lucky
I like NOT overclocking best. LOL! A note about UPS backup boxes, the batteries crap out after only a year of so. SO, just when you need it, it's not there.
9:45 Actually, washing a motherboard with water is actually ok, if, A, you remove every power source, including the CMOS battery, and B, let it dry completely before even attempting to turn it back on. Some retro computer enthusiasts have actually run motherboards through the dishwasher to remove leaked electrolytic capacitor electrolyte from the board before replacing those bad capacitors.
Populated circuit boards are actually washed at the end of the manufacturing cycle. So yes, you can wash those, and they do mix. You just have to make sure that 1. the board is not connected ot any power (such as a battery), or/and 2. you dry it thoroughly before reapplying power, or 3. you use pure water, because that doesn't conduct electricity or corrode.
I think I know what went wrong with the multimeter, you had it set to measure Amps, which will connect the two leads and thereby create a short if used incorrectly. If it was set to measure voltage that wouldn't have happened.
Another is do not run a registry defrag while an update is running. Spent all night re-installing my daughter's Windows after that. Side note: back in the early 90's, I had a hard drive I had to manually spin it to get it running. It was fine as long as it didn't stop. Just didn't have the money at the time to replace it.
Most power surges that caused damage are not from lightning strikes or the actual power outage but are actually from when power is restored, and the reason being is when the utility company restores power and energizes that section of the grid again it is going from 0% load to what ever load was on it when the power went out which depending on the time of day and season could be Almost maximum load so it’s going to instantly draw a fair amount of current which can easily induced voltage spikes into the lines and it only takes a split second of a voltage spike to cause damage to computers. Very rarely will you get a surge from the actual outage and usually it’s only if the high-voltage primary lines cross over the lower voltage secondary lines that feed the houses, the most common way that happens is when someone hits the poles with a vehicle and it knocks the pole over and takes the wires with it
5:00 I remember a couple years ago I was trying to close a crashed game using task manager and I accidentally force closed Windows and I couldn't get my pc to shut down without unplugging it
If your someone who never turns your computer off, some interruptible power supplies also come with software and a USB cable that to connect it to your computer and will shut your computer off after a specified amount of time after the power goes off.
I've been using computers since 1982. My family got an IBM PC (original model 5150) in 1984. I did my first PC build (a 286-16) in 1988. TO DATE, I have NEVER encountered a power surge that has been able to damage ANY computer that I have EVER owned or used at work. Americans with their privatised power grids...
We EE's wash PCB's after assembling them all thee time. Remove all power (incl coin cells), wash, then rinse with distilled water. Bake at low temp low moisture until completely dry. Haven't had an issue yet. Rinsing with non distilled water or with out enough distilled water may cause corrosion. Also forced air should be not used haphazardly as it could blow debris under high density parts (bad ) or contaminate electrolytic caps that are not well sealed so caution & YMMV applies to those situations.
Honourable Mentions: -Installing one Mod for any game your pc can run -Playing Call of Duty MW 2019 for 17 seconds (Bonus if your PC is over the age of 3) -Installing any Hyper-Realistic FPS game made after 2018 - *H A M M E R*
I use OS X 10.4 Tiger on my nostalgia Mac, it literally lets you drag the system folder to the trash bin and doesn’t even ask for the admin password. Of course you can’t take it back out because you can’t open files in the trash, and trash is part of finder, which is in the trash. I did this for fun on my dying hard drive and it made every single character the no character found symbol (A in a square).
I need to add / remove hard drives from my computer all the time and luckily the mobo has a hot-plug option in the BIOS to accommodate this - but once i needed to connect an old IDE drive via a SATA to IDE adapter, and of course these use older molex power connectors. The drive wasn't being detected so I plugged and unplugged the molex a few times and suddenly the PC just died completely - and the mobo was fried! Expensive lesson since I had to replace motherboard, cpu, and RAM.
About shaking a working HDD - I once dropped a PC down a short flight of hard concrete stairs. It was an early IBM, probably from the late 80's, built like a brick sh1t-house. It survived!
I once accidentally killed a PS/2 keyboard by splashing a small quantity of water on in. I should have immediately yanked the plug, but it was only a about a teaspoon worth of water on the bottom row and I figured that it wouldn't even make it to the flex circuit inside. Big mistake. After a while, some of the keys stopped working and others would print the wrong characters.
So, this happened literally 3 days ago. I tried to install a critical update, and when it restarted 2nd time, it didn’t turned on. I have something glitchy, still don’t know what is glitchy, and sometimes it prevents turning on the PC. In these situations I turn off the computer with the button (cuz some things are turning on) and i pick up my computer and shake it a bit. But it didn’t work when it glitched during an update. So the only thing I could do is restart the PC. I did it, and when it turned on, the OS simply said “No OS found”… It was a new disk after i replaced the old disk with 110 GB and like 1 GB left with a 1 TB disk. I still has the old disk, so I managed to find a program which copies all your files onto other disk. I did this and everything went ok XD but im never updating until I find out what is glitchy:) Sorry if i made any mistakes, I’m from Belarus and I know English a bit.
@9:05 this old-timer remembering using a normal voltage tester (I will not admit that my precious Fluke was used) on an old CRT display HT lead..... not nice. Poor tester never made it to the recycle station as it had an instant cremation service...
I’ve always wondered about UPSs. Back in 2010 I once had a bolt of lighting hit my backyard and it wiped out one of my 2 GPU (gtx 480 Hydro Copper). The PC wasn’t even on when this happened. At the time this GPU was expensive and very hard to find. Thankfully the wonderful people over at EVGA (specifically Jacob) read my forum post and helped me out anyways. I’ve been a customer of EVGA for 10 years now because of that. With that said, every time there Is a chance of rain or storm, I shut down and unplug everything now…forever traumatized
Kudos for Kevin for describing how he toasted part of a computer. That is the kind of thing I think a lot of people in his line of business would just conveniently forget their more embarrassing mistakes.
my pc updated all night, woke up to lights blinking(mouse keyvoars turnknf kn) And when I turned it off it DELETED ALL SYSTEM FILES FR NOTHING IN C:/ I was so smart that I fixed it 😁😎😎😎😎
Best combo when it comes to protection of your computer from damage caused by power outages is probably a good UPS and a natural gas or propane or diesel automatic standby generator with an automatic transfer switch, basically the UPS would keep your computer running long enough for the generator to start, let its engine warm up and transfer the house over to generator and the automatic transfer switch has basically a big contactor in it that physically disconnects your electrical panel from the utility company feed and connect it to the generator. And then when the power comes back on it does the same in reverse, it transfers from the generator to the grid and then shuts down the generator engine
They are fairly expensive but if you get a lot of long-term power outages they are 100% worth it. Around my area currently the going rate for a 25 kW natural gas powered system with installation permits plumber etc. is about 10-$15,000
Also get a type two panel mounted whole house surge protector, they work way better than the power strip surge protectors that you would usually use under your desk, and they also protect hardwired devices like the sensitive computer inside things like your furnace, AC, refrigerator etc.
Don't change RAM with the computer plugged in. I did this once, and fried a motherboard. It gave an electronic burned odor afterwards (death fart). Avoid hot swapping.
Watch out for cheap UPS units. We had one at the radio station I manage. It fried itself and actually took down the playout computer with it. I was rather taken aback by this event as we all know these things are designed to protect computers, not wreck 'em. It obviously didn't fail safe.
I remember when my whole computer case just fell to the ground with a BONK! And everything just shut down I got so scared but it turns out it booted up again with no further problems… It was my extremely long headphone cable that tageld up my whole chair I accidentally instantly stand up too fast
(Not having seen the video yet) the worst mistake when resetting a computer is to use the recycle setting, which pretty much destroys your computers functionality or maybe I just was too dumb at the time to think of a simple fix.
I am surprised that spilling coffee on your laptop isn't higher up the list. In my experience this is probably the most common for of death by user in practise.
Few mistakes aswell dont download any unknown things that u really not sure what your're downloading, dont even try overclocking laptop bc it ll burn(fries). Dont pause updates security because so important.
8th method, give it to a 12 year old boy and say "you can do anything online but no adult stuff, we're going out for a hour", the thing will be fried in 5 minutes lol
computers are resilient why this computer I'm using now just turned 8 years old, the water pump to the processor has not been working right for 3 years, the back of the cpu socket has suffered a static shock while it was on, I swapped out the hard drives while it was on, never turned it off, and the fans completely stop at random times, and somehow it still runs.
One MAJOR bit of information about hard drives... they are made and designed differently for laptops and desktop systems... They (drive manufacturers) learned the lesson the hard way ... the drives have tolerances to the 1000ths of an inch (approximately the size of smoke particles) now back to the hard drive design change in laptops (he mentioned this in the video as well) they built in vibration detection so the heads would park until the vibration ceased (of course if you drop your laptop there is a very strong chance that detection circuit won't have a chance and the drive will still be destroyed) okay now for the main difference between laptop drives and desktop drives ... the last time I researched this desktop drives DO NOT have the vibration detection built in ... they typically aren't moved around (during operation) like laptops are so there was no need to have such detection built in .... so keep that in mind if you decide to clean up your computer location and move the computer power it off 1st ... the same tolerance is like I mentioned earlier EXTREMELY close tolerances on thunk of the system could eventually destroy your hard drive ... Seagate even produced a video of exactly how sensitive hard drives are to shock and static electricity and of course the electrical connectors to to drive ... they are FRAGILE devices and EXTREMELY FRAGILE during operation
Also be careful, smashing your computer with two hammers will damage your computer!
(This has been a funney haha ThioJoke)
Who said you have to be joking? I'm doing it
In a few years, my laptop requires the same protection as the Death Star
what about notebooks.?
@@vingray8119 As Palpatine said, DEWIT
You are talking really funny 😄😄😄 !
@RedeemlessKills mikita jack hammer
You forgot “watching a verge pc build tutorial”
true
oop
Ooooof
That puts me on verge of cringing ! 😁
@@ThioJoe thio plays roblox confirmed
(Its A Joke Dont Take It Seriously)
Way back when I was in college I had an Amiga 500 and I was showing something on it to my friend, who suddenly and drunkenly spilled an entire cup of beer on the keyboard, which was housed directly above the motherboard. I dove for the power button on the separate power supply unit and switched it off. Instead of opening it up and drying and cleaning it, I put a fan on it for a couple of days, after which it ran just fine.
Several months later, I opened the case to upgrade the RAM and found a mat of black mold covering half the motherboard - which had been functioning normally to that point. PC clone manufacturers and Apple wish they could produce hardware so resilient. Heck, I remember when the manufacturer sent out a batch of units in which a chip was improperly seated, and Commodore's fix was to drop the computer on a hard surface from an elevation of 18-24 inches.
Oh
Ok
@@hihi-ll3cw too long
Yooo I remember this!! You’re so right I tend to buy the same resilient equipment for my PC’s I’ve had so many accidents that I thought would’ve killed the parts. Nope still going
4:00
Power: goes out
UPS: activates
Windows: shuts down
Also Windows:
*Windows is installing updates*
*0% complete*
*Don't turn off your computer*
This is why you have your UPS software use hibernate instead of shutdown. You may need to activate hibernate in Windows. If the UPS software won't do this, it sux.
From bad to worse
It doesn't matter. I've shut my systems down many times under the "do not turn off you computer" with never one single ill effect.
Lloyd Dominic Refuerzo Stupid.
@@fido139 That's because Windows can detect when this happens and can repair it automatically, like sometimes when you power back on it'll say "Undoing changes made to your computer..."
Instructions are unclear. Now Microsoft is providing me with a refund, however for some reason they want google play gift cards.
Everyone knows the IRS only accepts payments in iTunes gift cards too
@@ThioJoe Everyone knows you can only buy games from subway gift cards.
Ha, suckers, I’ve been approached by a Nigerian prince, he will make me a rich man soon!
_scem_
brooooo napolion just gave me a 19$ robloc card
ThioJoe "don't shake your laptop"
my brain (digs through memories)
me "im safe"
Lol
0:43 Improper CPU Overclocking 1:55 Intel Performance Tuning Protection Plan
2:34 Poor Cooling & Ventilation
3:31 Not using UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) or surge protector
4:41 Deleting System Files
5:32 Interrupting Updates
6:35 Shaking a HDD (hard drive, especially a laptop's)
7:42 Messing with components while they're running
9:16 etherkiller 9:38 washing computer components, spilling liquid on a laptop keyboard, pouring an entire quart of motor oil into pc
Thank you so much, saved a lot of time, also 800th comment
@@ZekSanchez You're welcome😉
I have done all of this 🤫
@@chubselpulgoso3918 damn
Lmao that thumbnail.
_Just a dab of thermal paste..._
**at the intel store**
Oh hi there so i overclocked my core i9 with 60 volts of electricity and i was wondering if it was covered
The shopkeeper
NOPE
Yes!... for a one time fee of 429.99
@@quantumbits wallet:why do i hear boos music?
I've done all of them.
On my friends pc.
11 times... I question your choice of friends.
@@Tw3akst3r lol
r/madlads
@@shou_gana1 yeee
_"Friend"_
I've been overclocking my GPUs for years, but I still have never attempted to overclock a CPU. I just don't feel comfortable with the risks.
Being a idiot and downloading io bit unlocker and then trying to free up the C hard drive with your windows on it and destroying your os without having a backup.....totally hasn’t happened to me😅
tbh iobit software is useless, if anything they actually make your pc slower, I find that PCs with advanced systemcare and that other shit on them consistently boot slower, for something that was supposed to make your pc faster that's amazing
@@chlorobyte_projects Bruh its a joke
@@chlorobyte_projects iobit unlocker is completely different from other iobit applications, it's a tool that gives you access to files that are apparently under use
Not hitting it with hammers may help
Oops.
Citation needed
@@ThioJoe Wikipedia
Prior to watching: “Please tell me I didn’t do any of these things!” 😬😬😬
Jake: I'm watching you...
Thanks man. Good looking out 👀 Us Jakes need to stick together 😉
True.
Jake late to the party but yes we do
@@jakeludlow7064
"Mom can we have Jake Chudnow at home?"
"We have Jake Chudnow at home."
Jake Chudnow at home: Jake Ludnow
Thiojoe: “Do you want to destroy your computer?”
Me: YeS I wOuLd LoVe To
lol
What.
Lol me too I Want a new gaming pc
In regards to _ventilation,_ if you smoke, *do it outside.* My careless young self gamed and smoked and when I opened up the case to clean it, *wow.* Clumps of black and sticky dust etc everywhere.
I tore it all down and spent a day off thoroughly cleaning it and never did that again.
I heard that if you pee on your computer it will break so don't pee on your pc
smft didn’t worked mine still works fine
True but it may cure thumbnail fungus and you don't want all your windows thumbnails turning bad do you?
@@Robert08010 this is art
Don't let your cat pee on the PC.
@@CodeSlapper or your dog
"avoid shaking a HDD, this is quite common with laptops"
Me, having always used SSDs after my first laptop:
Eh?
When I was playing resident evil 4, I accidentally punch my monitor as I was angry I died 100 times. How do I prevent it?
I have 1 256gb ssd and 1 tb hdd. It's normal to have both.
@@Sol4rOnYt xd
No need to flex mr rich money big shot man
Another mistake that may damage your computer:
ThioJoe’s fake tutorials...
I was thinking just that myself
Ashton Harb That’s because some people who tried the fake tutorials for game consoles reported that they broke theirs
@Ashton Harb WOOOOOOOOOOSH
SaturneKx ya don’t need to scream
In his fake videos desc he said he switched to real vids
The thumbnail is hilarious, one of the best I’ve ever seen. 😂😂
8:36 love your choice of taking this scene 😂
Do you want to completely ruin your computer? Of course I do!!!
I remember the HD shake test - that was awesome. My worst mistake was to get distracted and yank a memory board out of a computer while it was on. (Nearly 30 years ago and I'll never forget!) No more trying to do too many things at once when a case is open.
Thanks again.
In 1992, my supervisor's computer was so flimsy, it would crash from even small vibrations on her desk. I tried to explain to her that was not normal but she wouldn't hear of it.
UPS saved my pc yrs ago in a (very) old apt where every time my nextdoor neighbor's blender and toaster were on, my screen sizzled.
My PC has a built-in battery backup that can keep the system running for hours. And it can be setup to do a shutdown when the battery gets below a certain level. It has another feature that makes it difficult for me to work on the guts inside while it is running.
These features have been commonly available for years; the products using them just don't seem to be marketed to highlight these useful functionalities.
The code name for this is "LAPTOP". With an external monitor and wireless keyboard/mouse it gives me all that I got from my last desktop, and more: I can now run dual monitors, and, if necessary, I can easily take it with me on trips.
6:10 this is where the NixOS Linux distro shines: since updates are done generationally, if the computer fails to upgrade there is no situation where your computer is completely unusable. You can just boot into the previous generation.
One other great way to destroy the mainboard is to allow a USB cable to come into contact with a 120-volt power source,. A year ago yesterday, that happened to me when a USB cable I had plugged into my computer touched the prong of a cell phone charger as I was plugging it in. There was a big fireball on the power strip and the computer immediately went dead. The accident left a visible burn mark on the mainboard :P
the fan placement one is actually super important. My friend fried his laptop since the cooling was failing and i had some bad thermal paste so my cpu was hitting 120 degrees playing valorant and the computer would shut down from overheating. put some new thermal paste and now its at 60 degrees max
I managed to break my PC by having too many wires.
Basically, I have a wired mouse that is plugged into the back of the PC (which is on the outside of my desk) the mouse wire ran behind the desk and through a small gap between the desk and the wall. The problem was, my mouse wire easily got tangled with the wires connected my PC to the power outlet and also my external speaker wires. So, because of this, there were a few times were I'd be using my PC and then the whole thing would power off because the wires got unplugged from my setup. I'd fix it and continue on with what I was doing. That is, until when 7 months ago it happened, and when I plugged my PC back in I managed to kill the power supply. I haven't been able to fix it though because I've never built a PC or repaired one before, and my parents don't have enough for a power supply.
I have a lot of files on there that I don't wanna lose (like, you know, a Windows XP ISO, game files, and my entire archive of Miiverse posts I made when I was younger), so hopefully I can get it fixed soon.
9:38 Or with a shop vac they put out static which can cause ESD, unless you have them grounded properly.
i've washed plenty of modern motherboards with water when they were completly felty. after the washing you have to hang it up some where and let it sit for around 2 to 3 days
1. Overclocking
2. Poor ventilation and cooling
3. Nost using a UPS
4. Deleting system files
5. Interrupting updates
6. Shaking HDD
7. Messing with components while computer is running
UPS suck,i prefer FedEx
It's perfectly find to wash motherboards and other circuit boards with water as long as they is not power to them and they are completely dry before powering up. In my 21 years in IT as a developer I have dealt with lots of hardware also. If an electrolytic capacitor or a battery on the board leaks by all means remove the bad component, use a toothbrush under warm water from faucet to scrub the area that has the leakage on it. Then use some isopropyl alcohol (99% preferably) and clean it with that too. Replace bad component and you're good to go. I have fixed circuit boards with water damage that caused corrosion by scrubbing the corrosion off under a water faucet. Kind of ironic.
You can actually wash a mobo. As long as its 150% dry before you pit it back together. In fact, thats what they do at the factory. I have done it a couple of times before and it worked. Not only that but it "fixed" a dead mobo.
I just saved a motherboard by washing it. And not the first. Of course it's a last ditch effort. These were somehow sugarcoated by soda or something. The trick is to never use hard water (minerals will leave deposits) and keep it under a powerful fan (preferably heated air) for a couple days to make sure all water has evaporated from underneath components. During cleaning use a soft paint brush. The bristles on a toothbrush are very short and even a soft toothbrush may be too stiff. Don't push hard, and if you find that you have to, then let it soak first until you don't. It was crazy when I tried it, but it worked (more than once) and so it is now a valid technique as far as I am concerned.
Another thing with UPS : some can send some data to the computer to tell that it is currently in "battery mode" and how much estimated time is left; so the pc shuts down properly on its own (Not all UPS have that and not all pc either, you might need to install a program on your pc)
Don't build your office next to a water tower. 😁
Had a storm come thru one night and lightning hit the water tower. Fried every desktop network card (except one) in the bank branch we had next to the tower.
4:48 "They said System32 was a virus!!!!"
4:28 APC UPS devices may also come with the ability to show a notification in Windows in case of low battery and even "shut down" or activate "sleep mode" automatically if necessary.
I washed my display adapter - not these new ones with huge fans. I had a USB 2.0 card that blew and the soot messed the display adapter so that the display was garbage. I washed it with water and let dry properly and it worked for years.
I've learned so much from watching your vids the last couple months. I watch several a day trying to get up to speed. Even my wife is impressed with our new network. (and that's saying something) lol.
Be careful what reg. entries you delete with ccleaner as well. Done it a million times.
In Venezuela power outages are extremely common, almost every day your PC will have a chance of being damaged by that cause.
With that being said, it's strange to me that, even without protection, all of my PC and Laptops (that only work plugged in due to a broken battery) were not damaged. I guess I'm extremely lucky
I like NOT overclocking best. LOL!
A note about UPS backup boxes, the batteries crap out after only a year of so. SO, just when you need it, it's not there.
9:45
Actually, washing a motherboard with water is actually ok, if, A, you remove every power source, including the CMOS battery, and B, let it dry completely before even attempting to turn it back on. Some retro computer enthusiasts have actually run motherboards through the dishwasher to remove leaked electrolytic capacitor electrolyte from the board before replacing those bad capacitors.
What about cheaping out on the Power Supply Unit?
A UPS is a must around here. No more lost work for any power brownouts. Those happen often. I have two, one for the desktop, one for the monitors.
Question if you spill something on your keyboard and it fully doesn't work can replace your keyboard with something that isn't the same keybourd
Old thio is back.
Populated circuit boards are actually washed at the end of the manufacturing cycle. So yes, you can wash those, and they do mix. You just have to make sure that 1. the board is not connected ot any power (such as a battery), or/and 2. you dry it thoroughly before reapplying power, or 3. you use pure water, because that doesn't conduct electricity or corrode.
"do you want to completely ruin your computer? well of course not!"
don't put words in my mouth. sometimes I do!
I think I know what went wrong with the multimeter, you had it set to measure Amps, which will connect the two leads and thereby create a short if used incorrectly. If it was set to measure voltage that wouldn't have happened.
Another is do not run a registry defrag while an update is running. Spent all night re-installing my daughter's Windows after that.
Side note: back in the early 90's, I had a hard drive I had to manually spin it to get it running. It was fine as long as it didn't stop. Just didn't have the money at the time to replace it.
One time, I was dumb enough to let a scheduled chkdsk run during an update. Surprisingly, Startup Repair fixed the resulting boot loop.
Time for some tech revenge. *Holds mouse over system 32 folder*
Most power surges that caused damage are not from lightning strikes or the actual power outage but are actually from when power is restored, and the reason being is when the utility company restores power and energizes that section of the grid again it is going from 0% load to what ever load was on it when the power went out which depending on the time of day and season could be Almost maximum load so it’s going to instantly draw a fair amount of current which can easily induced voltage spikes into the lines and it only takes a split second of a voltage spike to cause damage to computers. Very rarely will you get a surge from the actual outage and usually it’s only if the high-voltage primary lines cross over the lower voltage secondary lines that feed the houses, the most common way that happens is when someone hits the poles with a vehicle and it knocks the pole over and takes the wires with it
5:00 I remember a couple years ago I was trying to close a crashed game using task manager and I accidentally force closed Windows and I couldn't get my pc to shut down without unplugging it
First, I broke my first Windows PC with viruses from limewire :)
I approve of this, comrade
When I was 15 and didn't know any better, I ruined my PC with malware from some shady free downloader.
Knight Wing hey im 15 and want to get my first pc and I don’t want to kill it with viruses what could I do about it or how could I avoid it?
@@offbrandhp5705 get malware bytes premium, from the official website. It is like the best antivirus. It blocks all malware and viruses.
@@jaycalter1629 Or avast its very good
I appreciate your work for making these videos! Thanks!
I still remember overclocking my 2700x to 6Ghz and watching it cut off never to boot again 🤔😃👍.
If your someone who never turns your computer off, some interruptible power supplies also come with software and a USB cable that to connect it to your computer and will shut your computer off after a specified amount of time after the power goes off.
2:35 "If you have a pre-built you'll probably be fine"
Having watched Gamers Nexus' series on pre-built PCs, I can not confirm that ...
I've been using computers since 1982. My family got an IBM PC (original model 5150) in 1984. I did my first PC build (a 286-16) in 1988. TO DATE, I have NEVER encountered a power surge that has been able to damage ANY computer that I have EVER owned or used at work.
Americans with their privatised power grids...
We EE's wash PCB's after assembling them all thee time. Remove all power (incl coin cells), wash, then rinse with distilled water. Bake at low temp low moisture until completely dry. Haven't had an issue yet. Rinsing with non distilled water or with out enough distilled water may cause corrosion. Also forced air should be not used haphazardly as it could blow debris under high density parts (bad ) or contaminate electrolytic caps that are not well sealed so caution & YMMV applies to those situations.
1. Dropping your sledgehammer.
Honourable Mentions:
-Installing one Mod for any game your pc can run
-Playing Call of Duty MW 2019 for 17 seconds (Bonus if your PC is over the age of 3)
-Installing any Hyper-Realistic FPS game made after 2018
- *H A M M E R*
Ah Shit, Here we go again
I use OS X 10.4 Tiger on my nostalgia Mac, it literally lets you drag the system folder to the trash bin and doesn’t even ask for the admin password. Of course you can’t take it back out because you can’t open files in the trash, and trash is part of finder, which is in the trash.
I did this for fun on my dying hard drive and it made every single character the no character found symbol (A in a square).
I need to add / remove hard drives from my computer all the time and luckily the mobo has a hot-plug option in the BIOS to accommodate this - but once i needed to connect an old IDE drive via a SATA to IDE adapter, and of course these use older molex power connectors. The drive wasn't being detected so I plugged and unplugged the molex a few times and suddenly the PC just died completely - and the mobo was fried! Expensive lesson since I had to replace motherboard, cpu, and RAM.
I wouldn't keep hamsters in your computer either. But that is just me.
If you are using a micrichip, such as an card make sure you never interrupt a write operation in progress. This can currpt it for keeps.
About shaking a working HDD - I once dropped a PC down a short flight of hard concrete stairs. It was an early IBM, probably from the late 80's, built like a brick sh1t-house. It survived!
Don`t forget about the cat jumping up on the desk and flopping over on the key board expecting to get rubbed.
I once accidentally killed a PS/2 keyboard by splashing a small quantity of water on in. I should have immediately yanked the plug, but it was only a about a teaspoon worth of water on the bottom row and I figured that it wouldn't even make it to the flex circuit inside. Big mistake. After a while, some of the keys stopped working and others would print the wrong characters.
So, this happened literally 3 days ago. I tried to install a critical update, and when it restarted 2nd time, it didn’t turned on. I have something glitchy, still don’t know what is glitchy, and sometimes it prevents turning on the PC. In these situations I turn off the computer with the button (cuz some things are turning on) and i pick up my computer and shake it a bit. But it didn’t work when it glitched during an update. So the only thing I could do is restart the PC. I did it, and when it turned on, the OS simply said “No OS found”… It was a new disk after i replaced the old disk with 110 GB and like 1 GB left with a 1 TB disk. I still has the old disk, so I managed to find a program which copies all your files onto other disk. I did this and everything went ok XD but im never updating until I find out what is glitchy:) Sorry if i made any mistakes, I’m from Belarus and I know English a bit.
@9:05 this old-timer remembering using a normal voltage tester (I will not admit that my precious Fluke was used) on an old CRT display HT lead..... not nice. Poor tester never made it to the recycle station as it had an instant cremation service...
Use a grounding strap. Sometimes you have to let capacitors disharge also. Be very careful when working with RAM. etc.
I’ve always wondered about UPSs. Back in 2010 I once had a bolt of lighting hit my backyard and it wiped out one of my 2 GPU (gtx 480 Hydro Copper). The PC wasn’t even on when this happened. At the time this GPU was expensive and very hard to find. Thankfully the wonderful people over at EVGA (specifically Jacob) read my forum post and helped me out anyways. I’ve been a customer of EVGA for 10 years now because of that.
With that said, every time there Is a chance of rain or storm, I shut down and unplug everything now…forever traumatized
4:07
Laughs in ~5 minute shutdown time
It's funny that this video was recommended to me from your video about doubling cpu cores.
The irony of it
Kudos for Kevin for describing how he toasted part of a computer. That is the kind of thing I think a lot of people in his line of business would just conveniently forget their more embarrassing mistakes.
my pc updated all night, woke up to lights blinking(mouse keyvoars turnknf kn) And when I turned it off it DELETED ALL SYSTEM FILES FR NOTHING IN C:/
I was so smart that I fixed it 😁😎😎😎😎
Power outage issues seem more like a US issue. In the Netherlands the powder basically never goes out.
Best combo when it comes to protection of your computer from damage caused by power outages is probably a good UPS and a natural gas or propane or diesel automatic standby generator with an automatic transfer switch, basically the UPS would keep your computer running long enough for the generator to start, let its engine warm up and transfer the house over to generator and the automatic transfer switch has basically a big contactor in it that physically disconnects your electrical panel from the utility company feed and connect it to the generator. And then when the power comes back on it does the same in reverse, it transfers from the generator to the grid and then shuts down the generator engine
They are fairly expensive but if you get a lot of long-term power outages they are 100% worth it. Around my area currently the going rate for a 25 kW natural gas powered system with installation permits plumber etc. is about 10-$15,000
Also get a type two panel mounted whole house surge protector, they work way better than the power strip surge protectors that you would usually use under your desk, and they also protect hardwired devices like the sensitive computer inside things like your furnace, AC, refrigerator etc.
Don't change RAM with the computer plugged in. I did this once, and fried a motherboard. It gave an electronic burned odor afterwards (death fart). Avoid hot swapping.
Watch out for cheap UPS units. We had one at the radio station I manage. It fried itself and actually took down the playout computer with it. I was rather taken aback by this event as we all know these things are designed to protect computers, not wreck 'em. It obviously didn't fail safe.
I am guilty of #7. I tried to dust my old computer once... without unplugging it.
I remember when my whole computer case just fell to the ground with a BONK! And everything just shut down I got so scared but it turns out it booted up again with no further problems… It was my extremely long headphone cable that tageld up my whole chair I accidentally instantly stand up too fast
UPS should come with software to control the sequence of events in the event of a power out
(Not having seen the video yet) the worst mistake when resetting a computer is to use the recycle setting, which pretty much destroys your computers functionality or maybe I just was too dumb at the time to think of a simple fix.
3:40 My childhood PS2 got fried in a surge
I am surprised that spilling coffee on your laptop isn't higher up the list. In my experience this is probably the most common for of death by user in practise.
Few mistakes aswell dont download any unknown things that u really not sure what your're downloading, dont even try overclocking laptop bc it ll burn(fries). Dont pause updates security because so important.
8th method, give it to a 12 year old boy and say "you can do anything online but no adult stuff, we're going out for a hour",
the thing will be fried in 5 minutes lol
Thanks, I’m going to try this on school computers :)
"everyone makes mistakes, it doesn't do anything"
Thiojoe: lol
computers are resilient why this computer I'm using now just turned 8 years old, the water pump to the processor has not been working right for 3 years, the back of the cpu socket has suffered a static shock while it was on, I swapped out the hard drives while it was on, never turned it off, and the fans completely stop at random times, and somehow it still runs.
oh and i forgot to mention that I accidently spray the motherboard with rubbing alcohol and essential oils. (again while its on).
One MAJOR bit of information about hard drives... they are made and designed differently for laptops and desktop systems...
They (drive manufacturers) learned the lesson the hard way ... the drives have tolerances to the 1000ths of an inch (approximately the size of smoke particles) now back to the hard drive design change in laptops (he mentioned this in the video as well) they built in vibration detection so the heads would park until the vibration ceased (of course if you drop your laptop there is a very strong chance that detection circuit won't have a chance and the drive will still be destroyed) okay now for the main difference between laptop drives and desktop drives ... the last time I researched this desktop drives DO NOT have the vibration detection built in ... they typically aren't moved around (during operation) like laptops are so there was no need to have such detection built in .... so keep that in mind if you decide to clean up your computer location and move the computer power it off 1st ... the same tolerance is like I mentioned earlier EXTREMELY close tolerances on thunk of the system could eventually destroy your hard drive ... Seagate even produced a video of exactly how sensitive hard drives are to shock and static electricity and of course the electrical connectors to to drive ... they are FRAGILE devices and EXTREMELY FRAGILE during operation
3:36 My pc actually fryed becauses of this.
I don't have one but it dosen't fry
Me a week earlier: Oops I accidentally spilled orange juice on mah keyboard meh it's no biggy!
Me now: Wtf was I thinking