Zap!
Just wrapped up the hands-on final in my hardware course, during which the dude next to me released all the magic smoke from his motherboard. Which is not, technically speaking, the way to pass said final exam.
I love the smell of burning electronics in the morning.
What kind of course was this? (In which people are frying circuit boards…)
Comment by Alcibiades McZombie — December 5, 2007 @ 8:24 pm
Only had one computer ever go up in smoke… The box was ordered online, and they brought it in because it was acting strangely. We became confused by it’s strange actions until the power supply died with a small puff of smoke. “Ahhh, the old dying power supply trick. Always good for confusing the hell out of techs.” We slapped a new power supply in it, and fired it up (pun intended). Shortly after it started up, black smoke *billowed* out of the open case! We unplugged it, and found that the geniuses who set up the box originally left an unnecessary motherboard stand-off in place, which caused severe arcing and heavy burns on the board.
Fucking hilarious.
Comment by existingthing — December 5, 2007 @ 9:07 pm
I toasted a front panel USB cable once. It was apparently not the standard pinout, and shorted the 5v line. My motherboard’s “fuses” didn’t blow and I managed to melt all the insulation off the wires
USB never was quite right after that, ended up with a card…
Comment by drstrangegun — December 6, 2007 @ 8:28 am
It’s a general PC hardware class, nothing special. I was hoping it’d be less hands-on and more theory.
Comment by TD — December 6, 2007 @ 7:29 pm