What is the worst luck you have ever had building a system?

Das Capitolin

I'm just curious; I have built hundreds of high-end systems, and it wasn't until very recently that I felt like giving it up. Has anyone else had luck as bad as I did on this project?

About three months ago I had a client want a D830 system with SLI 7900 GT's. Okay, fine. I shared with him the pro's and con's of the various components, we compromised, and I started ordering the parts. Generally, I give clients a 5-day turnaround. This would turn out to be a bad decision.

The first problems began when both the BFG GeForce 7900 GT's arrived. The retail box was prestine, however the plastic inner holding box was a bit roughed up. Both of these cards would be found to have missing/broken away surface joined capacitors. Fine, RMA them and add one week.

Next came the Raptor 150GB gaming hard drive. It began fine, but about an hour into loading the O/S it locked solid (onfirmed via see-through window). Fine, contact WD and get a replacement. Add two weeks.

Then once the next set of BFG GeForce 7900 GT's arrived, to my very surprise, the exact same problem was seen: capacitors rolling around inside a perfect retail box. F*ing fine! Research the card and find that I am with the majority on the problem. RMA, substiture eVGA card instead.

Next came the motherboard. It uses Realtek's High Definition Audio. Unfortunatly, only the latest driver from Realtek (whom I must add has realeased six driver revisions for their hardware from the start of this project to the end of the entire nightmare one month later) will keep this system from seeing BSOD's.

Finally, I get the WD Raptor in and all looks well. The eVGA 7900 GT's are in and look good. The system has a solid O/S and has been overclocked to 3.6GHz without additional voltage or cooling. It's even running the DDR2 at 800MHz without a problem. Then, without any warning, during an hour of FEAR demo testing the 600w power supply goes up in smoke.

I swear, getting a deposit on this system was the only thing that went right. Thankfully the client was understanding (but only believed me after I showed him all of the RMA forms and smoked PSU).

Share your horror stories.

knight0334 · Posted: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 12:16:21 Post Subject:

I've only had a few issues with client machines over the years.. a couple HDDs, a PSU here 'n there..

Most of the problems I've had were the clients themselves. ...just certain people should NOT be allowed to have computers.

DeathTears · Rated PG Joined: 08 Jul 2006 Posts: 4 Location: Portugal

The case that comes to my memory often is one where 3 full systems had to be assembled in order to find out why the problems were happening at the customer's residence.

We started with a system based on PENTIUM 4 LGA 650 (3.4GHz) that started showing BSODs, random lockups and shutdowns. Bring back the system to assembly and no problems whatsoever. Back to the customer's and back were the problems. What to do?

A second system was assembled based on the same CPU model, different MB, different MB, different PSU. All OK at the customer's through the first day but then the story repeats itself. And again no problems with the system when it came back to the test lab. I went on-site at the customer's residence to try to detect if anything could be causing the mayhem but nothing wrong was going on apparently. That second system was even set-up on a different room of the house and the problems continued. Back to assembly.

A third system and now with a Athlon 64 3500+. Maybe... we never know... Customer picked it up on the morning and returned on the afternoon. The results were the same. Until someone remembers to suggest to try a different surge protector. A power surge protector with 5 outlets was supplied with the first system and used every time from then on. After replacing the surge protector everything worked perfectly.

Kilamon · Rated XXX Joined: 22 Mar 2005 Posts: 811

Ahhh... Dirty power. This is why UPS units are not only a good idea, but required, especially for anyone living where power is supplied from a large power company (people in the boonies with wind and solar facilities who're off-grid usually have UPS units for the whole house).

The worst system build I've ever had was my own computer. After taking a month to get all he parts gathered, I spent 2 months on getting XP to install -just- right. It kept blue screening, locking up, files not copied over and other issues. Finally, after installing the "experimental third party" bios, the system stabilised but installing the bios ruined the date configuration and I had to reinstall windows again (damned Windows Activation). I think I went through 3 or 4 activation keys and using the WAP file(s) never seems to work. Oh well...

werty316 · Rated NC-17 Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 187

Uh lets see,... three blown PSU, two dead HDs in a 4 month period, keyboardkeys wore out;I think thats about it.

CraigEG · Rated PG Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 3

Ordered a new case, mobo, video card, PSU. Video card had to be RMA'd, case had to be returned for another. After about a year I ordered some water cooling stuff for it. They day all my stuff came in, my mobo's bios flopped. I tried to reflash it, no luck. Had to RMA. I have had my WC stuff leak testing for about a month now, and my mobo is FINALLY coming in sometime this week. I have a 74gb raptor for my new build and hopefully I dont have the same horror stories and a TON of people I have read about.

LaTech · Posted: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 13:16:34 Post Subject:

Worst I've ever experienced: 120 GB HDD. I was going to order a spare to clone to. Almost ordered one on one day, and decided to wait until the next paycheck. That night, it died.

Worst I've seen: Built a computer for a customer. He walked out the door and dropped it on the concrete. That was bad.

DragonMaster · Rated NC-17 Joined: 31 May 2006 Posts: 134

edvallie · Posted: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 03:06:33 Post Subject:

I just experienced the worst thing ever when building a computer.

I went to go build my new Intel Core Duo Desktop with all the top of the line pieces that technology could offer me today, then I realized I was broke. Laughing

LaTech · Posted: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 09:41:01 Post Subject:

Well, we didn't cover Error Code ID - 10 T errors...so no, it wasn't covered under warranty. As far as what broke, I don't recall. It was several years ago. I do remember that several things had to be replaced.