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after decades, it finally happened.

dorkbert

dorkbert

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Joined
Dec 17, 2008
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libtard capital, California
... plugged in the XT/AT power connectors backwards (yeah yeah yeah. black wires from both connectors should be in the center.)
I think it took out the motherboard and XT-IDE card (and I just finished building that thing!) grrrrh.
 
You know, I have done that more than a few times on all kinds of machines, XT through the end of the AT era, and I do not think I have ever fried something doing it. The thing that has killed more than a few boards for me is dropping those slot cover screws on the motherboard (yeah I finally learned not to install slot covers while the machine is on).
 
I must have done this too but don't recall° The only motherboard I fried was due to me stupidly inserting an ST506 controller with the power on. I'm guessing that reversing those power connectors shouldn't harm the computer; it should just shut off the power supply. But I haven't exactly reviewed the pinouts lately.

°I vividly recall some clone power supplies with the P8/P9 markings marked incorrectly, and seem to remember at least one motherboard with the connectors reversed.
 
I will proudly accept the designation of village idiot, but I have never plugged those cables in backwards. I am in the habit of leaving cases disassembled, covers off. I once dropped a floppy disk onto an exposed motherboard, and although it wasn't fried, it was wonky and I retired it. Then cried. It was a DEC 486 pizza box that I kind of liked.
 
I have also done this, and I recall that the power supply wouldn't turn on as if there was a short. It may vary between motherboards and power supplies.
 
Don't worry pal, almost all of us have been there somehow or another.

I had a Gateway Solo 3350 that I really liked (Very nice subnotebook with a 750MHz Pentium III and dedicated ATi Rage 3D 8MB Video, even had PCMCIA and a USB 1.1 port, absolute champ of a machine) and one time I dropped a screw into it while adjusting the display hinges to be stiffer. Of course it was plugged in. It took out the video chip and made it into a zombie of a computer. It will still boot and monitors will still sync to it, I can hear the Windows 2000 startup sound. But nothing will ever show on screen. It's terribly sad. I've considered using a heat gun and removing the video chip and vram and replacing it, since the rest of the machine seems unaffected, but that sounds like an awful lot of work for something of that age with no value... Oh well, I suppose.

Don't feel too bad about it, especially since most (if not all) of those components are DIP and (probably) still easy to find replacements for! Some of those might even be socketed!
 
tipc said:
I will proudly accept the designation of village idiot, but I have never plugged those cables in backwards.
Click to expand...
I once connected the power cable to a 3.5" floppy drive offset by one pin. Did not expect the cable's isolation to burn up 50cm in under a second. The drive was fried, the system survived (luckily, since it wasn't mine).
 
I smoked a PET ROM chip by sticking it in backwards. Luckily I already had an EPROM replacement, (I initially thought the ROMs in the system might be bad, but it turned out to be a broken trace) but I still felt pretty bad about nuking the original.
 
I fried an A2000 ROM stupidly plugging it in backwards. I really know better. A2000s notoriously have that chip the opposite direction from what looks normal.
 
I've plugged 65c816 into IIGS backwards before. (On that entire board, it is the only chip with the notch opposite of all other chips.)
Surprisingly, it still works after swapping back to correct orientation.
 
dorkbert said:
I've plugged 65c816 into IIGS backwards before. (On that entire board, it is the only chip with the notch opposite of all other chips.)
Surprisingly, it still works after swapping back to correct orientation.
Click to expand...

Parts in the 6500 family are usually quite OK to stick in backwards. Unlike other parts their power supply is all on one side instead of on diagonal corners.
I put a TI EPROM in backwards once. It started to light up inside its window so I shut the power down quickly. It still worked fine after that. Luckily is was bonded with gold wire instead of aluminum boding. Most Intel chips would be dead in an instance.
Dwight
 
I've put the psu connectors on wrong. Also put a Kingston 5x86 over drive cpu in wrong and powered up the system.. Amazingly it survived but not as fast as it should have been.
 
lutiana said:
You know, I have done that more than a few times on all kinds of machines, XT through the end of the AT era, and I do not think I have ever fried something doing it. The thing that has killed more than a few boards for me is dropping those slot cover screws on the motherboard (yeah I finally learned not to install slot covers while the machine is on).
Click to expand...

I fried the keyboard/mouse circuits on a Vectra that way.
 
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