What horror tales have you got about PCs malfunctioning?
Here's a couple to start off with:
P3 Spider System: When I used to fix computers professionally for a while, I was called to a customer. His PC had died. When I took the case back home to work on the problem, I discovered a spider-nest (Complete with about 100 hatchlings) inside the PC. Seems the spider had crept into the PC, and tried to make it its home! Apart from an incredibly huge amount of dust, there was spider-web over everything!
This customer's house was filthy, never vacuumed, which accounted for the contaminents. The PC had gone wrong because it had over-heated, and the processor has burned out it's own board - You could see where the solder had all melted. The cooling fan had stopped previously because of all the dust, and the spider must have used this ac it's access in and out of the PC!
Fortunately, I already had my vacuum cleaner handy (I saw the amount of dust covering everything before I even opened the case), and blitzed the spiders into dust-bag oblivion! Replaced the processor, and everything was hunky-dory!
Vacuum Error! Another time, long long ago (when you had to manually set all the jumper pins for IRQ and memory addressing, because system BIOS was pretty much unable to handle anything like that on it's own), I was installing a netowrk card into a PC. Now these cards were the full-length ones, and this was new 10Mbit technology that was lightening fast!. Of course, I set all the jumper pins, installed the card, and booted up - Only it wouldn't boot up! I spent 2 days trying to figure out why, and traced the problem to the motherboard! When I had opened the PC, I had got the vacuum cleaner out, and sucked up on of the jumper pins! Installed a replacement pin, and Hey Presto, it worked! This computer was so old it had a 20MB full height 5 1/4" winchester disk drive. When you formatted these drives, you would get a list of sector errors as standard!
Come on, you lot must have some terrifying tales!
PC Horror Tales!
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El Brenty
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PC Horror Tales!
Moderating behind the bushes!
Sort of, yeah 
I was gonna print out something on my deskjet, and I suddenly heared a loud grinding sound coming from the printer! I cancelled the print job, and had a look inside the printer. Nothing looked wrong, but two of the lights were flashing. I looked o nthe site for what it meant and it means that the motor in the thingy that goes back and forth had broken!
But alas, it said you could fix it by turning off the printer, turning it back on, and EXACTLY when you hear the grinding sound you yank the power chord out.
So, I turned the printer off and then on, and then pulled the power chord out. I looked at the next step, and that was to drag the thingy that goes back and forth to the right. I tried, but it was stuck! It said if you don't pull the chord out at the right time it will be stuck like that. So, for the next 20 minuites I sat there under my desk by the printer saying to myself:
Off, on, pull! Nope, that didn't work.
Chord back in...
On, off, on, pull! Nope.
Plug back in...
On, off, on, wait, pull! Aha! Wait...Nope...
In, on, off, on, wait-a-bit, pull! Nope...
After a while it was more like...
In, on, off, on, wait...PULL! COME ON YOU FRIGGIN PRINTER WORK! GAHHH!
Well, finally it worked. And they all lived happily ever after. The End.
I was gonna print out something on my deskjet, and I suddenly heared a loud grinding sound coming from the printer! I cancelled the print job, and had a look inside the printer. Nothing looked wrong, but two of the lights were flashing. I looked o nthe site for what it meant and it means that the motor in the thingy that goes back and forth had broken!
But alas, it said you could fix it by turning off the printer, turning it back on, and EXACTLY when you hear the grinding sound you yank the power chord out.
So, I turned the printer off and then on, and then pulled the power chord out. I looked at the next step, and that was to drag the thingy that goes back and forth to the right. I tried, but it was stuck! It said if you don't pull the chord out at the right time it will be stuck like that. So, for the next 20 minuites I sat there under my desk by the printer saying to myself:
Off, on, pull! Nope, that didn't work.
Chord back in...
On, off, on, pull! Nope.
Plug back in...
On, off, on, wait, pull! Aha! Wait...Nope...
In, on, off, on, wait-a-bit, pull! Nope...
After a while it was more like...
In, on, off, on, wait...PULL! COME ON YOU FRIGGIN PRINTER WORK! GAHHH!
Well, finally it worked. And they all lived happily ever after. The End.
[url=http://www.loosestscrew.tk]Loosest Screw Productions[/url]
wel, i once got a 3 years old laptop, but it was the 2nd computer i had ever seen, so I was exited as hell
I was trying everything, including the BIOS.
Played around with some commands ("hey, format, sounds cool :p")
then I installed a BIOS password, something like this: gdnkdsjbs (=> just random keys...)
Next day, I wanted to boot, but, IT ASKED FOR A PASSWORD (now I know why :p)
I tried everything, searching for a jumper, disconnecting the biosbattery, everthing
i even disconnected the screen, and never got it right back in place :p
After 5 long years, i found the solution:
download a prog from internet, enter your service tag, and he gave an unlock password
I use that laptop now for testing case-mods i want to do on my new laptop, such as a paintjob and windows...
I was trying everything, including the BIOS.
Played around with some commands ("hey, format, sounds cool :p")
then I installed a BIOS password, something like this: gdnkdsjbs (=> just random keys...)
Next day, I wanted to boot, but, IT ASKED FOR A PASSWORD (now I know why :p)
I tried everything, searching for a jumper, disconnecting the biosbattery, everthing
i even disconnected the screen, and never got it right back in place :p
After 5 long years, i found the solution:
download a prog from internet, enter your service tag, and he gave an unlock password
I use that laptop now for testing case-mods i want to do on my new laptop, such as a paintjob and windows...
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Jass Films
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Well, once i had an error that popped up on my comp every 2 minutes, it would do it no matter what, it wasn't a virus, it was bloody windows thinking it was doing the right thing by telling me bout some stupid cr** that i didn't need to hear about. So everytime i wanted to play a game it would minimize every 2 minutes to show me this stupid message. Eventually my mum managed to find out the problem, but it was impossible to find it. If you still wonder why I prefer macs to Windows then imagine playing a game that minimises every 2 minutes???
How about an IBM XT with 640K in dip package chips( 128k on MoBo the balance on an ISA expansion card), that one day lost 64k. Was playing with some jumper settings on the mother board for a 30 Meg ST506 ( he he he not a Winnie CC, but a half height 51/4) and the 64 k block just vanished, reset all the jumpers, pulled the new HD and replaced the 20 Meg, still no missing memory... the machine was that way till the day it retired from active service. Every once in a while I would crack the case and fiddle with it a bit... ( can you say DOS 3.1 LOL )
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A good Motherboard story. First I'll mention Gigabyte, and hopefully you'll realise it's a horror story straight away.
Yeah, one time when turning the computer on, it didn't even go through POST, make any beeps or allow BIOS entry. Instead, almost instantly a full screen picture (in 640 x 480) popped up on the screen wih a cat on one side and a dog on the other - face to face at the forehead (like a wrestling matchup) with grins on their faces. At the bottom of the screen it said 'Gigabyte is watching you'. Luckily it was a simple matter of reseting the bios on the motherboard.
After looking it up on the internet, the theory behind it was that some jivers who worked at gigabyte put it in as some sort of practical joke. It was pretty funny. It was hard to believe they managed to do that before any drivers, etc had loaded in.
I don't buy Gigabyte anymore by the way.
Yeah, one time when turning the computer on, it didn't even go through POST, make any beeps or allow BIOS entry. Instead, almost instantly a full screen picture (in 640 x 480) popped up on the screen wih a cat on one side and a dog on the other - face to face at the forehead (like a wrestling matchup) with grins on their faces. At the bottom of the screen it said 'Gigabyte is watching you'. Luckily it was a simple matter of reseting the bios on the motherboard.
After looking it up on the internet, the theory behind it was that some jivers who worked at gigabyte put it in as some sort of practical joke. It was pretty funny. It was hard to believe they managed to do that before any drivers, etc had loaded in.
I don't buy Gigabyte anymore by the way.