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Story of your first exposure to computers?
Week 89 Group Rant
norom
6y

tl;dr don't, just don't.

A curious little me (12-14 years) just stated using the family shared computer.
And he thought: It's so slow! Maybe I can make it faster, my parents would be happy!

So he looked at this little switch on the back and he switched it from 230 to 115.

Not knowing what he did, he turned the PC on... for the last time.

Smoke, a nasty smell and a loud bang were the last memories left behind.

The parents were not happy.

rant

wk89

230v > 115v
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Comments
  • 22
    6y
    good old memory, those things make you laugh today (i hope :p)
    As for me due to lots of formatting I killed the HDD and my parents were not happy seeing windows removed on each reboot XD
  • 14
    6y
    I'm not an expert if it comes to electronics but... how lowering voltage can cause "smoke, nasty smell and loud bang"? I would expect it to just not have enough V to work at all.
  • 29
    6y
    @blem14 their electricity gives 230 and he configured that power supply to handle only 115v
  • 13
    6y
    I did the same and I was extremely shocked when it sparked and began to smoke
  • 6
    6y
    @gitpush ow, that makes sense now... Why I even thought about 230/115V getting pumped into PC 😓 it has to be lowered, right?
  • 3
    6y
    @blem14 XD well according to his experiment it doesn't seem so :P
  • 17
    6y
    That was always a rather stupid feature..
  • 9
    6y
    I have blown up my pc like that once. Well not exactly like that... not really a stupid mistake. During a move the switch got flipped. My uncle and me connected it and turned it on with a rather spectacular and disappointing result.
  • 8
    6y
    I did the same in my school last year. I thought it was the on/off switch. Two seconds later I found out it wasn't the case.
  • 3
    6y
    Just put a 2 ohm resistor in
  • 8
    6y
    Let's just say I'm happy I've never seen such a switch.
  • 6
    6y
    @Rxcki "extrememly shocked"
  • 6
    6y
    I did the exact same thing, except that I was like 10, and (I don't really know how) I switched it off as soon as the smoke came out, AND IT STILL WORKED!
  • 1
    6y
    Ha that's what happened to me but I did this on my friend' computer!
  • 1
    6y
    I did the same thing one day at school when the teacher was explains the days class. I played dumb, wasn't much of a stretch for me :D
  • 2
    6y
    I am glad I am not the only one who failed at this switch :'D
  • 10
    6y
    This is exactly what I did to my Nintendo back in the day: "Hmmm, maybe by increasing the voltage graphics will look better"

    That was the shortest game of Mario 3 I've ever played
  • 4
    6y
    @blem14 believe it or not that switch does not control the amount of power coming out of the socket.
  • 1
    6y
    @SSDD yeah, I realized how dumb was the question. I blame it on lack of coffe that morning.
  • 2
    6y
    I'm kinda glad that my dad caught me before I flipped the switch (I was like 10). He told me that it would blow the computer up and I guess he was right 😂
  • 3
    6y
    I accidentally switched the button off on my first PC. and then got a good scolding from my parents who thought I installed a virus.
  • 3
    6y
    @wlan404 The day when software viruses affect hardware.
  • 3
    6y
    #meToo
    It was my first own PC.
    It is still laying around somewhere.
  • 1
    6y
    #meToo
    it was company computer, and i didn't check the voltage before turn it on
  • 0
    6y
    In the USA nothing happens. Worked an internship at a school district when I was like 16. Somehow that got switched. Took the computer apart and everything before getting there. Looked at it... Yup.... Felt stupid.
  • 2
    6y
    I actually did the same thing when I was a child 😂
  • 0
    6y
    Where did you find a PSU like this? Is it suppose to be 110v-240v full range?
  • 1
    6y
    @sunfishcc Sadly I cannot answer that question. It's probably like 10 years ago when that happened.
  • 0
    6y
    Been there done that, blamed psu for being faulty, got away
  • 1
    6y
    I did the exact same damn thing -.- *hugs*
  • 1
    6y
    Same here lmao. Only I was a little liar and scared because we could never afford another one so... the "truth" is... Nope no idea how or why it happened, solitaire must've overloaded it. 😂
  • 1
    6y
    @mijit fuck, that's a genius answer
    fucking solitaire. love it :D
  • 1
    6y
    @norom I guess minesweeper would've been better 😂 One of them was a live one.
  • 2
    6y
    I was a similar age when I had the genius idea of recording the sound output from the family PC in real time by connecting the output jack directly to the input. Bye bye, sound card, or in fact the onboard audio on the motherboard. A muted bang was the last sound ever produced by that machine.

    Aside from no sound everything still worked fine though, and it went on to serve us well for several years afterwards.
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