OK what is the dumbest thing you done with your computer?

[Oldman]

OK what is the dumbest thing you done with your computer?

I will start it off and I hope you all will join in, and be honest about it. A couple of years back I turned on my computer and there was no sound. After uninstalling drivers and reinstalling them still no sound. I then uninstalled them again and moved my sound card to a new slot and reinstalled the drivers.

Nope...nada...nothing. So I ran down to the local store and purchased a new sound card. Did the install thing and guess what? Nope...nada..nothing! For the next couple of hours I'm chasing my own tail.

Then all of a sudden a big DUH comes across my face. It hits me...I had turned off the speakers the night before!

I still laugh at myself over this one.

Olds

[manxman]

Couple of years ago one of our monitors was'nt working in the lab at work, after having a look at it I duly diagnosing it as broken and called out the IT guys.

They came along and, trusting my judgement, replaced the old traditional monitor with a nice new LCD version without checking the old one. They took the asset number and told me to bin it.

Then one of the youngsters in the department asked why the brighntess button was turned all the way off on the old monitor, hence the blank screen together with a green "on" button....... smart alec, fortunately the IT guys had gone by this stage! :-[

At least we gained a nice new LCD monitor, I never had the guts to own up to IT and the old one acted as a spare and was called into service a few weeks later. Gave another 18 months of good service until such time all our monitors were replaced with LCD versions.

As news of my stupidity spread the worst bit was phone calls from other areas of work asking if would come and check their PC's as they wanted nice new shiny LCD monitors too!

Perhaps not the dumbest PC thing ever but it sure felt like it at the time.

[boxertrio]

The boy decided to surf the net while floating in the pool  ::).............hp's don't float, its been "drying out for 1 1/2 years and still don't work ;D

[Habanero Smoker]

I have several, but will only confess to one :-[

I was having trouble connecting to the internet through my DSL, but my dial up still worked. After several hours on the phone talking with a tech, software problems and improper settings were ruled out. So they turned it over to the phone company (same company provides my phone service provide my DSL service), and I was told someone will be out within 7 working days. Five days later the repairman arrives, checks the lines inside, lines coming to the house, drove down the road twice to check the central control box; everything was working. Conclusion, my modem was defective. They would send one out and I should receive it in 5 working days, and to return the other one which would be post paid.

During this time I'm connecting through dial up, which is driving me crazy because it is slow, and I am still paying for DSL service this whole time. I finally receive my new modem, unpacked it and hooked it up. That is when I discovered the actual problem. I have two lines coming into the house, and bought a splitter so that I could plug the DSL modem into line #1, the line that has the DSL service. Well when I unhooked the old modem, I learned that it was plugged into line #2. This incident happened over a year ago, and I'm too embarrassed to send the other modem back, because nothing was wrong with it. I will only claim partial culpability. If the repairman did not catch it, it's not fully my fault. ::)

[manxman]

it's not fully my fault.

Now that's a phrase I have used before now on a few occasions, and now it is one my two boys aged 5 and 8 have started to use!! ;D

[iceman]

In retrospec leaving the laptop in the back of the work truck at 50 below is not a good thing. That coupled with dropping it on the ground from the door of the jet on the way home is a REAL BAD THING!!! I lost count of pieces at about 800.  :o >:( ::)

[MallardWacker]

Our present secretary hands me a floppy and says my sister can't open the zip file, so being the nice guy that I am I try and open it and yeee-hooo...my system shuts down and it can't reboot.  A day and half later after a complete hard drive format and reloading of the OS it was working.  This doesn't go under the DUMB section but the under being a complete STUPID BUTT.