Holy Smoking RAM!

[Sol]

A friend recently installed 512MB of RAM into a computer backwards. The result was some RAm with one of its gold tracks burnt off and a terible smell.
I intend to atempt to replace the track with some silver paint and with a ridiculous amount of luck might get it working again. If anyone has ever done this sort of thing I'd love some input.

Also does anyone have any ideas on how to best combat the horrible smell in the computer?

 

[Prof.Wizard]

I thought that was impossible due to the asymmetric pins... how did he manage it? :-?

Post photos and smell (.sml) :wink: files if possible...

 

[Sol]

I really can't be ure since I wasn't there but I would have to guess brute force would fit in to the picture.

 

[Cliptin]

If anyone has ever done this sort of thing I'd love some input.

Also does anyone have any ideas on how to best combat the horrible smell in the computer?

Nope. I've never brute forced my finger into a wall outlet either though. I did have this altercation involving ether, PVC pipe and a match once, would that help.

Fight fire with fire. The only thing more powerful than burning electronics smell is burning electronics smell from a larger fire. Combat or flee. :lol:

 

[CougTek]

Also does anyone have any ideas on how to best combat the horrible smell in the computer?

Use baby powder inside the enclosure on the motherboard.

 

[CougTek]

It's a joke BTW, don't do it for real.

 

[Tannin]

Your primary decision, o expert toothbrush user, is - Freshmint? Or Mildmint?

 

[Mercutio]

A long time ago I had a customer buy a video card from me. I sold him an ISA card. At the time PCI was not something that anyone had and it wasn't safe to assume VLB, either.

A few hours later I got a message from my parents (see? This WAS a long time ago) that the guy's computer was on fire and he sounded upset.

Turned out he had a first-generation Pentium 60, only a few days old. He had taken out his PCI video card, figured out that the card I sold him didn't go in the same spot, and cut off all the parts of the card that looked like they didn't fit (e.g. ground the edge connector, cut through at least one chip... The guy had worked in a metal shop his whole life.

Anyway, he put his ISA video card in a PCI slot, since that's what he had pulled his old one out of, and his PC of course didn't like that idea.

Amazingly, the PC *did* boot afterwards, but his computer was replaced under warranty anyway.

I never got a good explanation as to why he wanted a new video card. My suspicion at the time was that it was something silly and cosmetic.

I tell this story so you can see that truly misguided can make anything fit someplace it doesn't belong, and just how bad a novice can be.

 

[Tannin]

Great story, Mercutio.

But I thought P-60's caught on fire all by themselves?

 

[P5-133XL]

Sorry Tannin but, as much as you would wish, there is no such thing as spontanous P60 combustion: it needs an accelerant like 120V or even less like 12V. On the sad side, all it takes for combustion is for the accelerant to mix with a newbie and the most unlikely ocurances can become 100% certainties.

The best personal story of 12V and newbie was when I personally arc-welded my watch (I was wearing it at the time) to my car. Afterwards, being in pain, I was not pleased.

Then I had a brother (18 years old) that wanted to find out shat happens to a can of Drano when water is added and then resealed. P.S., it explodes spreading relatively strong hydrochloric acid over a large area. Gary, of course was standing inches away starring at it.

I'm sure that everyone has their share of "stupid" stories that they can share.

 

[Buck]

I'm sure that everyone has their share of "stupid" stories that they can share.

We probably all do Mark, but yours were good.

 

[i]

Thanks for those stories Mark.

Seriously!

For the first time ever, I feel slightly better about the time I ignited 2 liters of a hydrogen-oxygen mixture about 3 feet away from my head. All I really remember about the event was the most god-awful noise, and a 4 foot high, pale whitish-blue fireball / plume. Well ... that and ever since then, I've had the most deep-rooted, indescribable fear of citronella candles. And gas that's compressed in any form. Even balloons make me nervous now. (I'm not kidding!)

It took about half an hour for all the feeling in my hand to come back, and about 4 days for my hearing to (mostly) come back.

It's a wonder I survived my university days.

 

[Cliptin]

Ah, Stories of explosive gases.

In my story above, I was looking down the end of a PVC tennis ball cannon. A classmate (yes, we built it for an engineering class) had taking the cannon home to install the Coleman striker in it. He had tested the striker and cannon to ensure operability and then placed the tennis ball just into the end so he would not lose it. We were using ether as propellant and neither of us realized that not all of the propellant burns off during firing.

I, like the curious student, wanted to see the striker work simply because I had not seen one before. As the striker was mounted I was required to look down the barrel. As I was trying to get a good look

He uncorked the barrel (oh, did I give it away) and spun the striker. The first spin was a dud. As a reslt of the the second spin, I distinctly remember a green flame starting in the base of the cannon and coming quickly toward my face. Acording to him, the flame inveloped my head.

The next thing I know, I feel like I have a very light sunburn and my eyes feel very dry. They also won't close properly because my eyelashes have been singed just enough that they are entangled like velcro. While I generally did keep my hair short, my hair is too thick to have a proper flattop. That is except for the two week period following the incident where my bangs were singed p and back.

I eventually had to cut off my eyelashes with my swiss army knife so I sould see;and I suppose my contacts shielded my eyes from major damage. But I had to walk around Uni for two weeks with red eyes, no eyebrows or eyelashes and a blown back flattop that would only smell like burned hair.

 

[Sol]

Well your stories of self injury sure beat mine.
The worst I've managed was to drop a small ball of liquid bronze into my shoe (The joys of tech(shop) class). Not much to tell really except that oddly enough the most painful part was the small bits of my sock which got melted into my fingers when I took it off. That and the fact that I worked at McDonalds at the time and they nearly wouldn't let me take the night off work without a doctors certificate.

Your primary decision, o expert toothbrush user, is - Freshmint? Or Mildmint?

To be honest I tend to go with the baking powder and peroxide breed of toothpaste. They are more abrasive and seem to get stuff off better.
Acetone works nicely too although I wouldn't brush my teeth with it.

I think for the smell the plan is to use a whole lot of those little trees you have in cars.

 

[Tea]

Dat man Sol is a damn miracle with a toothbrush.

And it works!

 

[Sol]

The final test results are in, tyhe RAM in question has been running in a machine for a couple of hours now with no sign of an error.

Verdict, RAM can be repaired with silver paint and a toothbrush. :lol:

 

[James]

Nice job Sol!

I bet your dentist has nothing to complain about when you go and see him/her either. :wink:

 

[James]

I tell this story so you can see that truly misguided can make anything fit someplace it doesn't belong, and just how bad a novice can be.

Yup. I may have told this one before, apologies if so :

Way back in my university days, I was a TA in the computer labs. A thesis student came to me and said the computer "wouldn't read the disk." I went round and had a look, and sure enough he'd sat down at a computer with only a 3.5" floppy, whereas his thesis was on a 5.25" floppy. What was his solution? Oh yes, fold up the 5.25" disk and stuff it into the 3.5" drive.

To the amazement of all and sundry, the computer couldn't read the disk. I said as much. He asked what he should do. I said nothing, the disk was dead. Problem - that was his only copy of his thesis. The way he carried on about it you'd think it was me that destroyed his disk, not him.

 

[James]

Tea, is the RAM you photographed resting on the back of a Gigabyte Athlon board of some variety?

 

[Tea]

Well spotted, James. A GA-7VTXE+

 

[Mercutio]

I had almost the exact same thing happen to me when I was in school too, James. And also had people stick CDRoms in 5.25" disk slots, which was not usually good for the CD.

You'd think people would learn that stuff somehow.

 

[Splash]

Back when I was attending college, the 5-1/4" floppy disc was still several years off in the future.

 

[Splash]

...well, the first time around.

 

[Sol]

I had a slightly similar disk story. A neighbour who I had done a bit of computer work for (Installed a bigger HD) called up and said she couldn't get disks into her floppy drive. The problem, she said, was just like when you try to put the disk in backwards, if I knew what she meant. After saying that I didn't quite, having never to my memory tried that, I suggested that maybe I should come over and have a look to see if their was something stuck in the drive.
If only I had paid a bit more attention I could have saved myself the walk, as she was, inevitably, trying to put the disk in the drive the wrong way. The truly ironic thing was that she solved the problem right away where as I just never would have thought of it until I saw it.

 

[CougTek]

One of my relatives once said when observing an old computer listing : "It's writen that there's a DOS (dos means "back" in french), where's the front?"