Ugh. FML.

digitalscream

So, last night after work I thought I'd fire up Elite: Dangerous and have a blast blowing things up for an hour or so. Reboot my machine into Windows (yuck, but needs must), start loading the game and go away for 10 minutes to feed the dogs.

Come back, and...the monitors are blank, and there's a distinct smell of burning silicon.

The closed-loop water cooler had died, thus frying the CPU, motherboard, new graphics card, power supply and probably the RAM as well. The disks seem to be OK (and I have obsessive backups anyway). All in all, about £700 of damage.

The best part? Wifey had removed the accidental damage upgrade from the insurance when she renewed it two months ago.

Currently typing this on my little Lenovo Yoga 2 laptop. It seemed like a bit of an extravagance when I bought it from @Sporky a few months ago...now it's the only way I can get any work done

stickyfiddle

Yish  

Panama_Jack666

Have you tried turning it off and back on again?

Sporky

Oh bugger. Sorry to hear that chief. And I'm out of old PC bits or I'd have sent you something to keep going.

digitalscream

Sporky said:

Oh bugger. Sorry to hear that chief. And I'm out of old PC bits or I'd have sent you something to keep going.

Aye, I figured I'd probably exhausted your stock by now

Yeah, it's a total shit. Especially since I've only just splurged on an upgraded graphics card :P

ennspek

I think your wife should buy you a guitar to demonstrate the perils of false economy.

digitalscream

On the bright side, I've just discovered that DisplayLink have sorted out the Linux drivers for their USB 3.0 video adapters, so I can still run a third screen without too many issues (there are some ghosting issues with the mouse pointer around window borders, but I can live with that).

ToneControl

ugh, commiserations 

Unorthodox

Surely you must have had some high temperature shutdown points set in the bios?

Years ago when I had a water cooled PC I was playing Battlefield 2 when things started to slow down and get unstable. I had a temperature monitor on my desk which was showing 100C which was shortly followed by the smell of burning thermal paste. Turns out the pump had failed to start. Thankfully there was no damage at the time.

digitalscream

Unorthodox said:

Surely you must have had some high temperature shutdown points set in the bios?

Yup. It just didn't work

quarky

My amp is still dead, and I broke a string a couple of days ago. I want to raise my action slightly and don't have time to do that before I go on holiday, so have had to play my Epiphone Les Paul Special II for the past few days with strings that haven't been changed since November.

OK, not as bad as your PC problems, but trying to make you feel better.. 

hobbio

If it makes you feel any better, this wouldn't have been covered under the AD section of your household insurance anyway. It would be classed as mechanical breakdown, rather than accidental damage.

digitalscream

hobbio said:

If it makes you feel any better, this wouldn't have been covered under the AD section of your household insurance anyway. It would be classed as mechanical breakdown, rather than accidental damage.

Hmmm. Maybe if I spill a drink on it?

chrispy108

Does the pump come with any warranty?

digitalscream

chrispy108 said:

Does the pump come with any warranty?

It only covers the cooler itself. Given that I absolutely don't want another piece of shit like this one, I won't be taking advantage of it; I'm going back to air cooling.

DesVegas

Doh!

Panama_Jack666

digitalscream said:

chrispy108 said:

Does the pump come with any warranty?

It only covers the cooler itself. Given that I absolutely don't want another piece of shit like this one, I won't be taking advantage of it; I'm going back to air cooling.

Take advantage of it and move it on straight away towards one that works!

digitalscream

Panama_Jack666 said:

digitalscream said:

chrispy108 said:

Does the pump come with any warranty?

It only covers the cooler itself. Given that I absolutely don't want another piece of shit like this one, I won't be taking advantage of it; I'm going back to air cooling.

Take advantage of it and move it on straight away towards one that works!

Honestly? I wouldn't knowingly inflict such a piece of junk on anyone else.

JezWynd

digitalscream said:

Panama_Jack666 said:

digitalscream said:

chrispy108 said:

Does the pump come with any warranty?

It only covers the cooler itself. Given that I absolutely don't want another piece of shit like this one, I won't be taking advantage of it; I'm going back to air cooling.

Take advantage of it and move it on straight away towards one that works!

Honestly? I wouldn't knowingly inflict such a piece of junk on anyone else.

If only some eBay sellers were as honourable.

Panama_Jack666

digitalscream said:

Panama_Jack666 said:

digitalscream said:

chrispy108 said:

Does the pump come with any warranty?

It only covers the cooler itself. Given that I absolutely don't want another piece of shit like this one, I won't be taking advantage of it; I'm going back to air cooling.

Take advantage of it and move it on straight away towards one that works!

Honestly? I wouldn't knowingly inflict such a piece of junk on anyone else.

I understand that - but if it's a brand new replacement, it would be reasonable to expect someone research what they wanted, form an opinion and decide to buy.

There is no reason why you couldn't advertise by saying it's a warranty replacement as the last one failed and you wouldn't trust putting another in your pc. 

I dunno the going rate on a cooler but your troubles must be worth a bottle of wine or two!

I'm not promoting scamming or anything of thr sorts!

chrispy108

Name and shame then, at least help other people avoid them.