Weirdest computer problem(s) you've ever had?

[Calum]

Just curious to see what oddball issues other people have run into.

One of my weirdest ones has to be a system that wouldn't shut down.  Well, Windows would shut down, but the system stayed running, and as soon as you connected power to it, the fans would spin, drives would spin up, but the system wouldn't actually start until you hit the power button.  If you shut it down, the screen would go off, the graphics card fan would stop spinning, but the fans stayed on.  Turned out it was a short in the front panel card reader, connected via USB.  Unplugged that after much head scratching and changing of other components and it was fine.  Very odd.

A fairly common issue was the reset switches in a certain case causing problems.  They didn't randomly reset the PC, or make it unable to power on, or anything like that - they caused instability when the system was overclocked, or random graphical corruption.  Very bizarre and I still don't know how the reset switch could affect that, but it most definitely was the switch as unplugging it made the previously unstable system stable at the overclocked speed, and the graphics were now fine.  Happened a few times, only ever on one model of case.

[camerongray]

Probably when I built my current one, you would turn it on and it would sort of get stuck in a loop before posting - The numbers on the 7 segment display would count up, there would be a faint click sound (Internal Speaker?) and they would start counting again.  It would do this several times until it would finally beep and POST.  This was happening both before and after I overclocked it so I knew it wasn't that.  What got more annoying is after overclocking it, if I hit the reset button while it was "looping" (Which sometimes helped) it would reset my overclock which was a real pain.  Updating the BIOS solved this and I've never had a problem since!

[Calum]

Fairly common with Gigabyte boards on some BIOS versions, or with certain settings, or certain hardware combinations, or...in fact, I'll just say that cold boot issues are common on Gigabyte boards.
That's not to say they're bad boards, it just seems to be a relatively common problem/quirk across several product lines - I myself have experienced it on X58, H55, P55, H61, P67, and Z68 boards at various times.
I got very familiar with different BIOS versions and beta versions as some were terrible for it and others reduced the occurrence of the issue significantly.  This thread was invaluable for having the different versions for each board all in one place - http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/28441-gigabyte-latest-beta-bios.html - along with station-drivers.com for updated or sometimes beta chipset drivers, MEI firmware and drivers, USB3 firmware and drivers, etc.

[camerongray]

Ahh, that makes sense, I was wondering how they didn't notice it during testing but that makes sense if it was down to certain hardware combinations.

[Calum]

Sometimes it was down to overclock settings, sometimes down to the RAM or PSU.  If I remember correctly there was one PSU (might have been the VX450 so we're going back a bit now) that was entirely incompatible with one Gigabyte board, it just wouldn't work.

[DaveLembke]

Weirdest would have to be one that happened a long time ago back in the days of dial up. I had a 386DX33Mhz at the time and a 14.4 modem that was internal and required jumpers for setting up the IRQ etc.

I got this computer in a drawing at my employer where they had a small stack of Dell and Gateway 2000 computers ranging from 286, 386, and 486 computers that worked and all were running Windows 3.11. We got to put our name in a coffee can and when your name was picked you got your pick of systems. My name was picked 3rd, and the 486's were the first to go as for others also knew what was faster from the slower systems. So I picked the 386DX33Mhz Gateway 2000 large desktop computer.

Got it home and installed the 14.4 modem out of my 286 into it, as well as added my Serial Mouse to COM1 DB9, COM2 DB9 had connected for a serial link to my older 286 to file transfer over serial port with a null cable which was way better than sneaker network with floppies. The 14.4 modem I set to COM3 IRQ4.

Now a savy computer guru already would see the problem before reading further..hint...hint

I'd connect to the internet AOL 2.5 at the time and everything was great while I was navigating on the web moving my mouse, but as soon as my mouse was not used for about 10 seconds I would get disconnected from the internet. So I reconnected to the internet and heard the modem noise of dialing and resync'ing and would be connected again until my mouse was not moved for longer than 10 seconds or so. So I didnt quite figure out why yet.... but figured ok I will keep wiggling my mouse and see if it stays connected...so I kept the pointer active and sure enough i wouldnt get disconnected, then I intentionally stopped wiggling it and got disconnected.

So I was about 19 years old at the time and didnt yet have the knowledge that I have today and so AOL had chat rooms and so I went into one that was computer or tech related. I then had to make sure I wiggled my mouse frequently to not get disconnected and posted a response for help in the chat room. I said this makes no sense to me, but "WHY DO I NEED TO KEEP MOVING MY MOUSE TO NOT GET DISCONNECTED FROM THE INTERNET?"

A computer savy person in there which was like sinbad0672 replied asking for computer info. I shared that it was a Gateway 2000 with a Intel 386 DX 33 Mhz CPU and 12MB RAM, running Windows 3.11 on a Conner 120MB hard drive, and I have a Mouse on COM1, a null cable on COM2 for a serial file transfer that I use between 2 computers, and 14.4 modem and said its set to Com 3 IRQ4.

While wiggling the mouse in a circular pattern about every 5 seconds pausing to type and wiggle to maintain the connection, the person responded back stating I cant have my Modem on COM3 because COM1 and COM3 share IRQ4!!!!!! 

So the fix was to set the jumpers on modem to COM4 IRQ3, and do away with my serial transfer setup on COM2 since it would conflict with the modem on COM4 since COM2 and COM4 share IRQ3

Whalla system was running healthy and no longer had to wiggle mouse to keep the internet connection!!!   

[BC_Programmer]

System Board failure (presumably) on my ancient Thinkpad 755CDV. It ran PC-DOS 7.0 and Windows 3.1. I hadn't used it in a very long time.
It had a power-on password, which I still remembered, but I couldn't enter it in; when I pressed some keys, two "password characters" would appear; others wouldn't display anything. One in every 10 or so boots I could get it to work properly, seemed to work better if I used an external keyboard.

(First thing I did once I got back in was disable that power-on password. An interesting thing since that is the same password it had since it was purchased in 1994).

Once I booted DOS, however- it hung while loading one of any number of drivers. Now, bear in mind that this had worked admirably for a very long time. My first suspect was simple file corruption, so I booted into DOS using "safe mode" (eg. skip Autoexec.bat and config.sys with F5).

This time, before showing the prompt, it said "Divide Error" and halted.

I had no idea what was going on. So I booted to a clean DOS floppy- maybe command.com on the hard disk got corrupted.

Same Error.

I eventually figured it out, or at least narrowed it down to a System Board failure. Data would be read but get corrupted while travelling over the system bus in unforeseeable ways; the result was that, when it was more or less "working" and responding to commands, I could run an FC on two identical files and get them to claim they were different, copy a file and then compare the copy to the original and have it claim those were different. I figured it could also be memory, but was able to eliminate that when I bought a 20$ for parts model of the same laptop and used it's memory with the same result.

Also, the computer's Easy-Setup said there was a System Board malfunction so I figure that sorted it.

I'm guessing the Battery Leakage I had observed a few months earlier had somehow managed to get to the System Board and caused problems.

What I found most interesting is that it was simply indeterminate; one boot will cause my to be unable to type anything at all, another will double letters, another will have no foreseeable pattern; etc.

Eventually it started hanging right at the Memory count display and screaming a constant beep, which no surprise according to the manual was indicative of a System Board Failure too.

[DaveLembke]

This time, before showing the prompt, it said "Divide Error" and halted.

My first 486 SX (SX=SUCKS CPU) 25Mhz gave me this same "Divide Error". I bought this system in 1995 for too much money thinking I was going to be able to fix it. Basically I agreed to $100 for it with monitor, printer, software, etc. And I ended up buying a 1985 Honda Accord for $50 and giving my friend who i owed $100 for this computer the Honda Accord as payment vs cash. He needed wheels and it worked out perfect. I bought the Honda blindly from another friends neighbors son as a running vehicle and figured if it runs and drives doesnt leak fluids or burn oil for $50, sure I'll buy it. But I didnt know that the old lady who owned it and went into a elderly home chain smoked in it and so it was an ash tray on wheels with grey interior stained with nicotine and tar etc and many many cigarette burns to the seats and carpet etc with an ash tray that was still heaped over with butts and ash was everywhere coated on the dash, carpet, etc, and it had 219,000 miles and needed lots of TLC to make it to 220,000. My friend saw this car and was bragging about how he wished that he could afford a vehicle, but he was grunge and had dread locks with drug rug clothing and sandles etc and unshaved etc, and various facial piercings in ears, eyebrow, nose, botton lip etc, plus there was no way he would be able to pass drug testing with all the grass and occasional other explorative substances like acid etc, so he had a hard time getting jobs. He also smoked and also smoked other stuff and so this ash tray on wheels was an ok vehicle for him. At the time I owned 3 other vehicles ( 1977 Volare, 1983 Ford Ranger, and 1985 Mercury Capri 5.0 ) and this was my 4th which I didnt need and was going to sell to try to make some money, but quickly realized it was worth about $50 to a junk yard and I'd break even. So I said I tell you what... what if I gave you this car with a bill of sale for $100 and we are even on the computer deal. His eyes lit up and he was like SWEET!!!! I warned him that it likely needed some work to pass inspection as it was a worn vehicle that needed a mechanics touch. Surprisingly he found a garage to lick-n-stick an inspection sticker on it and he packed some friends into it and they drove it out to a Phish concert in upstate NY about 400 miles round trip and both the CAR and THEM survived the trip. He got back from the trip and thanked me for the wheels as for without the car attending that event would never have happened and whatever trip he went on at the concert in addition to the driving trip to the concert wouldnt have happened as well. So I guess to him it was sort of like a woodstock type of once in a lifetime event to him, that thanks to me giving him that car he was able to attend.

Getting back to the computer that I got off him that his parents bought new a few years prior...

 I had plenty of extra parts to troubleshoot with and also determined it to be main board issue. Fortunately a friend at work at Allen-Bradley just upgraded to a Pentium 75Mhz and was looking for a home for his 486DX33Mhz motherboard with 8MB RAM for just $40, and so I bought that up, and was able to yank the 8MB of good RAM out of this 486SX25 and pair that up with the other 8MB with 4MB 72-pin DIMM sticks in the 4 slots to get 16MB RAM, yanked the 486SUCKS board out of the desktop case and installed the motherboard with the DX that was way better than the SX would have ever been!!!   Then I upgraded to Windows 95 and surprisingly had very few BSOD with Win 95 on that 486DX33Mhz with 16MB RAM and 2x SONY CD-ROM which had the special ATAPI CD-ROM Controller/Audio Sound Card board that plugged into the 16-bit ISA slot. And was able to game on it with the 4MB of video RAM on the Trident 16-bit ISA video card that came with the 486SX as well as I now had a SuperVGA 15" monitor with 800x600 resolution vs my prior 1989 date code Dell Monitor that was regular VGA 640x480 and was starting to blur from age with heavy use in which i got it for free at company old computer hardware giveaway when i got my 386DX33 Gateway 2000.

At the time it bothered me that I was an ET and unable to diagnose the exact cause of the Divide Error on this board.  But without schematics and the right equipment it wasnt going to happen. My oscilloscope at the time was way too old and no features to chase signals with the old Tube Heathkit Oscilloscope that I got for $5 at a yard sale. But I saved the jumpers off this motherboard as the final parts that could be used on other systems worked on etc, and tossed the motherboard into the PCB recycle at work after getting the ok to throw this motherboard in with the normal company electronic waste for proper disposal.

So my first 486 computer ended up costing me $90 in 1995 ( $50 Car deal to offset a $100 complete but malfunctioning computer system debt + $40 for motherboard from my other friend back when I was only making $8.75 an hour and living on my own)     And I was able to buy the Windows 95 Upgrade edition for $80 to have Win 95 vs Win 3.11 and this was back when computers were like $1000+ new and I had a Windows 95 system that ran well on Windows 95 for just $170