Hardware Failure Stories

Users share personal anecdotes about computer and laptop hardware failures, including causes like static electricity, bad capacitors, dust buildup, and fixes such as replacing fuses, cleaning, or percussive maintenance.

📉 Falling 0.4x Hardware
3,314
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#5038
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Keywords

RAM LAN IT CPU NOPE USB OK DC HDD youtu.be motherboard mouse computers pc computer card board nope arduino laptop

Sample Comments

I killed a hard drive when I swapped motherboards about 15 years ago. I suspect static electricity.

newjersey • Aug 16, 2016 • View on HN

Hi, can you please give more details? What computer was this? What broke? And if you fixed it, how did you fix it? Thank you.

Dylan16807 • Jan 24, 2025 • View on HN

I file that under hardware failure, not mundane power loss.

Aeolun • Nov 12, 2022 • View on HN

Author mentions they replaced the laptop, so I guess at that point it was well and truly cooked by all the issues before.

Luc • Jul 15, 2009 • View on HN

In the eighties I bought a C64 for the price of a beer from a guy who said it was a total loss - there had been smoke coming out of it! Turned out it was just a blown fuse. The same thing happened again a few years back with a pinball machine, which also worked fine once I replaced the fuse. So check for fuses :)

cooljacob204 • Aug 22, 2024 • View on HN

Last time I saw a computer do that it was due to bad memory sticks.

krembo • Jul 19, 2024 • View on HN

With my experience dating back to 286 machines, sometimes even kicking the box (literally) solves the problem

Trung0246 • Feb 21, 2023 • View on HN

Just for fun I've bet on hardware failure.

markdog12 • Dec 20, 2016 • View on HN

In my experience, I had an issue and they showed up at my door next day and replaced the motherboard. This was about 7 years ago though.

cglace • Nov 16, 2023 • View on HN

What were the hardware failures on your machine?