*WINNER* Win Cooler Master Silent Pro Platinum 550W PSU with Sonic Informed

[James]

Courtesy of Sonic Informed, we have one Cooler Master Silent Pro Platinum 550W Power Supply unit to give away to a lucky MyGaming community member.

The most impressive feature sported by the PSU is in its name - 80 plus platinum rated certifications. 80 plus certifications show how efficient a power supply is, and the cooler master PSU has achieved the highest rating possible, guaranteeing at least 90 percent, 92 percent and 89 percent efficiency at 20 percent, 50 percent and 100 percent load. This means a lower overall power draw (good for the electricity bill), less wasted energy and less heat generated by the PSU components.

Other noteworthy features include a 135mm fan with hydraulic bearings for silent operation, a single 45A 12v rail capable of 540w, integrated 7v fan ports for 3 or 4 pin case fans, and a modular cable design.

To learn more about the PSU, read MyGaming's review: Cooler Master Silent Pro Platinum 550W review

The prize is the the same unit as used in the review.

How to enter

Share one of your hardware horror stories - it could have been an exploding PSU during a hot LAN, or hamster caught in your CPU fan.

This post is your entry into the competition.

Rules

- Post once in this thread. This is your entry into the competition. Kindly refrain from conversing in the thread as it makes it difficult to administrate the competition.

- Make sure you are up to speed with the MyGaming Forum rules.

- Minimum of 20 lifetime posts required to qualify by time of the draw.

- Entrants must be a resident of and residing in South Africa.

- Entry into the competition closes at 11AM, Monday, 17 September 2012.

Winner announce

- On Monday, 17 September 2012, the winner will be chosen.

- The winner will be announced in this thread, as well as in a new thread in the MyGaming competition forum.

- Reminders will be sent out via the MyGaming twitter stream and MyGaming Facebook page.

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The competition starts now. Good luck and have fun!

 

[iNNOS4iNT]

Going on holiday last year December... And my computer is working just fine. No problems at all.

Have had a great holiday and looking forward to getting my G.E.E.K. on ...

Turn on PC... Shot! Everything's still in perfect working order

THEN...

Turn my monitor slightly... Moved my PC a little closer...

"WTF?!!" "Why's the display not working?"
"Meh... Probably just a loose connection..."
"Wait... Everything's properly seated..." "Oh no!"
"Nononononononononononono!..."

"SONOFAB*TCH!"

GPU in its GLORY!!

 

[Ichigo]

I once was helping my friend upgrade their computer to better specs and couldn't beleive what the PC looked like inside, tons of dust and cobwebs everywhere and had to use my vacuum cleaner to clean the case before putting new stuff in it.

The other funny stories of being called out cause something is not working and when I try it always works 100%

 

[Keepa34]

sadly i have no yet had a hardware disaster in my life because i have never had a nice PC i've only ever had laptops.. the only problem i've had is with my hard drive.. was in the car playing some game, doing my thing and all of a sudden i got the black screen.. i was devastated.. turns out my hard drive broke and i lost all the stuff on it.. had to download and reinstall everything.. was such a pain.. :/

 

[Kuga]

Well, working in the industry I have seen some crazy shit.

I'll just leave this photo here :

 

[Lyt]

I was still a IT noob when I did this, but here goes : I plugged 2 cables from the PSU into each other, and when I put the pc on it caused a short circuit and the psu fried haha.

 

[weakest_link]

well my story goes like this ... around 6-8 buddies decide we doing rage one year, decided screw the train go with the plane ... everything is fine and dandy evens tho zev01f dropped his casing through the box running to the plane because he didnt seal it properly the naab, pc was still working though ... arrive in jhb and set up pc to see if everything is working, checked ... get to rage early the next morning to stand in the line ride and meet the igame head admins, checked ... finally get in the dome set up and pc and WTF lcd screen has a crack at the top the it and it look like it was spreading like virus ... surprisingly it survive rage and couple of months after that before kicked the bucket.

 

[sandmanza]

Switching the computer on while under a desk peering inside of it to see what was wrong and the power supply decided to explode, nothing like smelling of burnt silicone and a fright to boot.

 

[Fenix_ZA]

Back to the topic:

Earlier this year, I rebuilt my PC into a new case; pretty straight forward as I've built a lot of PC's over the years, right? Wrong... So, after the build, I got this humming low pitch audio feedback from my headset which for some reason got worse when I moved my mouse or when I'm in a browser (with any speakers connected to my PC for that matter), and couldn't for the life of me figure out what is causing this interference. So, I took everything apart again and put it back together, ensuring everything is grounded properly, my cable management is neat (it always is ), and nothing is touching what it shouldn't. Re-installed drivers and trouble shoot every possible software scenario; nothing, the issue prevailed...

Anyways, I tried everything, googled for weeks, cut the plug of my power cord to disconnect the earth (extreme measures, I know), man, I did everything - cutting a long story short, I gave up. So I figured by installing a sound card instead of using the on-board audio should solve the problem as a last resort. I then ordered the Asus Xonar DG (after taking 2 weeks to find one in South Africa) and when it arrived, I anxiously reached into my case to plug it into the PCI slot just to find that my second GPU is overlapping the only PCI slot on my mobo. Just when I thought things can't get any worse...

So now I have 2 problems. OK, I can either buy another motherboard with a better layout of PCI-E and PCI slots to fit both GPU's and the sound card (have a MSI 890FXA), or I can take back the Asus Xonar DG and get a PCI-E sound card, or I can sell both GPU's and get a single GPU with the same or better performance. I love the headphone amp on the DG, don't have bucks for a new mobo, so I opted in selling my two 6850's and managed to get a GTX580 which worked out great, and the sound card fixed the audio problem. (Still don't know why my on board audio messed around)

This was a 2 month process and was the most frustrating ordeal I ever experienced with PC's!! Oh wait, there was that time in my life where I couldn't afford a decent PC for years and it was really really frustrating not to be able to play the games you want to or do anything for that matter, and I also fried two sticks of RAM once when I was still a noob at overclocking.

I also believe in the ghost in the machine that sabotages a PC in some way every time a day or two before you plan on going to a LAN!!! There's always something that happens, and for some or other reason my PC always acts weird for a few days after a LAN. Just bizarre...

 

[muj33b]

Sitting by my desk a few years ago doing some late night campus work. I had the pc tower on top of the desk with the side panel open as it always over heated. I remember it being particularly hot that evening... out of nowhere a massive blue spark/flame and a mini explosion right next to my face! The PSU blew and took out the entire houses power.

Luckily I had a spare iSonic power supply from Sonic Informed stashed away in one of my cupboards and within a few minutes my pc was sorted and so was the electricity in the house.

 

[Alien]

I bought a second had CPU(same one im still using) and paid for it with the understanding i was paying for a cooler as well.
So once it arrives i eagerly open the package to find the cpu by its self, but no cooler...So after a few days more wait, it arrives.

After opening a suspicious envelope from the post office,i look inside to see that the cooler had broken through the original packaging..which was simply a bubble wrapped coated envelope.and the Coolermaster Sphere that was supposed to be inside...well it was no longer a sphere.without and protective card board or anything, the cooler had more than likely been used like a football by the bored delivery people..to this day i'm still borrowing a cooler

 

[PsyWulf]

Few years ago,first job as a techie,client brings in a machine during lightning season so probably blown right? Client confirms it isn't turning on and the mysterious blue smoke seems to have escaped - commonly seen to occur when an electronic component dies.

I take the rig to the back to give it a test and confirm the damage for insurance purposes. I plug in the psu and flick the power switch

Bzzzzzzzzzzzt......*bang*.....from the machine being tested next to mine,and next to that,and next to that...5 machines in a row blow,seems the client's psu caused a surge and killed every machine :-(

Boss was not particularly overjoyed...

 

[Mephisto_Helix]

Was hosting my first ever lan with some noobs I found on Mygaming and RIG and about 30mins in, playing CoD4, my PC conked. Gradius and Caboose, being the pc fiddlers they are, decide to open it up and have a squizz. Turns out it was my gorgeous XFX 8800 on it's way to never never land. Anyway, long story short, they took it apart completely and cleaned and spruced it up and managed to get it working for the rest of the lan. It gave up completely 2 days later, lol.

Could have been the biggest bummer ever


Evidence!!! Lol

 

[The-1]

Well, my horror is rather recent(within the last two months). I had a Huntkey 700W power supply, with was just over 1 years old and... just out of warranty. My power supply would randomly start buzzing like a I had a bee stuck inside my PSU; if I was in a game or attempted to play a game (i.e. draw lots of power) my computer would turn off and then then turn on up again. It would be extremly annoying as I never knew when my PC might go in to Buzz Lightyear mode.

 

[Edelweiss]

1st pc ever and I decide to clean the dust on the inside of the case with Mr.Min furniture polish. Most of the wiring was shot to hell and my hard drive blew lol. Nooob of me.

 

[aminfri]

upgraded to a 1100T and was trying to install it, but for whatever reason i couldn't get it to fit into my motherboard slot. so i applied some pressure and then it clicked. all happy chappy, but then i thought i take it out and see why i couldn't fit it in and guess what?! what i saw was few really badly bent pins!!! and the horror i went through to make them straight again. but it all worked out well in the end. i am using the same machine while typing this.

 

[Macabre25]

The only hardware nightmare I have come home to was coming home to find my house flooded and my room being 1.5m deep in water with my pc being completely destroyed. This was in the PE floods about 4 or so years ago. Thank goodness for insurance although loss of data is a terrible thing :<

 

[Hraffnir]

A few years ago I was playing something and got rather hungry. Went to the kitchen to get 2 packs of 2 minute noodles going. Once I had my delicious meal (with extra cheese) good to go, as I was walking back to my room, I saw smoke coming from it. I thought something had caught fire. Quickly ran in (while taking extreme care not to drop my meal because... well.... it was delicious) and saw it was coming from my computer.

Turns out, a ninja slug had managed to make it's way into my computer and walk all over my Nvidia 7950GT graphics card and it freakin' exploded. Well not exploded, but burned out.

I loved that graphics card...

Edit: And that is now why I have an extreme hatred for slugs.

 

[Ryusuki]

Properly the most horrible story that happened to me, it was few years back when i sit by desk and built a PC and it took me few hours because i was doing cable, case, connection custom. It wasn't hard just take time, when i finally done building the PC and everything in place.... nightmare start for me, as soon i plug cable into PSU my motherboard and rest of the PC got burnt because PSU got crit problem.....like it give high volt which burn my whole motherboard and start as soon it connected to power cable.

End of the day i end up using my old pc and the PC i built when to rubbish bin, ever since i only use big brand for PSU . i would die if this ever happened again because R12000 just change to nothing in a second

 

[TBlaar]

I have accidentally screw-drivered a capacitor off a motherboard, which did not belong to me but a "client"(read: someone I know's family who gave me R50 to say thanks). Needless to say, the board did not work, but fortunately it was so old, I had a spare lying around that I was able to give them.

A case of a good deed costing me more in time and effort than the reward...