Do you WANT to completely ruin your computer? Well of course not, which is why I’m going
to tell you the best ways to do just that, so you can avoid it. So in this video I’ve got 7 dumb mistakes
that could potentially destroy your computer hardware-wise permanently, or at the very
least your current OS installation. Of course we get started don’t forget to
check out my amazing Instagram account where I post world class tech memes from the highest
quality sources. I mean you’ll probably die of laughter if
you go on there. So follow over there just @ThioJoe on Instagram. And be sure to subscribe to this channel right
here too, because I usually post new videos about twice a week, and the YouTube algorithm
might not recommend it if you're not subscribed. But anyway, let’s get started. So first up, one of the sure fire ways to
damage your computer is improperly overclocking your CPU. Usually you want to slowly increase the clock
speeds and voltages by small amounts, then stress testing the computer for stability. But if you go to far and just bump up the
voltage way too high, you could immediately fry your CPU. If you want to overclock your processor, unless
you really know what you’re doing, the best thing you can probably do is find an overclocking
guide for your specific CPU made by someone else who already did most of the testing for
you, and then don’t stray too far from their results. For example back when I built my PC I had
an Intel 5960X CPU, on a Rampage motherboard from ASUS ROG. And ROG is the brand from ASUS and they actually
released a guide specifically for my CPU on how to overclock it and their guide showed
what you could expect from a good result, an average result, a fair result, so I was
literally able to just look on there, and say "ok well I'll try the average result"
put it at that clock, and that voltage. And it seemed to work out, so you might not
get something as well clear cut as that, but that's what you can hopefully look for. And then you at least have a place to start. Now one interesting thing to know if you’re
worried about overclocking, is that Intel actually offers a kind of insurance called
the “performance tuning protection plan” in case the CPU fails because of overclocking,
which might be worth looking in to see if it’s worth it. I don’t think AMD offers anything like this
for their CPUs though. But Intel at least if you do have one of their
CPUs, and you're worried about frying it, this could potentially offer some protection
against that. And it's really not even that expensive, it's
like 20 or 30 dollars I think per CPU, and it covers it for a couple years. Just be sure to read the fine print and know
exactly what's covered. I believe bent pins would probably not be
covered, it's only things resulting from overclocking. Alright the next thing that can damage your
computer is having poor ventilation and cooling in your PC case. If you bought a pre-built system it’s probably
ok from the manufacturer, unless there’s a ton of dust buildup over the years or something. But if you have a custom built computer, obviously
you need to make sure your components are properly cooled, even if you’re not overclocking. Basically this means if you are overclocking
the computer at all, you will want a heat sink better than the stock one, and make sure
you have at least one intake and exhaust fan for air circulation. This is something that won’t cause your
computer to burst into flames, or fry components the minute you turn it on because one of the
fans is running slow. The CPU and graphics cards will throttle themselves,
but over time their lifespan will be reduced, including that of other components like hard
drives. Of course this isn't something that needs
to be super finely controlled, as long as you have reasonable circulation, it's very
unlikely that your computer will die, it's more just increasing the risk over time with
increased temperatures. Ok mistake number 3 is not using an uninterruptable
power supply (or UPS) or at the very least, a surge protector. This one is pretty self explanatory but really
important. Power surges can easily destroy a computer,
and while they might be rare, why take the chance, surge protectors are really not that
expensive. Even better, is getting an uninterruptable
power supply, a UPS. This is basically a battery backup unit for
a desktop computer that will keep your computer running for a short time if the power goes
out or becomes unstable. These aren’t meant to keep the computer
running for hours, usually just a couple minutes depending on how much power your computer
draws, it may only do like less than a minute, maybe a couple minutes, so you have just enough
time to save your work and shut down properly. They aren’t too expensive either, you can
get a decent smaller one from APC is one of the manufacturers, for under $100, or you
can really go crazy on bigger ones. It's definitely worth the price and peace
of mind I think, it's saved me several times where the power has one out, and then really
all it takes is less than 30 seconds like I said, to just say "ok power's out, time
to turn off the computer", shut down, and then nothing's going to get corrupted, or
you're not going to lose any data. You can do it really quick. Up next, one thing you obviously should never
do is any delete system files. Most of the time the operating system will
make it impossible to delete anything critically important unless you really go out of your
way to do it on purpose. But I have experimented in the past to see
what happens if you delete some critical files just for fun, and no surprise, it immediately
kills Windows, and makes it so you will have to reinstall it completely. And by the way, if you want to check out that
video of me deleting the infamous system32 folder, I’ll have that link pop out at the
top and at the end too. The somewhat good news is that even if you
somehow, for whatever reason, delete system files on your computer and ruin the OS installation,
it’s not like the computer is physically ruined. Your files are still on the hard drive, and
you can always reinstall Windows, it would just be a real pain, and should obviously
be avoided at all cost. Ok onto number 5, this is something that actually
sometimes happens and it’s not even our fault, which is restarting or cutting power
to the computer, or any other device really, while it’s updating. You’ve surely seen during literally any
update ever, the computer will say something like “do not restart while updating”,
and maybe wondered what would actually happen if you actually did that. Well it turns out, in most cases it’s probably
not the end of the world, and Windows at least will be able to roll things back and just
tell you something like “Windows could not finish installing updates.” Microsoft and other companies surely know
there are occasional situations where the power might go out during an update, or an
update might encounter and error, and likely has put a lot of time into making sure stuff
like that doesn’t brick your computer. Of course you still need to always avoid doing
it, because it is still very possible to corrupt certain files in a way that isn’t recoverable,
and again you'd have to reinstall. But also, there are some situations, like
when updating the motherboard BIOS, where it is absolutely imperative that you don’t
interrupt it, because then you could literally brick the motherboard, and then you really
are screwed. Alright moving on, one thing to definitely
avoid is shaking your hard drive while it’s running. This really just applies to laptops, and is
also something you don’t need to worry about with SSDs. But it should be obvious why shaking a delicate
piece of hardware spinning at 7200 RPM might be a BIT RISKY. Now most modern drives do have the ability
to detect vibrations and will actually lock themselves down to try and prevent damage,
so they probably aren’t as sensitive as you might think, but it’s still important
to avoid it because you don’t know what kind of long term issues it might cause. And if it is extreme enough in the right direction,
it might cause a platter to scrape against the case of the hard drive for example. This is another experiment I did myself in
a video where I literally put a hard drive on a laboratory vortexer to shake it violently
while it was running, and actually it didn’t kill it, but it did freeze up every time it
was shaking, probably because of the drive’s protection features. Still, doing this regularly would definitely
damage it, and I wouldn’t dare use this particular drive I used for the experiment
after putting it through that. Alright we’re on to the final mistake you
should seriously avoid, but afterwards we can mention some other ridiculous ways to
ruin your computer just for fun. So number 7 is something I am actually guilty
of, which is messing around with the components inside of your computer while it’s running. You can risk things like accidentally shorting
things out, hitting fan blades, and god knows what else. And my personal story with this is really
embarrassing but funny. So one day I was adding a new fan controller
inside my computer, and for some reason the fans attached to the water cooler unit weren’t
running. It was one of those all-in-one units with
the radiator and some plugs to power the fans. Now me thinking I was so smart, decided to
get out my multimeter and use it to test if there was actually any voltage being applied
to the fan pins, to tell whether the fan itself was dead, or if they just weren’t being
powered. So I go and touch the multimeter probes to
the pins on the water cooler unit while the computer is running, and I immediately hear
a POP and the computer just shuts down instantly. And I clearly shorted something out. My initial reaction was basically to just
stare at it, and I literally thought I just fried the whole thing and would need to build
a new PC, it was a mess. So I press the power button and everything
actually turns on… except the water cooler was clearly dead, it’s light wasn’t on
and the pump wasn’t running. So I ended up having to replace it the water
cooling unit, which was like $150 not cheap, but fortunately, nothing else was shorted
out, but it could have been a lot worse. So learn from my mistake and don’t go messing
around with the inside of your computer while it’s running, it's not worth it. Alright so those are some things you realistically
need to avoid so your computer stays un-destroyed. But what fun is that? In fact there are plenty of ways people have
actually come up with to actually try and destroy their computers for pure entertainment
value. One example is the infamous “ether-killer”
device, where someone literally took an AC power cable and spliced it directly to an
ethernet cable. I’m not sure if this has actually ever been
tested beyond being a meme, but it would at the very least destroy the network card or
motherboard it was plugged into. Now I mentioned you need to keep your computer
free of dust for adequate cooling, but one way to NOT do that is to wash your motherboard
with soap and water. This has also been a meme for a while and
even I made a video of my own about this, but needless to say, liquid and computer components
do not mix. In fact one thing I could have added to the
main list was to avoid spilling liquid on your laptop keyboard, because even if you
dry it out, it might cause long term corrosion damage that might not be immediately apparently. And definitely don’t do what I did and pour
an entire quart of motor oil into your PC, unless you really want to I guess, I’m not
your parents you can do what you want. But regardless, now after this video you should
be statistically less likely to ruin your computer, congratulations! Again be sure to subscribe because I make
multiple videos a week, and if you want to watch that video of me deleting System32 in
Windows, I’ll put that link right here. So thanks so much for watching, and I’ll
see you in the next one.
