Story time folks;
Today, I’m going to tell you about the little GTX 285 that could.
The year was 2010. I was at a lan party with my badass rig (specs below), the time was 4:15am and I remember it like yesterday. We had about 10 people in a small, hot room all playing battlefront II, since we had tired of BF: BC2. Things were going well as I was in second place when a new challenger appeared. I hear the jingling of a collar from the door. One of the guys in the room decided to invite the host’s golden retriever to play with us. This was all well and good, save for the tennis ball.
It was a perfect storm, I remember watching in slow motion as this happened. I was on the end of the table, my case was on the floor. I had a half finished can of red bull sitting on my desk, my case was on the floor. I saw the ball flying through the air, my case was on the floor. I watch in terror as the can falls over, lands on the top of my case and begins to pour in through the top fan holes.
It takes me a moment to come to the realization that my PC is probably toast, as I hear fizzing and liquid pouring down through my case. I happen to be close enough to footsie the power strip into the off position, so I do that as fast as I can while letting out a scream to wake the dead (and consequently the neighbors). With my PC off, I immediately pull the can off the top of it, pull open the door to the case, unplug the power cable just in case someone tries something stupid and run to the kitchen for paper towels.
40 minutes of dabbing and wiping later, my PC is dry. With everyone in the room anxiously watching, I turn on the power strip, plug in the cable and press the power button. No dice.
I flip the switch on the power supply and try again. It immediately springs to life, and with a single post beep, indicating everything is good, I look up with angst to my monitor to see the EVGA logo proudly displayed on my mediocre 1680x1050 display.
Moral of the story is twofold. Don’t put drinks anywhere that could risk electronics of any type and don’t let people play fetch with a dog in the same room as a lan party.
Specs at the time:
EVGA 680i
EVGA GTX 285
Intel C2Q Q6600 @3.2GHz
8GB DDR2 1066MHz
I’m out of town for the weekend right now, but when I get back, I’ll take a picture of the red-bull stain on the GPU PCB.