It’s a sad thing, but sometimes we lose our precious gaming hardware through the cruel machinations of an uncaring universe. I know the pain of lending a GameBoy to a friend only to have it returned minus an intact screen and case, or felt the sting of seeing all my game discs laid out bare in the hot afternoon soon, or resting upon the heat dispersal vent for the Xbox 360.
I’ve never had anything really truly horrible happen to me aside from the aforementioned GameBoy incident, but I do know of a computer that has melted not once, but twice. The first time my friend booted up his PC only to be greeted with an unfamiliar beeping noise was a harrowing experience, and when it happened again recently, we knew the device was toast. In both cases, it had been the video cards that had melted; they were originally in a RAID configuration, but over the six years of that computer’s life span, they both bit the dust.
As is so often the case here on GamerSushi, I bring this topic up because I was wondering if any of you have a similar story, or perhaps worse. Ever throw your Wiimote into the TV, or cracked a controller in a fit of rage? Let us know in the comments, you crazy kids.
I remember back when I had my GameCube, and only two memmory cards. One of them was my main, the other one was just for my copy of Action Replay.
I had over I think 20 games or so completed on the one card, and I had just completed Shadow the Hedgehog. In fact, I had gone through every possible path you could play through.
Then, the unthinkable happened. My entire card got corrupt
My poor Alienware…..melted twice because Alienware thought a 4″ portable fan that rested at the bottom of the case in a non useful position would save my 2 video cards from melting one another…..And that’s why you build it yourself or at least with someone you trust.
You forgot that your Xbox melted too Mitch…
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. It was so weird. It wasn’t a red ring, but the internal video card just went kaput.
My 360 for the longest time would take forever to read discs. It got so bad that I would have to hit the top of my xbox repeatedly. Id tap the top to different songs. I got Halo Reach at midnight and spent over an hour trying to get it to read.
Ive broke more mics then I can count and controllers have been snapped in my house
Hands down the worst hardware problem Ive had is when my dog chewed my wireless mic. The increase volume button got stuck so when I turned it on all I could hear is beeping nonstop. I played like that for a month, having the voices come out of my tv. I must have looked like a insane person because at one point I had an ace bandage and tissues over my ear and head to try to muffle the sound. I can still hear the beeping, I was going mad.
Oh and my Gamecube didnt have a tray thing, disc was exposed. That and I never had a memory card for it. We left it on with Smash Bros Melee playing for weeks, unlocked everything. It was red hot lol
Well my 60Gb ‘phat’ PS3 was the first console I had break on me. I was very sad.
My PSP’s nub broke ages ago, but that’s no biggie. ‘Twas shit anyway. More of a heart breaker was that something relating to wirelessness in my PSP broke so I am unable to do ANYTHING Wi-Fi related. I may find a cheap 3000 or even a Go somewhere eventually. After I get a laptop. And all those games coming out. Actually screw the PSP.
And that’s it really.
I’ve been fortunate enough to avoid personal hardware catastrophe since my string of rage-broken third party controllers back in the SNES days. I did get to experience a college roommate’s top of the line watercooled PC springing a leak though – fried almost everything in the case. Kinda fun to watch, but it made for a very grumpy roommate.
My family went through 3 PS2’s. The first was stepped on at a party, the 2nd stopped reading discs, and the 3rd (as far as I know) is still functioning.
My brother smashed his friend’s mother’s rare porcelain elephant that she got on a trip to Africa with a Wiimote. He refuses to play Wii Sports to this day.
I had a virus which destroyed my Hard drives, RAM and Motherboard on my last machine. Luckily, I know a guy who backs up data for the bank of Canada, so he was able to use his work robot to force my HD to spin so I was able to recover the album I had been recording for over a year. It was close. The estimate from Staples/Future Shop was between $10,000 and $12,000 – and I got it for free. Friends are a nice thing to have!
My hardships with the PS3 have been well documented.
Only real hardware problem I can ever remember was that my first 360 red ringed twice (saved it the first time). Sent it into Microsoft for free and got a month of Live, so I actually made some money off my broken Xbox.
And one time my scooter overheated and burned my leg. Not an electric or gas scooter. The brake on my Razor. Does that count? It’s like overheating.
I used to bite my ps2 controllers as a kid. You will find many, many teethmarks on them if you view them (yes I still have them, 10 years on!)