Tell us your scariest PC building horror stories

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"It was a dark and stormy night—mostly because my power supply short circuited."

(Image credit: 20th Century Fox)

With Halloween just around the corner, it is officially the season of chills and thrills. And what's more chilling than a new build refusing to POST, or the sound of a power supply popping a circuit? What could possibly be scarier than seeing that one single pin on your brand new CPU bent the wrong way?

To celebrate Halloween, the PC Gamer forum community looking for your most horrifying PC build stories. We want to hear all the gritty, horrible, embarrassing details of how you've (almost) ruined your PC—whether you got a little too generous with the thermal paste or once shoved your RAM in backwards. No story is too horrifying (or too shameful). After all, the best way to conquer your fears is to laugh at them, right?

Extra points if you have pictures. You can also tell your story here in the comments below. In a few weeks, we'll collect our favorites into a new article and share them with everyone.

That's not the only way you can join in on some spooky fun, though. We're also hosting two separate competitions on the forums that each award a nifty PC Gamer coffee mug or tote bag. The first is to see who can build the best Halloween-themed creation in any building game, like Minecraft or Fortnite, while the second contest is a bake-off where you have to show us your best Halloween recipes. 

For more details, check out the associate forum threads for each contest. But don't forget to share your PC building horror stories with us here. We'll be watching (and praying that your PCs are safe).

Steven Messner
Steven Messner

With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.