So I wanted to get 3 monitors going, and someone on Twitter alerted me to the fact that you can put any graphics card in your computer and run a 3rd monitor from it – you don’t need to SLI them or even be the same brand.

So cool – I grab another graphics card and jam it in.. but it doesn’t work. The computer doesn’t even boot.  Then I realise that the power PCIE cable I’m using to go from the PSU to the graphics card isn’t made for this PSU. 

Then I decide to make my own. How hard can it be? I already have one working cable – I just have to pull the pins out of the connectors, put them in the right order and then splice the two cables together – again in the right order.

I did this carefully. I tested the connections to each wire and verified that they matched up. They were identical. I tested again. Yep. Identical. Tested again.

Then it came time to put it in. I somehow put the GPU side in the PSU, and the PSU side in the GPU.

Fried motherboard. Oops.