First of all, this guide is just for fun. I do not recommend you do
any of this for real, unless you are a bastard. Or it's your
sibling's computer. Whatever. Just remember, this guide is requires
a load of reading, and a small understanding of computer terms.
A Handy Field Guide for the Uninitiated.
Once upon a time, it was possible to destroy your entire machine
simply by turning it on incorrectly. Delete a single file from an
apparently innocuous directory and it would refuse to boot. Zap the
thing with the smallest of static charges, and it would be ruined for
all time. Hit it with an itty-bitty power surge, and the PSU would
explode, peppering your face with molten solder and shattered ceramic
capacitors. Those were the days.
Today, however, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ruin a well
set up PC. Callous inventions such as power leads that only go in one
way, good labeling on motherboards, even Windows XP all must take the
blame for smarter, more indestructible machines. Don't lose hope,
though, as with a little know-how and determination, you'll find it
easy to ruin your PC. The trick is that you have to be smart, and to
be smart, you have to be educated – and this guide will indeed,
educate.
1. UNDER CONSTRUCTION
NB: This part of the guide presumes you are building a PC from
scratch. If you have a pre-built PC, please skip to the next section,
PC AT HOME.
The best place to begin PC destruction is during actual construction.
You can get startlingly effective results just by using an electric
screwdriver.
During construction, you have two choices. First, you can destroy
compartments as you go, as this guarantees PC inoperability, but won't
necessarily provide that famous fat blue spark PC vandals crave.
Alternatively, you can build the PC in such a way that when you do
finally turn it on, a sort of domino effect occurs, with much more
satisfying blue smoke and grinding noises from the HDD. The
disadvantage of this method is that new fail-safe measures may save
components you were intending to destroy.
1.1 – Preparations.
Before you even begin though, ensure you are wearing synthetic soled
shoes on a synthetic carpet. Have your favorite dance album on
nearby, and do a few erratic moves every now and then to create a load
of static.
Next, unwrap the power supply from its box and immediately plug it
into the nearest power outlet. If you have several power boards in
turn running power boards, all slots used, even better. You should
conduct all PC construction and maintenance with the PSU plugged in
and powered up to ensure the highest chance of PC destruction and even
personal electrocution, maybe even resulting in death.
Proceed to build your PC according to your own know-how. Do not
consult any manuals for proper jumper settings or other suggested
precautions. The following lists of components give specific tips on
how to destroy these critical elements in the PC.
1.2 – The CPU
First, make sure the motherboard has already been mounted in the case,
preferably backwards. All boards now use a Zero Insertion Force
system to install the CPU, sadly making it impossible to mount it the
wrong way around. However, you can best damage the CPU by first
trying to force it into the socket without lifting the ZIF locking
arm.
If any of the delicate pins on the underside of the CPU are bent,
immediately straighten them out with a blunt object, such as a butter
knife. Try to snap a few of the pins off. This is a good result.
1.3 – Heatsink and Fan
Installation of this component offers ample opportunity to not only
gouge yourself on sharp edges, but also crunch the CPU. If your
ham-fisted manipulation of uncooperative heatsink clips grinds off the
corners of the CPU heat spreader of the PCB, you will have created a
thermally unstable processor that may not work at all, may work only
at certain frequencies, or may lock up for no apparent reason. This
is a good thing.
If you are unable to crunch the core, or find this method too
working-class, simply ensure the heatsink has been secured in a
crooked position and actually sits a very small distance above the
CPU, rather than touching it. If you can look at the motherboard side
on and see daylight between the CPU and the heatsink, congratulations.
Thermal instability or even heat death is assured.
On no account should you use thermal tape or paste to ensure a
contiguous medium between the CPU and heatsink. Forgetting to plug
the fan into the power socket on the motherboard can also assist in
accelerating the heat death of the CPU.
1.4 – Memory
Installation of RAM is becoming depressingly simple as most modules
are now 'keyed' with a small notch, so they can only be inserted in
one direction. Brute force can sometimes help damage the RAM slots on
the motherboard. Alternatively, you could drop the modules into the
guts of the PC, or onto one of the following mediums.
1. Synthetic Carpet
2. Nylon Bed sheets
3. Sink full of mildly soapy water.
With the third option, dropping a plugged in toaster may also provide
interesting results.
1.5 – Hard Drives
These are great, because the average HDD is an excitingly solid piece
of machinery that belies the delicacy of the moving parts inside.
Killjoy manufacturers such as Seagate now protect the drive by
encasing the whole thing in a patented "seashield", but this can be
plied off with a bit of help from a knife or screwdriver.
Before installation, make sure you drop the HDD several times,
preferably onto hard surfaces like concrete. However, soft surfaces,
like the aforementioned synthetic carpet is also acceptable.
Installing a HDD upside down will probably not have much of an effect
for the true PC Vandal, but using screws that are too big or too small
can occasionally have unexpected results. Also, by securing the HDD
with only one screw, you can allow it to vibrate, sometimes coming
loose during a particularly long session on your computer, possibly
letting the HDD fall and knock out several vital components.
If your PC has multiple HDDs, you should also make sure they are as
close as you can get them. If the drives are 7500rpm, so much the
better. One vital rule for multiple HDDs is always give minimal
airflow. If possibly, block any space that will allow air through
with bubble wrap for shock protection.
These above tips can also be applied to optical drives, such as DVD/CD
burners or ROMs.
1.6 – PCI and AGP Cards
If you have a cheap and nasty case (and if PC destruction is your aim,
you should), chances are the slots on the back will not line up
perfectly with the PCI and AGP slots on your motherboard. That's
good. When installing the relevant cards, you should focus on having
the card line up with the slot, and tightly screw it in with an
electric screwdriver. If you lose control of the screwdriver, and end
up gouging lines in the card, that is even better. However, if the
card is properly seated in the motherboard, there is a chance it could
work properly. It's a good idea to make sure the card has a few
golden "teeth" protruding slightly.
Handling the cards with sticky fingers also increases the chance of PC
destruction, and will surely increase the opportunity for strange
component level malfunctions cause by conductive debris bringing up
important PCB tracks.
You should have as many PCI cards as possible installed on your
machine. If there is an onboard motherboard equivalent for say,
Ethernet, or six channel surround sound, it should be disabled, or
preferably, not disabled at all, allowing for some interesting
results.
1.7 – Operating System
Speaking of the OS, you cannot go past Windows ME (Millennium Edition)
for PC destruction. This poorly conceived 'stop gap' release bridged
the awkward 18 month gap between Windows 98 SE, and Windows XP. It
attempts to remove as much user control as possible, and clogs up much
of the system with restore functions that don't even work.
When installing WinME (or any other OS), you should go for as many
automatic options as possible, and randomly hit the reset or power
switch during installation. Opening the CD Drive while Windows is
copying an important looking file is always good.
Remember, if it hasn't taken eight hours and 112 resets, you haven't
installed Windows properly.
2. YOUR PC AT HOME
The tips above should provide a fairly comprehensive guide to the
prospective PC builder who also wants to destroy their machine. But,
what do you do if you have something pre-built, from HP or Dell? How
can you best destroy a PC lovingly tested for reliability by dozens of
barely literate R&D monkeys?
Read on.
2.1 – Food
It's been said that a LAN plays on it's stomach, and indeed, food is
an excellent source of potential PC destruction. It seems obvious,
but practices such as eating flaky pastries such as pies over a
keyboard can slowly build up a residue that can attract cockroaches.
If one of the cockroaches decides to adventure into your case, it can
be spectacularly electrocuted, hopefully taking out a vital
compartment with them.
Part 2 Below.
2.2 – Drink
Plain water is no longer likely to do too much damage to a PC with
spillage, although leaving a PC in six or seven days of rain will
result in pleasing levels of corrosion. The best liquid to spill over
a PC is Coca-Cola. Its corrosive and poisonous qualities have long
been documented – a bowl of Coke can dissolve a 3 kg stake overnight,
so imagine the effect a can could have spilt across a motherboard.
If a spill does occur, you should immediately panic and run around the
room for at least 15 minutes. Picking up the case is a great way to
get the liquid out, and may even release one of your HDDs/Video cards.
If you can drop the PC while shaking it, it is even better.
2.3 – Stairs and Falls
Kick your PC down a flight of stars for best results. The flight
needs only to be six or seven stairs high. If the PC can somehow
remain powered up during the fall, even better.
Falls can have all kinds of excellent results. Try balancing your PC
tower on a stack of flimsy magazines, DVDs, or even shirts. If you
can arrange for the PC to tip over four or five times a week, long
term destruction is assured.
2.4 – Installs
The rule is simple. If you get something on a CD/DVD, via email, or
downloaded off the Net, install it immediately. Install everything
you can get your hands on. Leave it installed, especially if it
didn't work. In fact, if it doesn't work, install it again just to be
sure.
Install new versions without uninstalling old versions. Get
unofficial updates and beta versions for games. Get those things that
are supposed to speed up your modem through dark witchcraft. Get
Virtual Girl, who lives and strips on your (cluttered) desktop, the
poor thing. Above all, get RealJukebox. You'll love the way it
slowly takes over your desktop.
2.4 – Children and Relatives
The final and most effective method in destroying your PC is to allow
all and sundry to access it whenever they see fit. While your
likewise computer literate friends will probably fail to do anything,
unless you're lucky to have friends who are malicious bastards. Your
family will probably have to take most responsibility in ensuring your
PC bites the virtual dust.
Children are an obvious source of destructive power, from simple
bashing of the keyboards and gnawing mouse cords, to inadvertent
deletion of vital system files, which even the mighty Windows XP
itself, would never have thought someone in their right mind would
delete. Make sure very young children are able to use your PC for at
least a couple of hours a day for best results.
Older relatives and especially very old relatives can be a marvellous
source of PC destruction, because you, your mate who works at IBM and
even the guy your Dad knows who invented the logic gates for X086
motherboards WON'T BE ABLE TO TELL YOU EXACTLY WHAT THE OLD PERSON
DID. Your PC will just be destroyed, that's all. They will have done
something so alien to the basic paradigm of PC usage, so contrary to
the desktop metaphor that the PC will just seize up and never boot
again.
3. FINAL WORDS
I hope these tricks and tips have proven useful in you quest to
destroy your PC. In the upcoming weeks, look for small additions to
this guide, such as Spam, Uninstalling, Power Surges, Viruses, and
BIOS for Beginners. However, if all of these above methods fail,
after hours of tinkering, bumping, snapping things off and spilling
caffeinated beverages still results in a perfect PC, always turn to
the workman's best companion – the sledgehammer. It always produces a
result.
Lol! You are right about older family!
Not quite as extreme as above, but a friend of mine kept his PC free of firewall and AV software, and also resisted the tempatation to install any windows updates, for 3 years from purchase. About 18 months in he switched to an always on broadband service.
After remarking his Pc was running a bit slow, I offered to take a look.
8+hrs, installations of Adware, CWS, Spybot, Zonealarm, and AVG, numerous windows updates, almost 700 discovered Adware and 20 discovered viruses later I somehow got it working normally again to the best of my abilities.
My friend only wants to use it for word docs and checking email, so didn't understand the consequences of not having AV software etc. I think there should be more of a duty on computer suppliers to make sure systems are protected from point of sale, unless the buyer specifically states they don't wish to have this.
Originally posted by rhbDo'h...you oughta read the Rant as well then...I'm so sorry about the text dump on RHP,I have nothing better to do. Anyway, I wrote these for a couple of other separate forums, and decided to post them here...generally, I wrote the opposite of whatever I did...except the bit about the logic gates, that happened to my first computer...
Lol! You are right about older family!
Not quite as extreme as above, but a friend of mine kept his PC free of firewall and AV software, and also resisted the tempatation to install any windows updates, for 3 years from purchase. About 18 months in he switched to an always on broadband service.
After remarking his Pc was running a bit slow, I offered to ta ...[text shortened]... rotected from point of sale, unless the buyer specifically states they don't wish to have this.