Author:
Cathetic
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Date Posted: 21:36:08 11/22/05 Tue
In reply to:
CtarSevenOhFour
's message, "How to Screw Up Your Computer" on 19:43:38 11/22/05 Tue
This will explain to you the most common ways by which you can cause
your computer to cease to function. Follow the instructions carefully and you will shortly
find yourself making appropriate contributions to the all-important service sector.
First, it is essential to be incorrectly prepared.
When opening the case of your computer, you will probably be presented with a number of
hexagonal head Phillips-slotted screws. These can be easily removed with a Phillips
screwdriver or 6mm nut driver, but using a flathead screwdriver, especially one that is
slightly too big, maximises the chance of the screwdriver slipping from the screw head and
smashing into one or another of the computer's connectors. Personal injury is also
possible, especially if excessive force is used when turning a screw the wrong way, but
the object is to damage the computer, not yourself.
If any components of your computer are held in place with Pozidriv screws (superficially
similar to Phillips head screws, but recognisable by the cross scored on the screw-head at
45 degrees to the slots), use of a Phillips head driver instead of the squarer tipped
Pozidriv gives the maximum chance of reaming out the screw head and, with luck, damaging
the driver as well.
When removing screws from the back of an ordinary clone case, ensure that you extract
every screw in sight, not just the ones around the edge that actually hold the case on.
This will, with any luck, cause the computer's power supply to fall off inside the case
and cause serious damage, before you even have to take off the lid.
Leaving one fastening screw still done up in the corner and then attempting to wrench off
the case may cause significant damage to the metalwork, but this is generally easily bent
back into shape and not very expensive to replace. You can do better.
Fortunately, there are a plethora of computer case designs, and a gratifying number are
fiendishly difficult to take apart and, especially, reassemble. To maximise the chance of
damage, ignore any locking tabs and slots, don't worry about pinching cables in the case,
and make sure you push really hard.
When replacing screws, remember to tighten everything as if the computer were a major
structural component of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Overtightening screws increases the
chance of reaming the heads, and the extra frustration involved in removing super-tight
screws increases the chance that someone will give up and turn the machine over to a
professional. Use of an electric screwdriver makes screw destruction easy for anyone.
Use of computer cases as furniture is an excellent way to obey your entropic
imperatives. Many PC cases are in fact very strong, and so it's necessary to balance large
monitors, tabletops, grand pianos and twelve foot fireproof safes upon them to ensure
rapid destruction. Fortunately, the pop-riveted construction of most cases and their poor
endurance under lateral loads means that even relatively small stresses can, over time,
cause sufficient structural creep to snap a solidly attached motherboard. Patience, and
not buying enough chairs, can be a virtue.
Static Is Your Friend
It is possible to destroy computer components just by touching them,
thanks to electrostatic discharge (ESD). Static electricity accumulates best on humans
when the air is dry and both the carpet and the soles of the shoes are made of synthetic
materials.
Unfortunately, static discharge damage is actually a fairly rare cause of computer
problems. On the bright side, however, a discharge as low as 200 volts is sufficient to
destroy a chip, and this level of charge can easily be accumulated in just a few steps on
carpet. Static discharge can only be felt when the charge gets up around the 2000 volt
mark, so it's possible for a truly adept user to unknowingly destroy several components in
one session.
If the user employs an anti-static discharge strap connected to an earthed object or
simply leaves the computer plugged in (thus maintaining the chassis earth connection) and
takes care to touch some exposed metal on the power supply before handling
static-sensitive components (and periodically during the job), the chance of static damage
becomes depressingly low.
Old-fashioned belt-drive vacuum cleaners are quite efficient static electricity
generators, so cleaning computer componentry with one is an excellent way to bolster the
income of a service engineer. Newer cleaners are still good at accumulating static, and
are also quite powerful enough to seriously damage fragile components with sheer suction.
Air force
Electronics stores stock canned "air duster", which is
actually compressed difluoroethane or tetrafluoroethane gas, and can be used to clean various devices. Air
duster is quite useful for cleaning more robust items, but can also be usefully employed
in computer destruction, where it is more than capable of blowing chips out of sockets,
spinning fans to prodigious speeds and destroying their tiny brushless motor assemblies,
and, of course, redistributing dust from relatively accessible locations to far more
exciting ones, like deep inside expansion card connectors and CD-ROM drives.
For truly powerful air-blasting, though, the discerning user will
have to employ the services of an air compressor. These can be rented cheaply from many
equipment hire shops, and as well as their greater power (which can snap a RAM module and
its socket right off the board) offer the added bonus of high-speed water delivery,
provided of course that the user makes sure not to use the condensation drain valve
provided for less focussed operators.
Get it wet!
Contact with plain water is surprisingly unlikely to destroy
computer componentry, unless the device in question is left wet for a while. Beverages
like coffee, tea and (especially) cola are much more effective, and so it is important to
have a tall, unstable container of one or more of these within elbowing distance of the
work area. Crumbs of food can foul connectors and floppy drive moving parts, but intensive
open-mouthed chewing over the computer is required for a reliable kill.
Killing chips
If the job involves inserting or removing socketed chips, the
options for destruction of expensive devices open up enormously.
Inserting and removing Pin Grid Array (PGA) processor chips in Zero Insertion Force (ZIF)
sockets is unlikely to break anything, unless the user somehow manages not to operate the
locking lever and forces the issue. PGA chips in old-style sockets are easier to damage;
PGA pins are annoyingly hard to bend, but the forest of pins under the processor gives
many chances to bend just one and make the chip uninsertable.
If the computer is an 80486-based system, the Central Processing
Unit (CPU) can be plugged into its socket in more than one way. One corner of the
processor is bevelled and the matching corner of the socket will also be marked, but if
these markings are disregarded - or if the user decides instead to line up the printing on
the CPU with that on the motherboard - then the processor can be inserted in one of the
three other alignments. This makes the chip's destruction, possibly with the emission of
smoke, quite likely. Intel regrettably made processor misalignment impossible with the
introduction of the Pentium series, unless of course the enterprising user is equipped
with a mallet.
Conventional Dual Inline Package (DIP) chips, with a row of pins along either side, are
much more gratifyingly susceptible to damage.
The very best tool for bending and breaking pins on DIP chips is the inexpensive springy
"chip extractor" available at various electronics stores. U-shaped, the steel
tool has an inward bent lip on the end of each leg, and is designed to hook both ends of a
chip at once, and give the user the impression that it will in fact extract both ends at
once.
This never happens.
When one end of the (usually very firmly inserted) chip comes out of the socket, the
considerable pull being exerted by the user immediately causes that end to be lifted well
clear of the board while the last few ranks of pins are still plugged in, resulting in
badly bent or broken pins which are difficult to bend back and very, very difficult to
repair.
Truly adept users can also hook a DIP chip extractor under the socket, not the chip, and
bodily rip it from its soldered-in location. This can lift tracks from the board and
render it practically irreparable, if done with sufficient gusto.
Chips are much less likely to be damaged if a small screwdriver is used to lever each end
in turn up a little at a time, until the whole chip comes free at once. Those who have
purchased stock in chip makers recommend against this strategy.
The other common kind of chip package is Plastic Leadless Chip Carrier (PLCC), which is
square with a row of contacts on each side and which fits into a socket somewhat
reminiscent of an above-ground swimming pool. It is difficult to insert these chips
incorrectly, since one corner is bevelled so they can only fit into the socket one way,
and firm pressure snaps them into place annoyingly reliably.
It is also hard to break PLCC chips when removing them; a purpose-built PLCC extractor
does it in a snap and has none of the redeeming danger of the DIP extracting tools, and
removing PLCCs by prying under the corners with a very small screwdriver is annoying, but
not very hazardous. Fortunately, users seldom have to work with PLCC chips, and the other
types are satisfyingly easy to break.
Inserting Single Inline Memory Modules (SIMMs) should be relatively simple, since SIMM
sockets require one only to insert the module at an angle, then swing it upright until the
locking clips click into place. Fortunately, many PCs are cramped inside and have at least
one SIMM socket fouled by the power supply or other metalwork, making it more difficult to
insert a memory module in that socket without damaging it or the socket. Inserting modules
backwards (even though they are designed not to fit that way), jamming them straight in
vertically and, of course, using plenty of force, increase the chance of a misadventure.
Bugger the BIOS!
The ceaseless march of progress has made it possible to wreak
functionally unfixable harm upon essential computer components without inflicting any
physical trauma at all. Modern "flash" BIOSes, which allow the Basic
Input/Output System software of a PC motherboard to be upgraded by the user, afford
considerable potential for harm.
If a flash BIOS is "flashed" with the wrong data -
preferably a BIOS for a completely different motherboard, or, if the flashing software
will accept it, even some randomly selected file; an MP3 of William Shatner's "Mr
Tambourine Man" is ideal - the motherboard will, upon restarting, utterly fail to do
anything useful until its BIOS chip is physically removed and re-burned with correct data.
Interrupting the flashing procedure will produce the same results.
If the BIOS is socketed, exchanging it for a working one is
disturbingly easy. Fortunately, many current BIOS chips are soldered to the motherboard,
and cannot be economically replaced. The iniquitous invasion of motherboards with built-in
BIOS backups must be stopped at all costs, lest their terrible reliability paralyse the
industry.
Cables, connectors and calamity
Ribbon cables are often difficult to plug in incorrectly, because
the connectors they go into are "keyed" to match the cable in only one
orientation. If a ribbon cable plugs into a bare pin header with no surround, though,
damage can result if the user takes note of the tiny "1" often printed on the
circuit board by the connector to indicate pin one, and also takes note of the stripe on
the cable which indicates which side is should connect to pin one, and reverses the
connector. Incompetently made cables with one end backwards make this much simpler. Note
that reversing a cable at BOTH ends is likely to result in perfect operation of the
hardware, which is not the aim of this exercise.
If the pin header on the motherboard isn't "shrouded" -
surrounded by a plastic box to correctly align the plug - the intrepid user can quite
easily connect the plug in such a way as to miss one row or column of pins. This can very
excitingly change the details of the connection being made.
When connecting an older style, "AT" power supply to a
motherboard, the two-part power connector offers a marvellous opportunity for destruction.
Make sure at all costs to avoid the plug configuration shown below.
This configuration, with the black wires towards the
centre, will cause the computer to work perfectly. Reversing the two plugs so that the red
wires are towards the centre will, gratifyingly, destroy the motherboard. Some
manufacturers appear to have temporarily abandoned their sanity and made AT power supplies
that will not work when connected incorrectly. Such supplies are, of course, to be avoided
if at all possible.
Fortunately, modern motherboards have introduced a new
way to blast tracks clean off the board. On-board fan connectors have three pins, and two
adjacent ones are the positive and ground supply. Mistaking one of these connectors for a
motherboard configuration jumper allows the adept user to slip a jumper block onto the fan
connector and short the positive pin to ground, which can and will burn out traces on the
motherboard and render it useful only as a wall decoration. Motherboard manufacturers are
clearly aware of this possibility, and some assist by labelling, say, a three pin CMOS
clearing jumper block "JP2", and marking the CPU fan connector "J2".
The use of the normal motherboard annotation font (one point Flyspeck Sans Serif) makes
misidentification simple even for those with perfect vision.
Plugging and unplugging peripherals that attach to
computer ports while the machine is turned on is unlikely to damage the peripherals and
not much more likely to damage the computer - plugging and unplugging cards inside the
computer when it's on is a much better way to damage things.
If, in the course of diagnosing a problem, you have a hard drive out of its assigned bay
and resting on top of the open machine, remember that the logic board under the drive can
generally be shorted out easily by chassis metalwork and position the device accordingly.
PSU pulverisation
Power supplies can be obliterated in a number of ways.
The simplest is provided by the ubiquitous voltage selector switch on the back. If the
user is lucky enough to reside in a country where the mains supply is 220V or higher,
switching a computer PSU to the 110V setting will result in a satisfyingly exploded
supply, and possible considerable secondary damage.
In comparison, the more pedestrian sport of dropping
screws into the PSU fan in hopes that they will cause a dramatic short circuit is scarcely
necessary. Particularly in view of the fact that the fan often spits them back out.
Remember - slapdash, ill-informed, incompetent work is
what's expected of you. Don't let the industry down. |
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