Best way to fry a PC!

[TiatYoungUk]

Ok, so now your thinking 'whats he on!'. Well anyway there is a valid reason behind this...As you cans see by my sig my PC is POS, however it still has 2 years gurentee left on it with PCWorld (england). What they usually do is replace broken parts (like they have with my hd(twice) and vid card) however if the PC is irrepairable they give you a full refund, which would be £799. With this i could add another few hundred £ and build a top spec PC.
At first i thought i could just take the heatsink/fan off the Celeron and fry that, but then their just gonna put a new processor in then. So basically i need to do something that will fry the mobo, processor and maybe harddrive without it being obvious ive done it, so no going at it with a hammer!
Anyone got any ideas?

We do not condone this type of criminal fraud activity here on AnandTech.

It is people like you who make manufacturers charge higher costs in order to cover this sort of thing. Goodbye.

AnandTech Moderator

 

[majewski9]

Yeah use a powerman power supply! Geez I had one come with my Inwin case and it fried my mobo!

I dont know what to do to ruin your entire system without it looking totally obvious. Maybe by torturing every thing on your pc. HD, processor, power supply, and ram! Maybe that would do it!

 

[n0cmonkey]

Oooooh warranty scams! Gotta love it!

 

[Haircut]

What you are thinking of doing is immoral and probably completely illegal, so I didn't tell you this OK.

Take one of those piezo electric lighters (the sort that you use to light gas stoves) and click it a few times around the inside of your computer to completely fry everything.
Obviously making sure that the spark jumps onto the motherboard or wherever you want to fry.

 

[Barrei]

take some copper wire and connect the pins of your celeron { you poor guy never get celeron again }, or leave heatsink off and run fsb at 140 .

 

[anthrax]

Put is Plain and simple...It Fruad...and ppl like him are pushing up the prices of computers directly by dilerbrately cuasing devices to fail......

 

[Barrei]

Haircut your idea was much better than mine , speaking from experience are we ?

 

[Haircut]

<< Haircut your idea was much better than mine , speaking from experience are we ? >>


Not my personal experience, but I heard about some guy who accidentally fried his system that way.
Don't know how you could accidentally do that to a PC though.

 

[Barrei]

Exactly why would you have anything like that near your PC.

 

[TiatYoungUk]

Thanks for the advice folks, the spark idea should definatly work and we have one of them at the caravan . I dont care whether its fraud or not, Unreal Tournament 2003 is approaching fast! (and wtf is with that name!). If you lived in the UK youd want to screw PCworld as often as you could, the lying robbing overpriced wazzocks.

 

[Mark R]

I accidentally totalled a mobo and CPU by putting the CPU in its socket backwards.

When I put it back in the right way round, it got so hot that it melted itself into the socket, and emitted plenty of smoke in the process.

I couldn't possibly condone any illegal activity - although if you've ever visited a PCWorld and found out that they charge £22.99 ($32) for an 18" ATA/66 cable, you'd be tempted to think that they must be smoking some illegal substances.

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< Thanks for the advice folks, the spark idea should definatly work and we have one of them at the caravan . I dont care whether its fraud or not, Unreal Tournament 2003 is approaching fast! (and wtf is with that name!). If you lived in the UK youd want to screw PCworld as often as you could, the lying robbing overpriced wazzocks. >>



So you were stupid enough to purchase a computer from them and wont work enough to purchase a new computer so you are going to do something possibly illegal to "get back at them?" Great, just what we need. Another spoiled little brat. Grow up please.

 

[microAmp]

Here is a simple idea, build up a lot of static electricity and shock the north bridge chipset, proceed to shock video card, processer......., make sure you make your room dry as possible, no shoes, socks only..... etc..

 

[TiatYoungUk]

<< So you were stupid enough to purchase a computer from them and wont work enough to purchase a new computer so you are going to do something possibly illegal to "get back at them?" Great, just what we need. Another spoiled little brat. Grow up please. >>



Have you thought that 3 years ago when the PC was bought i didnt know sweet ah heck all about PC's, and neither did my Parents hence the PC was bought from a semi-reputable company, the main reason for which they were the only ones who offered interest free credit. Therefore they were the only available option. If youd have dealt with them personally youd know what i was talking about, 2 months after purchase the hd broke and it took them 3 weeks to bring a replacment, missing 3 appointments. 2 weeks later that hd broke, this time taking them 2 weeks to replace. Then there was the time they tried replacing my voodoo 3 3k with a tnt1, beacuse, and i quote "a tnt easily outperforms a voodoo 3". There coverplan supposedly allows u to put a biscuit in the cdrom and get it replaced, and that is featured on an advert so if there gonna be so stupid. And for your information i do have a job from which i earn £300 ($470)a month half of which pays car insurance, so i think you should refrain from calling people spolied little brats in the future.

 

[n0cmonkey]

<<

<< So you were stupid enough to purchase a computer from them and wont work enough to purchase a new computer so you are going to do something possibly illegal to "get back at them?" Great, just what we need. Another spoiled little brat. Grow up please. >>



Have you thought that 3 years ago when the PC was bought i didnt know sweet ah heck all about PC's, and neither did my Parents hence the PC was bought from a semi-reputable company, the main reason for which they were the only ones who offered interest free credit. Therefore they were the only available option. If youd have dealt with them personally youd know what i was talking about, 2 months after purchase the hd broke and it took them 3 weeks to bring a replacment, missing 3 appointments. 2 weeks later that hd broke, this time taking them 2 weeks to replace. Then there was the time they tried replacing my voodoo 3 3k with a tnt1, beacuse, and i quote "a tnt easily outperforms a voodoo 3". There coverplan supposedly allows u to put a biscuit in the cdrom and get it replaced, and that is featured on an advert so if there gonna be so stupid. And for your information i do have a job from which i earn £300 ($470)a month half of which pays car insurance, so i think you should refrain from calling people spolied little brats in the future. >>



*yawn*

You should have researched your purchase better. The actions you are considering are probably illegal and definitely immoral. If you had such problems with the company so quickly you should have demanded a refund then and returned the computer.

 

[sharkeeper]

While the system is running, brush steel wool across the solder side of the motherboard. Have a fire extinguisher handy in case the wool really gets going, or if you know someone by the name of doc something or similar, use a bed pan full of water.

Cheers!

 

[GrumpyMan]

"Cheaters never win in the end Commissioner"
Batman and Robin to Commissioner Gordon.

 

[Patenter]

Interesting to note that your profile appears to list your name. Goal number one for smart criminals is to hide thier identity.

 

[TimeKeeper]

I am old............but somehow I can't break the curse of

<< "whatever comes around, goes around". >>

 

[ChefJoe]

If you wanted to kill it your best bet is to short a few random things in there with a nice scredriver.. whatever's exposed. You'd also want to have your power supply fry after this so that they'll believe that a piece of hardware caused a whole mess of internal trouble. The only thing that causes concern is that it's likely that your previous system had something like a hard-drive exchange done with another fixed computer (and they didn't bother changing the graphics card).... so if you fry this one, what's to say they won't simply give you a different crappy computer rather than the money?

 

[ChrisIsBored]

One of our Linux tech's who's definately NOT hardware savy, put a stick of RAM in backwards. He somehow forced it in and manged to get it to click in there. Well, he fried the RAM and motherboard. Not sure about the proc though... but that's certainly a start.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

i wont harp on you for the immoral and illegal aspects of this because i've broken the law many times (as have most people) and morality is subjective, but asking this question HERE of all places was pretty idiotic. i'll be surprised if you're not banned.

 

[IcemanJer]

<< I accidentally totalled a mobo and CPU by putting the CPU in its socket backwards.

When I put it back in the right way round, it got so hot that it melted itself into the socket, and emitted plenty of smoke in the process. >>

Dude.. how the heck did you manage to stuff the thing BACKWARDS??

 

[Siddhartha]

Pour water on it.