Easy Ways to Break Your Computer

About ten years ago I decided to buy my first PC. It had a 133MHz processor, 32MB of RAM, and a 2GB hard drive. It was a real speed demon. I remember watching in amazement as a card flipped from the virtual Solitaire deck to the discard pile in a little under two seconds. Wow.

After a few months, staring at the output on my incredibly space-consuming CRT monitor was not enough. I've always loved to take things apart, and this box of goodies was begging to be opened. Because of my extreme lack of knowledge and good old-fashioned common sense, I had no idea the havoc I was about to wreak.

That was my first victim. There have been many, many more since. The good news is, somewhere along the way I actually started to learn how to make a sick computer well, a dead laptop come back to life, and a discarded has-been run almost as fast as the new kids on the block.

With that bit of personal history in mind, I would like to share a few simple ways to break, kill or seriously injure a desktop, laptop or notebook computer, and the lessons I learned after performing the deeds.

Method 1: Leave a Computer Outside During a Rain Storm

Yes, I did this and I'm not proud of it. After buying an older model Compaq desktop at a garage sale, I left it on the porch with plans to clean it before bringing it in the house. It was definitely clean by the time I realized what had happened.

Lesson: Liquids and computer circuitry don't play well together.

Method 2: Stick a Screwdriver in a Running Power Supply

My power supply started making an annoying sound, so I got the bright idea to stop the fan temporarily to see if it would "unstick" whatever was causing the noise. I stuck a small screwdriver in the fan opening and caught one of the blades. What I didn't count on was the force of the fan. The screwdriver slipped out of my hand and was subsequently jammed into the power supply. Not good.

Lesson: Don't touch live circuit boards with metal objects.

Method 3: Step on a Laptop LCD Screen

I love working on older model IBM Thinkpads, and had just purchased a cute little Thinkpad 600X at a sale. For an older model it had a flawless screen. Very vibrant, with no dead pixels or scratches. It was pretty much complete except the keyboard needed to be replaced. While replacing the keyboard, I put the screen face up on the floor beside my chair. Once again, not a good move on my part.

Lesson: Don't lay LCD screens on the floor.

Method 4: Break Transistors or Other Parts off a Motherboard

I've done this more times than I can count. Let's see, I broke a CPU socket once by slipping and jabbing the edge of a screwdriver into it, I broke the plastic retaining clip off the end of a PC memory slot, I short-circuited a motherboard with a vacuum cleaner, I've pushed, bent and snapped off transistors, and last but not least, I've bent the pins and/or contacts on multiple CPUs.

Lesson: If you don't know what you're doing find someone who does.

The moral of this story? Unless you are prepared to brutally murder a few computers along the way, don't even crack open that first case.