[kochi_hw_club] How to destroy your computer!!!

dear hardware club members,

PLEASE DONT TRY THIS IN YOUR PC!!!!!!


PLEASE DONT TRY THIS AT HOME !!!!!!


PLEASE DONT TRY THIS AT HOME IN YOUR PC!!!!!!



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.......................

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BUT TRY THIS IN  YOUR NEIGHBOURS COMPUTER  :-)



Heres a set of stuff you must be careful while
fiddling with computer hardware


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How To Destroy Your Computer

 

Originally published in Australian Personal Computer
Magazine, January 1998.

 


Many computer users perform their own hardware
upgrades, and a distressing number of these result in
insufficient damage to the system. Destroying your own
computer is every user's right and is the pattern of
behaviour expected by the manufacturers and,
especially, repair personnel, whose very livelihood is
put in peril by those users who perversely persist in
correctly upgrading their equipment.

-----------------------------------

Keep your hair on, people

 

This article will explain to you, the user, 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.
y down.


------------------------------


hope you liked the article 

heres the link
http://www.dansdata.com/sbs3.htm

ever had any such experiences (with ur neighbours pc) 

send it down here..

bye

sameer




                
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