Windows Leave your ethics at home

My nephew is stuck with an old PIII 733 running ME. It's not the greatest platform for current games, shall we say...

He has the savings to buy a new one (actually has loads more cash than I do!), but his dad wont let him buy a new one. He's making excuses that simply dont hold water, like 'we can get one when we move house' - they have been threatening to move house for 3 years but it will never happen.

My nephew has moaned, pleaded, begged, whined, campaigned, bribed... but to no avail... he even prepared a business case to impress his Dad - he barely even read it.

So he told me that he is thinking about sabotaging the old machine in some way to hurry the process along. Now it would be unethical for me to encourage him in this, but in the interests of research, what would be the best way to sabotage the machine.

It would need to look like the latest in inevitable decline of the machine. Ideally a range of little 'tweaks' that could be applied would be most effective. And he would need something that hinted to a longer-term problem rather than something that would be quickly fixed by a re-install of Windows.

Interestingly the real world is playing it's part. They've just got broadband but can't use Skype (wont install), MSN 7 wont install, nor can they roll back to MSN 6. But I think he'd like to speed the process up a little.

Any suggestions?

What about nobbling the hardware in some way... how would you (theoretically speaking) corrupt the HDD without actually screwing it completely.

Obviously, a youngster taking such a synical approach is a shame, but I blame it on the parents. When the Dad said no to a new sofa, the mum cut a number of springs on the sofa over a period of time!

The ultimate irony is that the Dad bought a decent laptop for the 17 yr old daughter a year ago which is solely used for MSN Messenger and shite MP3 music... What a waste!

 

you could tell him to load it up with adware/crapware, just download loads of stuff like Cool Web Search toolbar and stuff like that.

Maybe give the hard drive a firm whack if you really want the whole thing to die!

 

take a screw driver open up the case, unclip one end of your ram sticks and lift it just out of the slot. If he bothers to open it up it won't look like there's anything missing but your PC will no longer boot, just beep a lot.

Say your stumpted as to what the problem is... probably your mother board... so you may as we'll get that upgrade you'vr been talking about.....

OR....

If set both the jumpers on your harddisk and your CD drive to slave (if there both on the same IDE channel) that will stop one, other or both of them from working!!

 

you could download munga bungas hard drive killer pro. It's a fairly evil program that should wipe the drive in a few seconds flat, it'll stay in memory so no matter how many times he reboots he wont be able to re-install an o/s. Only powering off would remove the program. It may also destroy the hdd. But that's just an excuse to buy a new one, with the new computer.


The other option would consist of turning off the paging file, & start filling up the hard drive various large files.

Or you could remove the processor's heatsink/fan. They tend not to like that after only a few minutes - your board / processor should be totally fried & will certainly require a brand new computer!

 

Magnets.
I think you know where I'm going with this.

 

Don't know what Voltage they provide in the UK, but over here in Belgium we have 230V. And, usually old PC's have a cool switch on the back witch states 110/220V... Try setting it to 110V... And, of course, let someone else power up the PC

 

Christ, if the guys stupid enough to fork out on a shiny laptop which is only going to be used for messenger etc, then just take the CPU out or something. Sound like he wouldn't notice...oh or magnets.

 

Why do I get the feeling you have all done this before??

 

Well, knowing how much the guy knows about computers would help! Underclock the processor so that it runs super slow. F*** up the mouse so it seems like its not working properly.

Or best thing I think is to break the graphics card so that funny graphics appear on screen!

 

Underclocking...the newest fad in computer modding! Lmao.

Why not just talk to his dad, he is your brother is he not? (If he is your nephew...)

That would seem like a better solution..otherwise I'd go with a combination of the top ones:

Lift the ram out a bit
Change the powersupply voltage
Slave the harddrive
Lift the graphics card out a little bit too

Regards,

 

find a piezo igniter (used in gas-units and some lighters) and connect two wires to it. Place the wires on various places on the mobo and GFX card and click away (same as killing stuff with ESD)

it's quick, clean and untraceable.

if you are lucky things won't just die, they will just act very wierd.

 

Load Windows ME onto the machine. That should cause enough problems for anyone to want a new one.

Oh wait, it's already there. So whats the problem?

 

Loosen the CMOS battery... no permanent damage but annoying as hell to mess around with settings and resetting the clock every time you boot.

 

Hit the computer againest your (brothers?) head several times. This will either cause the computer to break or for your "dad" problem to go away. Either way result = new PC.

 

Install linux on it! *pour petrol over self*

 

Unhook the power button?
Disable ******** loads of stuff in BIOS
Wedge something in the fan 'Holy ********, whats that noise?'
Put broken glass in the CD drive
Rig the reset button with some funky circuit that makes it reset every 3 minuites
Unplug USB connectors (if possible)
Delete every registry item you can
Put loads of icons on the desktop

 

Already suggested - magnets on the harddisk
Get a "2/3/4/5B" pencil and draw in some lines connecting the legs of the ram on the graphics card - it'll short the ram and youll get perminant graphical corruption. Do the same on the system ram.
Remove the heatsink from CPU, "lay" it on the bottom so it looks like it fell off, DONT unplug the fan cause that's obvious as it sounds wrong from the outside.
As said - underclock it heavily, or remove as much ram as possible if it's more than 1 stick.
Dont ******** with the PSU - the chance of you seriously injuring yourself or worse, your family is extremely high.
Take out the motherboard and cut a few traces in the back of it, then put it back in - noone will know unless you physically take the motherboard out again which sounds like it wont happen.

Screwing with the mobo = more chance because replacing an AGP/P3 mobo is not gonna happen.

Remember if they find out you did it the first time (underclock or remove ram - the soft options) then theyll suspect you doing it again so you need to get it right first time.

OT: Daddys little girl if you ask me: Under the thumb.

 

Remind me to never let any of you near my computers...

0_o..



Regards,

 

Send Bigz round to have a look - his touch kills anything.

 

That reminds me of Peter Griffin.. "I must remember not to go to the bathroom.."

^^

Regards,