Laptop - Inducing hardware failure.

[The Hoff]

Long story short my Mrs has a Packard Bell piece of caRp that is currently suffering from a few issues:

-LCD shows a line of dead pixels from top to bottom.
-Fan bearings on their way, causing overheating.
-Battery is f00ked.
-Loudest laptop in the world.

Anyway when she bought it she took out a 5 year extended warranty (well her ex did) and that comes to an end next April.

The conditions of said warranty mean if it becomes unrepairable (I expect uneconomical) they will replace it or give PC World vouchers for a product of at least her current spec which would be an improvement on the current. From where I'm sitting the laptop is worth optimistically £200 and I know via working in IT that even LCD panels are in the region of £400-600.

However, to avoid the risk of them replacing parts, how can I accidentally make it less reliable/b0rk it. I've already considered taping up all the ventilation and running something like Prime95 but I'd expect a thermal ceiling to cause it to shutdown.

Anybody know a good way of breaking one without tipping liquids into it and causing visible damage?

Curious problem and of course purely hypothetical!

 

[Harry182]

microwave it?!!

 

[The Hoff]

lmfao!

It's not the most dainty of laptops though, would have to be a big laptop.

Was wondering about updating the BIOS but then swithing it off before it's reflashed, that should screw it over hopefully.

Welcome some more ideas though

 

[Harry182]

Install Vista, that should f**k it up!

 

[Dave S2K]

*ATTENTION *

Make sure there are no cocktail sticks stopping said dodgy fans from rotating as this could cause overheating of important chips.

 

[Jay_clio]

open it up, and damage the inside, do what you have to do

 

[Harry182]

I've got a 2 year old dell laptop that lives in the same cupbord as my cocktail sticks. If said sticks fell over and stopped said fan, would i get a new one under my 3 yrs plan thingy...

 

[The Hoff]

I have a ahem...friend trying that shortly before posting this, but it didn't have he desired effect as it shut down when it realised the cpu fan stopped spinning....grrrr.

Jay, I'm not going to open it, don't want any signs of tampering or even wear on the screwheads.

 

[The Hoff]

Masking tape all vents - check.

 

[Gumby]

Set the power button to immediate off, then "upgrade" the bios and accidentally press it

If it gets too hot it's always gonig to turn itself off...