Earlier we posted two videos from Lenovo's official YouTube channel that showed people doing horrific things to a ThinkPad T400s. Running over your computer with a DOW truck or leaving them out to feel the full effects of a tornado isn't really something you can do by accident but it got us thinking about all the horrible things that have happened to our computers.
Jane: I used to work in a computer repair place so we got a ton of b0rked laptops. In one week we got water damage (which we fixed), a "sticky substance" which the customer insisted was beer but definitely wasn't (fixed) and "a roof fell on it," which we also fixed. On the Friday afternoon we got a lady on the phone who kept saying "something spilled on it" but she wouldn't say what. Considering the week we'd had, I said, "Trust me, we've heard it all. Just tell us what happened and we'll arrange a collection." Her answer? "My cat peed on it." I lied and said we couldn't take apart something like that because it might be a biohazard but really, I just didn't want to clean cat pee off of someone's mobo, which might not even work anyway. Yuck.
Marcus: Wow, it's been a while since I've seen anyone make use of the word "b0rked." Anyway, aside from the horrific hard drive crashes or power supplies gone bad, nothing terrible has happened to any of my desktop or laptops. I've never set myself on fire while shooting for an ambitious overclock (though the night is still young). So in this case, I'll defer to one of the most unique and interesting cases of notebook damage that I've ever heard of. As you can tell from Jane's story above, people get the weirdest things spilled on their laptops... and so, here's a reason why not to let your girlfriend come near your computer.
Tuan: Well, the worst thing that ever happened, happened to a PC I was using that wasn't really mine. [laughter] It wasn't loaned to me because I was writing a review at the time. I was reviewing a CPU at the time, and literally fried it. The CPU actually went up in smokes. As far as something happened to my PC? The worst thing is probably accidentally shorting out my power supply and then causing an electrical fire. I was plugging in a 3.5-inch drive power cable. Somehow, there was a short. The cable sparked and lit up in flames, also causing a burn to my hand at the same time--and damage to the system.
The question of the day is: What's the worst thing that ever happened to your PC?