[buckeyerc]

Purely academic, I promise you. I'm in an Advanced PC Repair Class, and we have computers that we have to mess up and then rotate to another computer so we fix them, etc, etc. And while removing hardware, disconnecting RAM, yada yada yada, is common, it's really easy to fix.

I need something really good that nobody can fix their computer unless they know EXACTLY what they're doing. You pass the lab when you boot into windows, so I need to mess them up before that happens. I've altered the boot sequence in BIOS and what not, but that's too easy. I've even installed jumpers on the motherboard to set passwords, but those are easily removable. I need something good. Really good. Open to all ideas EXCEPT FOR: Viruses, physical damage

Deleting part of the registry? Let's do it.
Anything really evil and intense? Yes Please.

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Hello buckeyerc:

We are a Helping Forum I don't believe anyone would ever give any type of negative information, this is however, my personal opinion

[Rediah]

Hello buckeyerc:

We are a Helping Forum I don't believe anyone would ever give any type of negative information, this is however, my personal opinion

[Digerati]

Yeah, I am not in favor of this idea either. While purposely creating or instilling faults for training has been a common practice for decades in learning environments, the faults still need to be practical, and something realistic that might be encountered in the "real world".

Swapping in known bad components is about the only thing you can do, but that, in itself, needs to be done with care and complete understanding of the problem so that the faulty item does not create an unsafe condition for another device. For example, installing a failed power supply could result in an excessive current or voltage situation that could damage a good device it powers. RAM with a short (a drop to zero or near zero resistance) will cause an increase in current (Ohm's Law) if the voltage remains the same and could cause too much current through a motherboard circuit or a device in that circuit. An increase in current will result in an increase in heat, and excessive, will result in permanent damage to a perfectly good device.

While I respect your desire to mess it up good for your fellow students, doing so does NOTHING to help you learn or graduate. I think I would just stick with guidelines provided by your instructor.

[buckeyerc]

I don't think you guys understand my question here... These ARE the instructions from my instructor. That is the purpose of the labs. To enter a kobiyashi maru scenario, to see how you react to stress, and any creative ideas you can come up with. This is more helpful for learning than reading the entire textbook front to back. The purpose is not to permanently disable the computer forever, just to provide a really tricky roadblock.
And by learning how to create these roadblocks, I in turn, learn how to undo them if I ever encounter.

While I respect that you guys are mods, there really is no ill-intent here, as it's a classroom setting and everybody works in groups to solve the problems.

[Digerati]

While I respect that you guys are mods, there really is no ill-intent here, as it's a classroom setting and everybody works in groups to solve the problems.

I did not get the sense of any ill-intent - no worries there. But this is an anonymous forum so we have no way of proving one way or another. And it must be noted that people with bad intent do frequent these forums, something we as mods and regulars strive to prevent. As noted, we are here to help folks with their current computer problems. We don't want one of those mischievous type getting any ideas from any suggestions we may offer.

[rshaffer61]

Also if I can add any suggestion made would be visible to everyone who looks at this topic including as Digerati pointed out the ones who want to cause harm. We cannot in good faith allow that and as already stated we are here to resolve issues not to suggest how to create issues.
Your question though genuine and valid as it may be is just against our Terms Of Use that all members and especially staff, mods and admin adhere to and that is why we pride ourselves on having such a great site for folks.

[buckeyerc]

Okay, understood. Perhaps I need to re-phrase my question.

What is the most difficult thing to overcome when fixing a computer? Exclude viruses, physical damage. Meaning (so I comply with the rules)a task really challenging that you yourself encountered at one point, and what would be your tip to recognizing and fixing it.

[Digerati]

What is the most difficult thing to overcome when fixing a computer?

There's no way to answer that either. Maybe I'm scared of spiders and no way am I going to open that case without a can of RAID! in my hand.

Fixing a computer? That's like asking a mechanic, "How do you fix a car? And you got two paragraphs to answer."

If it was an easy answer, there would not hundreds of "areas of expertise" and there would not be industries within industries within the IT industry!

I think what you should do is spend time in the technical forums and see what type of problems people are running into. I assure you, those of us who "work" these forums helping people, do so because we are CONSTANTLY being exposed to and learning new things - including problems we have never seen before.

[rshaffer61]

To go along with what Digerati posted with the advent of new components always coming into the picture the possibilities of new issues arising always is there.
Just as a example when I started in this field a video card had removable memory and if the video memory was corrupted or faulty you would simply remove it and replace with new memory. Nowadays that does not happen.
Hd's were measured in megs and now gigs and even newer TB's are fast becoming the standard.
PSU's were once 100 to 250 and now there are over 1000 watt PSU's.
Motherboards are a whole list of issues with the advent of SATA, USB, Firewire and Esata
Voltages, Controllers, Timings, Over clocking, IDE, DVI or analog and not to mention the 1000's of issues with the OS's now. On top of all that add in malware and security and you can see it is impossible to say what is the number one way to stop a computer from working.
It use to be hardware or software but now within each of those you have dozens of sub levels of expertise.