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The Perfect Mac Murder

A

Andos

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I need advice on how to commit the perfect Mac murder.

Honestly, I'm sick of it and I've had enough. Time for drastic action!

I work in a workgroup of about a dozen graphics artists/ad makeup people and we have a range of motley machines from an ancient PowerPC 9000 through some tired G3's and a couple of okay G4's.

I've had an IT request for a few new Macs for more than 18 months and yesterday five new G5 machines were delivered to the IT Department. Yes!

Then I found out that they were not for us, but going to other areas and ours were still a year away! 😡

So it's time to take the law into my own hands! I need to "kill" a couple of my older Macs to force them to be replaced.

😎 So what's the best way to do the dirty deed?

Any advice? 🙁
 
Well, I sure recommend that you don't kill them permanently - else you might find yourself using a cheap PC for the next year, or beyond. Removal of the batteries in the motherboards might do the trick - flaky behavior, and (I think) reversible if need be. Better than removing the battery: put a bit of plastic wrap on the contact ends, not visibly, so the batteries are clearly there, but not working. Blame a power surge.

Just don't actually hurt them, OK? If there's no budget for new systems, you're screwed.
 
Put some mangled hard-drives in them (if you've got any)
Remove all the RAM...

Will fool casual observers...

'look, it's completely broken' 🙂
 
Just pull the RAM, and then when they're skipped pull them out (to avoid tax) and sell them on eBay.

and look forward to your new G5.

ahhh, there's nothing like a little fraud to waken the senses.

AppleMatt
 
Something I've done on a PC before. Made a few tiny cuts in an IDE cable and when i got a chance swapped it out with the one in the system. It booted and was working but every 10 seconds it would freeze for a second or so. Ironically where I work we just had this problem with one of our IBMs. Too bad for them I knew what's up and gave them a slower computer. 🙂
 
If you fry the HD or the RAM they might just replace it. You need to wreck something integral to the machine like the CPU or power supply. If the power supply has one of the 110/220v switches you could try switching it over and see if it blows the thing. It would be the perfect crime because you could just throw the switch back and no one would be any the wiser.
 
BTW, whatever you do, I wouldn't do it to all the machines at once, unless it's due to some "power surge" or something. And don't pull the RAM unless your IT guys are complete morons. Subtlety is your friend here.
 
1) Turn off and unplug computer
2) Open computer case
3) Open power supply, be careful, even when unpluged, the capicators hold enough charge to kill you
4) Get a hand full of staples, and dump them on the PSU (but be careful)
5) enjoy shiny new G5s!

but just remember what virividox said.... 😱 😱
 
jsw said:
BTW, whatever you do, I wouldn't do it to all the machines at once, unless it's due to some "power surge" or something. And don't pull the RAM unless your IT guys are complete morons. Subtlety is your friend here.
Click to expand...

Doh! Forgot about the IT guys.

Ours won't touch a Mac with two barge-poles & a pole-vault pole tied together...

It's just a matter of getting over someone from Finance and going 'look, sad mac'
 
Blue Velvet said:
Doh! Forgot about the IT guys.

Ours won't touch a Mac with two barge-poles & a pole-vault pole tied together...
Click to expand...
*chuckle* Yeah, our IT guys are like that too. 😕

Thanks for all the great ideas! 😉
 
I er uh my friend Jimmy Blankenship used to work at a School district Office back when he was in high school.

One day his supervisor was waiting for photoshop to boot up and started cursing.

I er uh.. Jimmy went to lunch, came back and the lead tech was standing there trying to get Jimmy's boss' computer to boot.. "but it was booted before I left," Jimmy said, the boss quickly responded with "The screen just went black."

Jimmy then noticed a computer case screw on the floor, picked it up and caught himself before saying anything, and put it in his pocket.

Jimmy was amazed at what the evidence was pointing to, but still didn't quite believe it until he spotted a green piece of what looked like RAM on the far end of the room from where the computer sat. Not a whole piece of RAM either, it looked like someone had taken his boss' thermos and banged it directly on the motherboard.

Jimmy knew nobody in the building aside from the tech standing in front of him was allowed to open the computers.

After Jimmy's boss got a new computer, he and Jimmy never talked about it again.
 
Too bad you, er, Jimmy couldn't have blackmailed his supervisor into getting a new Mac. 😉
 
How about putting some super glue over the connectors. The first day put a drop over the contacts on the ethernet port. OMG the internet doesn't work! 😱 If they don't catch that the next day open up at case and put some glue on the more system critical items in the computer like the video card.
 
Don't do anything obvious that you couldn't explain. What you need to do is to remove the CPU fan and heat sink, then turn on the unit. It will overheat and kill the processor causing it to look like natural causes.
Glue? Staples? I hope a lot your IT people are blind and deaf.

I know this from many of my days overclocking and losing money. I am surprised that no one suggested C4 and blaming it on someone's dog.
 
Overheating the computer by disabling or taking offf the fan and then putting it back before the IT guys see sounds like a good idea. That seems like the most subtle solution offered so far. You will definitely get a new computer, but you might get stuck with a pc.
 
you know what, I tried a similar thing at school, trying to get rid of our old 500mhz G4, so we could get a faster 800-1ghz G4.

they were upgrading the photoshop lab at our school to DP 1.25ghz G4's, and were getting rid of their 800-1ghz machines. so what we did, was open up the old G4, and started ripping random things off the motherboard... the sad thing is... the damn thing still ran!... perfectly at that! not a single hiccup... unbelieveable. there was like, 10-15 little tiny mobo pieces on the floor.... and it STILL RAN! 😱

anyway, I would try and overheat it, like others have said

but be careful...

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I guess I have never heard of the computer actually catching on fire from overheating processor, but I guess it could happen (with oil or paper inside the unit just hanging out, waiting to be caught on fire).
But that doesn't mean, it can't happen. Just to be safe, when you smell smoke, unplug the unit immediately.
Disabling the fan alone will not cause proper damage to your processor....the heatsink must be removed. This process will take less than 30seconds for the processor to overheat and kill itself.
Most IP people will overlook the processor when determining problems as long as nothing seems to be tempered on the fan and the heatsink. There is no point in looking there since the overheating will hardly ever occur naturally.
 
open window. asphalt below. it fell.

or, i suppose you could remove the hard drive and after backing up 😉 hurl it at the wall repeatedly then put it back in the case.
 
Just remember...

...there's no such thing as the perfect murder.

Because you'll get Columbo turning to you and saying

"there's just one more thing..."
 
Does Columbo know what a computer is??? 😀

I guess I could commit a perfect computer murder, but I will have to know the environment it is in as well as the personel that manage the systems.
 
Andos and his Mac.

When they met, it was moider!






(apologies to Hart to Hart, or maybe they should apologise to us for that dreck) 🙂
 
Pull out the RAM and turn it 90 degrees laterally so that the RAM is backwards in the slot. Put the RAM in, and clamp it on only one side. The RAM will cause an electrical short and start a small fire which if left unchecked will disable part of the motherboard. (At least it did on my old blue and white). When the fire is completed, let the motherboard cool and put the RAM in the right way.
 
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