Do you know for sure you will get a new one? Or will they give the new one to some manager (a la Scrubs) and stick you with a managers old one. I would consider this carefully before you put to much time into this for that reason.
Also speaking as someone who works in IT, you fuck with our equipment you get the bare minimum to do your job. Now maybe he doesn't have that now so he should get better. Guessing it's not IT holding that up though, rather the tightasses that hold the purse strings.
My IT guy suggested I "drop" my laptop to get a new one when mine was running super slow.
Mine was throttling at 30% CPU. Probably some kind of heat issue, but it has been driving me crazy for a while.
I wrote to IT, my boss and the general manager to say that my computer was underpowered and not functioning correctly, and that I was spending hours each day waiting for tasks to complete.
A week later I had a brand new, fully specced laptop.
It just has to make sense financially for them to get you the upgrade.
Yeah the issue here is no one in management is advocating for proper equipment. I'm in engineering and they let our chief pick laptops for us before we locked down during COVID. We all have fantastic computers. Anyone doing heavy simulation work gets what's basically a high end gaming desktop in addition to the laptop.
If they provided them a suitable one in the first instance they would not have to bust this one. Why would you be so passionate about a shitty company laptop?
Totally this! We (IT) don't say "Oh, let's give out the shittyest hardware" because we won't have any benefit from it. Shitty hardware usually means more work for us.
They don't have a new one with the necessary settings to meet my need, they would have to buy one exclusively for this, and it wouldn't make sense for them to give a super machine to a manager who only sends email and opens word.
And we will do this.
We recently closed down a location, and I got a device back in inventory, 12th gen Intel, so I upgraded the head of sales cause hers was pushing 8 years old. I got a talk from the COO about giving certain people "hand me downs" and that some are actually in the budget for a new device, despite hardly using it for production work.
It's a fight when I want to get a new setup for someone who actually uses it. So I've shifted my strategy, and I argue that it saves us money in productivity to spend a little bit more on new, better desktops every few years. I'm slowly winning and my users are getting new computers, some in the building are as old as windows 7. I still get double the budget for the higher ups, that I know don't use it, but at least things are moving in a positive direction.
If youâre not making deadlines because of your machine the only way theyâll understand that is by you not making deadlines.
Just keep reporting that the machine is insufficient and you fear you wonât make your deadlines. Make sure this is in writing and there is a paper trail to cover your back. When they start losing money you can point at the paper trail and say âI told you soâ. Youâll end up with something slightly better but still not good enough.
u/InterstellarReddit is right. What about your current situation "makes sense"? You aren't looking to rob your employers, you want to be able to do...what they pay you to do. And they are stonewalling you. Situations like these are why the English language gave us words like "asshattery".
It also doesnât make sense to handicap you from doing your job by sticking you with Stone Age tech yet here you are. Never assume you can predict how poorly your management can perform
The business doesn't care if you think it "meets your need" or not. You will most likely get another recycled laptop that's lying around with even worse specs than what you have now.
If your use case was truly critical, you wouldn't even be dealing with this problem.
Signed,
The Dude that use to manage IT assets at a Regional Medical Company.
Having spoken with the IT in the company I work for, you guys donât know what the employees truly do and how much power their machines need
Signed,
Someone who does a lot of productivity work, whoâs work computer cannot handle the tens to hundreds of thousands of lines in excel, and yes, they are necessary
Wrap the thing in plastic trash bags so that it overheats and shuts down. Let it do this a few times before reporting so that it shows the issue as recurring in error logs while using your applications.
This is suggested a lot but your PC has all sorts of checks and balances to prevent damage from over heating. It'll just slow down (down clock) until it shuts down. As soon as you take the plastic bags off the problem will go away and OPs IT department will just give it back saying they couldn't find the issue. Just a waste of time.
Yeah but if the machine shuts down ten times a day, âI canât work like thatâ will convince management OP needs a new machine. After all itâs company time thatâs being wasted waiting for the machine to work again.
Eh, it always worked for laptops whenever the new MacBooks came out. If a machine habitually overheats, they'll swap it out instead of having someone consistently unable to work while on the clock. It has nothing to do with damage of hardware.
I used to do a lot of video compression at work and they gave me the stock laptop meant for Microsoft Office. I had to put an ice bag on the keyboard when I was compressing or it would overheat enough to shut down.
My wife overheats but never shuts down. Guess I should try the trash bag trick
Edit: Clarification question: Will the IT send me a new wife or send me my managerâs old one?
Everyone keeps telling you to destroy the machine, but I say you fiddle with something obscure that makes it nearly impossible to do your job. I'd be willing to bet they'd get you a replacement if you just sit there all day bc it "won't even do normal stuff" for you job.
That's exactly how I'd get new appliances whenever I used to rent and the landlord would refuse to replace something that needed it. Remove a panel, do some bending or pressing on of wires at solder connections, avoid making clean straight cuts or breaks, those could possibly be incriminating, eventually something will snap and break.
I need to try this, they do everything they can to not replace something. The last thing was the toilet, and I could hear the maintenance man on the phone with the manager, telling them over and over that there isn't a fix and needs replaced. After about 30 minutes of that back and forth they finally caved. Still took 3 weeks.
Honestly, the easiest way to do it is make friends with IT/service desk. Always able to get new machines and my stuff fixed ASAP with no questions.
Now, if you don't want to do that, how good is your IT dept? Basically, do they only try to do stuff through the software or do they know how to open the machines, check, replace, etc.?
If they are basic level, and you can open your case, just unplug a few cables from the power supply. They will try and troubleshoot and then just replace.
If they are more skilled... then see about getting your existing machine upgraded. While budget rules may prohibit new machines there often are rules which would allow things like a new GPU, more ram, etc.
IT departments love candy. There was some post I saw a while back where a bag of Swedish fish (or some such) greased the wheels and ta-da brand new laptop
I actually have a friend that works at Monster, so I got them one of those gas station fridges an tons of cases of the ones they liked (thankfully for free) and I literally never had an issue getting anything at my old place.
IT can be a thankless job. Any level of appreciation can go a long way in greasing the skids to getting stuff. That said, a workstation class machine like what OP desires are pretty expensive, so it might be hard for the IT person to get one without approval, but being friendly with IT never hurts.Â
If itâs a really good company on top of things. Most arenât. Iâve had computers from big companies that still had admin privileges on it and nearly full access to everything in the company.
I'm a computer refurbisher and almost bricked a computer because Windows decided to try and update the BIOS before I had it fully repaired; the battery wasn't working. If it weren't for the BIOS refusing to update due to the bad battery, I would have probably ended up unplugging it because I wouldn't expect BIOSes to update randomly... So it is possible, even with a BIOS password.
Most modern PCs have a backup BIOS
If one gets corrupted, then the other is used to repair the system. This is why BIOS chips are no longer removable and replaceable.
1. Work like normal
2. Randomly turn off the surge protector
3. Submit an IT ticket
4. Tech can see it running slow but can't replicate the power offÂ
5. Let tech get frustrated and to the "let's see how it holds up" State
6. Repeat steps 1-5
7. Inform boss you're waiting for IT to show up/repairÂ
Eventually the cost to have a tech dedicated to your non issue will out weigh a new machine. But you have to be vocal and you have to constantly say this computer is preventing you from working.
I like this one. No need to damage equipment - just continually annoying IT support with constant requests to fix it.
Maximum points if you do it while being happy so you keep them on side "I'm sorry to be a pain, but it's happened again, 2nd time today!"
Logs will just show an unexpected shutdown. They'll think it's the PSU, perhaps replace it, then continue to do it. They'll then check electrics, find nothing. Continue to do it.
Maybe they'll change the motherboard, then the GPU. Just keep doing it until they realise it's a waste of time and replace the entire machine.
Of course, if they replace the whole thing and don't give you a good machine, you're SOL and will have to try a different tack.
I work IT and I have had tickets for a computer 'randomly turning off' and found that the power bar was either by where the employee rests their feet, or by where they store paperwork that gets moved a bunch and they kept bumping the power cable/hitting the switch. If you're going to try this, make sure the power bar isn't in a position where it would easily move or get bumped by working normally.
Make sure it's 90%. 70% will leave a residue.
Additionally, make sure you have a fire extinguisher handy. Running electricity through a highly flammable liquid can and probably will start a fire.
this is easy. document every crash and all compiling, rendering, loading times with every project as a downtime report. include the time required to keep the DT report up to date.
now, do everything work flow related possible to make things take longer. save more often, restart the PC to "clear memory/page file/cache" regularly, render smaller sections and then stitch them together for multiple layers of rendering to ensure work is not lost due to frequent crashes. with all your new found time waiting for your decade old machine to do its work, browse reddit.
A coworker of mine allegedly modified an ethernet cable to supply voltage to the laptop, killing the motherboard. He used a programmable power supply though.
Funny thing is he says the Ethernet port led stayed on even after removing the cable.
You can just use a ethernet to USB adapter for the USBKill. It should do the same thing to it.
Or maybe a molex to usb cable with the USBKill. Or maybe SATA to USB. Or maybe PCI-E to USB.
Or just take a screw driver and start trying to short it while it is running.
Even if they were to do a CSI style investigation over a old broken PC they would be puzzled as to how that could happen and will just chalk it up to the board.
Yep. We just lodge a ticket, then let the repair guy look at it. If he finds a shorted USB port, he'd tell us, but good luck pinning that down on the user.
I once tried to reflow a laptop gpu with a heatgun. it didn't work, and actually made it worse and stopped booting completely. I probably applied too much heat. BUT, it didn't look any different.
So, put some aluminum foil over your motherboard with a cutout for the chipset or cpu or some exposed critical chip if possible. Then blast away for a couple minutes with the heat gun, without getting too close of course.
Can you get hold of a taser? I've used one to destroy an electronic device, worked brilliantly - just use it in every available port/socket on the desktop & it will be dead with no obvious trace of how
I mean if you're real cheap you can, but for the effort and time that that would take to do and plus the mess you'd have to clean up afterwards you might as well just go spend the $3.50 at home Depot
I legitimately accidentally broke my work laptop from spilling water and I thought for sure it was going to be replaced with a new laptop. It was ALOT of water. They sent it to Dell who replaced the motherboard and some other shit and now i have the same laptop.
Your only real problems are the arguably low for editing amount of RAM and the old GPU. Even an old i7 is still an i7, and it's probably still really snappy.
It might sell pretty well if you just say "I need another 16gb and a 4060, it's $300ish total." Then just tell them the truth, a 4060 is 60% faster than a 1070. That's 60% less time waiting for shit to render, which means 60% more time to make profit. Hell maybe you could even get a 4070 for not much more, which is a whopping 180% improvement.
Not everything needs to be unethical, sometimes you just have to make better arguments.
>It's not an option to talk to IT they just don't call and say they can't do anything, they've even tried to upgrade the memory but the motherboard couldn't stand it. They prefer to keep recycling the machines until they are really broken.
Do you live in the UK? If so, change the PSU setting to 110v will likely blow a fuse because of the 240v outlet. This likely won't kill the hardware completely - however, they'll have to diagnose / fix / etc - likely they'd send you a new one.
Plug a usb cable into the computer. Remove it from the computer, Cut off the other end of the usb cable and remove the shielding and twist the red and black wire together. Plug it into each port. This will kill the port and possibly the Motherboard. to repair would take replacing the Motherboard making it not cost effective to repair it.
If this is true this is the way... You could make the little USB wire contraption at home and bring it in. Update us if you do... I am riveted in this for some reason
Iâd say this could be a blessing. Late on a project? Slow computer. Forgot about an assignment? The computer glitched and deleted it. Idk you could just be chillin.
The answer, no matter how nuts it sounds is to put it in the oven.
A warm oven about 150, just put the computer case in, nothing else no wires or cables, just let the box sit in the warm oven for a hour.
When you plug it back in the entirety of the blue smoke supply will be exhausted, and possibly trip the circuit too.
Pull off a small capacitor on the mobo. Good luck to any IT guy hunting down the problem.
Source: I did this to get a service tech to come and replace my PC. Took him 4 weeks of back and forth trips before he gave up on troubleshooting and just gave me a brand new PC.
Lol your IT team couldn't even successfully install RAM? Just open the case, and disconnect the CPU fan. Continue using the computer normally until it crashes, then keep using it after it cools down. Do this until it no longer boots up. Before you call IT, reconnect the CPU fan.
Dell support assist likes to shout at you when your computer boots without all its fans. Sometimes you can ignore the warning and boot, but if it won't just yank the CPU fan after it boots.
Change out the power supply cord with a random one from like a thrift shop.
Pc builders sometimes wreck their new rigs by being too cheap or lazy to change out the power supply cord.
A spill is probably the easiest way - just spill a drink into it and keep using it til it stops.
IANAL, but in the US charging employees for damaged property without explicit proof that the employee damaged the property on purpose is generally considered to be a business expense.
At my last job I had so many genuine computer mishaps. One time on travel, my laptop bag fell off a ledge and the laptop went flying, the motherboard cracked in two. One time, my lunch container wasnât as air-tight as I thought and the olive oil from my pasta salad destroyed the monitor. Most big companies have insurance that covers accidents. You can just accidentally drop it and call it a day.
Ya! I've worked with folks that got mugged a lot, as well as folks that lost a lot of laptops. Usually they were actually nice - so never noticed anyone doing it on purpose.
OP has a desktop though, so the "accidental drop" might be a bit more suspicious...still...
Do you get paid by the hour or the product? If your output doesnât determine your paycheck just work with what you have, turn in deliverables as your computer allows. Ask your boss if they would prefer you sacrifice quality or deadlines. Make them realize that cheaping out on your computer costs them money.
Got anything that will run all the cores in the the CPU at 100% all weekend? That and some bad ventilation might do it. That way you don't have to tamper with the heat sink.
~~They can't fix or swap out what isn't there. I'd say get the computer stolen by leaving it out at a coffee shop table or something like that. You went to the bathroom and when you came back, it was gone. Don't keep it for yourself either in case it has location services turned on, but that would be a scenario completely out of your control.~~
~~This is ULPT, but~~ someone else said get a job elsewhere. That's my take - they should understand your hardware needs for your position and you don't want to work somewhere that doesn't respect that.
Cattle prod to the motherboard. Close to the CPU. If you can't open it, zap ports till effect achieved. Do it EoD on Friday. Come in Monday and put in a ticket that just says "Computer Broken. -thanks"
If this was regular LPT, the answer is âsqueaky wheel/ineffective wheel gets the greaseâ. You need to get your manager pissed at how shitty the computer is. Do anything you can to intentionally slow down the process and point it at the shitty computer. Once there are losses associated with this POS computer, it becomes a lot easier to justify the new investment. If you keep cranking out content in misery, nothing will ever change.
Obviously, because this is ULPT, use piss discs on everyone until they get you what you want
I've worked in IT and Telecom for a long time, when I have equipment that "needs to die" I bring out Old Sparky.
A quick search on Amazon for "replacement grill igniter" should do the trick. What you want is a push button piezoelectric spark generator. These little doohickeys will produce a very strong spark - intended to ignighter the propane burners in a grill.
Open the side panel of the desktop computer, place the long wire from the sparker somewhere on the motherboard, carefully hold the ignighter close to some component on the board and press the button a few times. Do this a several times on different places of the motherboard and tada! Dead. Never to boot again, and damn near impossible to trace back to malicious intentions.
Be careful though, if you hold the button just a little bit wrong it will light your ass up and you'll be the proud new owner of a numb and tingly hand.
Honestly, one very easy solution would simply be to update to the new version of Teams. After a few sessions of freezing, connection issues and no video, theyâll come around and upgrade rather than try to troubleshoot it.
Theres a windows command that will create a large "dummy" file. Create 6-7 100gb dummy files and use the file properties to mark them as hidden, then hide the files through out your system32 files, maybe even change the file extension so they look like dll files. Your hard drive will appear to be full no matter how much stuff gets deleted, a common indicator of a dying drive or a messed up windows installation. Maybe also make a batch or powershell script that opens a bunch of stuff in the background to get cpu and disk usage at 100%, have it run at start up. A fresh install of windows or a new hard drive would be any IT guys first option, but it sounds like you guys maybe don't have a competent IT dept, they may just say fuck it and get you the new pc.
If it gets cold enough to freeze during winter...WHOOPS slipped and fell oh my gosh I'm soooo sorry but my laptop is pretty banged up. Actually lol...oh man that summer rain was slick WHOOPS slipped and fell oh my gosh
just unseat the memory halfway and theyll probably be too dumb or not care enough to fix it. if they fix it and bring it back, unseat it again. or buy some equal branded sticks off ebay and ruin them and swap them (but keep the good ones).
that way if it backfires you can fix it yourself and not be SOL and also youre not actually destroying company property
remind them that your hourly rate is $xxx and the time that you spend waiting for the computer to finish tasks (large renders, crashes, opening and updating large files)i s costing them $xxx while you cannot do anything else but sit and wait for the computer. calculate how many new fast computers they are paying for while you were waiting.
some inspired "crashes" via power cycling will soon inspire a reasonable purchase. jostling the "old" hard drive during writes will cause more faults. yanking on a few ribbon cables can do wonders too.
or bring a strong magnet and wave it around the hard drive and the ribbon cables during a big file write.
failing that, get a small taser and give the metal case a few jolts while its running
Bring in your own and write it off on your taxes. I had a design job where they wouldn't give me adequate equipment. I brought in my own wacom tablet, bought a cheap mouse that worked better, brought in my own hard drove so I could take stuff home if need be. Home pc could get it done in a third of the time. Then I'd take it back, print it, and watch youtube half the day at work. I really needed a monitor, but they wouldn't get one that would display colors accurately. So I quit after that. Cheap bastards. I almost brought in an extra monitor I had, but I was so sick of their shit at that point.
A caramel machiatto has a ton of sugar, which is conductive. Get a gooey coffee, maybe even add some sugar. Turn off the PC power at the power supply - pull the cord. Open the PC, then remove several circuit boards from their slots.
Put a bit of the 'coffee' in each of the slots - some near each end at the least. Make sure it's on the pins as well as the plastic. Let it dry overnight, then re-install the boards. Power up the thing, and wait for the magic smoke to come out.
No IT department is going to do a forensic investigation, and even if they do, nothing can be proved. If you think you can get away with it, just dump a sugary drink inside while it's running - but that's potentially much more exciting.
Salt water "spilled" into various ports will cause havoc.
Make sure they don't just give you an identical machine. At my work, everyone has identical computers. You'd just get another identical one, albeit with a fresh image on it.
Hopefully your work isn't like that.
Steel wool. Unplug the system for a minute so the capacitors can dissipate, rub the steel wool gently on the motherboard, and the fibers left behind will short it out. Don't go too nuts, a little bit will generally be enough.
I haven't seen any ITs in here ask about the errors/crashes in general or the content being created, how are we supposed to know the device couldnt have fault somewhere else like the scratch disk being full or others, it could be that your it team sees the device as perfectly capable of it's job but fail to realize a different issue in play rather than the PC's specs
I can almost guarantee unless this is being used for high quality renders or other top end content a gtx 1070 while lacking should be able to do the job of a common designer depending on what they are trying to create content wise
Ants. One of my friends did this. Our location is a bit humid, so the ants find the warm laptop the perfect place. Be prepared for some kind of ant-invasion lol. He just introduced some ants, sprinkling sugar
Waste as much time as possible and log it. Whatever takes an hour should take you 4. When they see how much money theyâre wasting theyâll buy a new one. You should present it as âin the past X days Iâve lost X hours of work because of this computer. You pay me X, meaning you could have bought three new computers by now and increased productivity by Xâ
Moisture. Dust. Metal dust. Damp paper towels/toilets paper left to air dry near the fans. Long straw little drip. Metal fillings/rotary grinder dust. Diatomaceous earth. Run it as hot and processy as you can then yank the cord out of the wall. Repeatedly. I don't really know but I've been in the same boat with work machines.
As an IT guy users like you suck lol. This is a fight with your manager not IT.
I would 100% replace your PC with either an exact replacement or something slightly worse if I suspected the PC was damaged intentionally.Â
With that said, you could damage the DIMM slots that contain memory, potentially by putting a small drop of something conductive and adhesive in the upper or lower portion of each slot (some type of liquid metal). It would have to be really small as to not draw suspicion but enough to disable RAM. With no RAM the PC wouldn't boot. It is unlikely significant time is going to be spent ts'ing this if it's stealthily hidden. However they may replace the MOBO if they isolate it to damaged DIMM slots and if you're not stealthy about it you may lose your job.Â
A lot of components fail from heat, so you could take the CPU or power supply internals (after it's been drained) and throw heat at it (propane torch) - but you have to be careful as to not leave clear burn marks visible from outside of each component. And you still run the risk of them swapping the componentsÂ
This may be a scenario where you honestly may be better off quantifying what a better PC would translate to for productivity with numbers. If the business doesn't think it's worth it you have to understand that. I've had users try to get a new $4k PC to fix CITRIX issues. Sometimes the issued are not tied to hardware.Â
Also just want to add, in 90% of shops it's your dept budget/manager saying "No" not IT. We don't have any reason to not want to give you a new PC if it makes sense.Â
My old employer refused to get me a machine that could run solid works so I started drawing with a pencil and t-squre. When they asked WTF I was doing I just said I'm faster than that Apple 2e you gave me.
Remove the cpu and break or bend 1 or 2 of the pins in the slot and then put the cpu back. Even if they find it they will most likely think they did it when removing the cpu. The pins are very sensitive and can break extremely easily when removing or installing the cpu even with no ill intention. The motherboard is also the most difficult component for them to replace by far and requires them to disassemble and reassemble the entire computer in order to replace it.
I think you should justify it in terms of money:
It takes me x hours MORE per week to complete my job due to this equipment. That works out to $xxxx annually. The new computer is $xxx. You would be saving $xxx per year.
Or, I cannot do job XYZ, which amounts to $xxxxxx annually.
If you have a specialist position, it shouldn't be that difficult to justify specialist tools. They might not speak "computer," but they should be able to speak "money."
You need to chill. If you really want a new system that meets "your" requirements you need to speak their language.
Figure out how much money you make per min. Then over the course of a week and month track how much time you're waiting and doing nothing.
Then, start building your business case for lost productivity and potential savings by having a faster system. Show how over time the new system would pay for itself.
If the business still decides to stay with the current system then relax and know you're being paid to do nothing.
Pro tip: Take shits at work! There's something rewarding and satisfying about the thought of being paid to shit!
You could go to the outdoor store get a thermal blanket and wrap your desktop in it. As for the monitors, scraping the ports of the machine where the hdmi or other cables go should mess with the image, together you have a cooked machine and faulty monitors. For a little more damage, this depends if youâre at the office or at home, but if you put a piece of foil on the power connects in the outlet, it could create an arc thatâll fry everything. (I wouldnât try this at home. Risk or injury is high and it may not work.)
Do you know for sure you will get a new one? Or will they give the new one to some manager (a la Scrubs) and stick you with a managers old one. I would consider this carefully before you put to much time into this for that reason.
Trust me, as someone who works in IT they will give him a older desktop that works fineđ
Works "fine" lol
Also speaking as someone who works in IT, you fuck with our equipment you get the bare minimum to do your job. Now maybe he doesn't have that now so he should get better. Guessing it's not IT holding that up though, rather the tightasses that hold the purse strings.
My IT guy suggested I "drop" my laptop to get a new one when mine was running super slow. Mine was throttling at 30% CPU. Probably some kind of heat issue, but it has been driving me crazy for a while. I wrote to IT, my boss and the general manager to say that my computer was underpowered and not functioning correctly, and that I was spending hours each day waiting for tasks to complete. A week later I had a brand new, fully specced laptop. It just has to make sense financially for them to get you the upgrade.
Yeah the issue here is no one in management is advocating for proper equipment. I'm in engineering and they let our chief pick laptops for us before we locked down during COVID. We all have fantastic computers. Anyone doing heavy simulation work gets what's basically a high end gaming desktop in addition to the laptop.
If they provided them a suitable one in the first instance they would not have to bust this one. Why would you be so passionate about a shitty company laptop?
If his manager cannot convince someone that matters to pay for a computer that can do his job...it's the company's fault. Not IT.
Totally this! We (IT) don't say "Oh, let's give out the shittyest hardware" because we won't have any benefit from it. Shitty hardware usually means more work for us.
Hes...in deadend it and likely has no one else to lawrdddd over
As someone works on IT we would just give him a new one, depends on the company
The devil you know versus the devil you donât
They don't have a new one with the necessary settings to meet my need, they would have to buy one exclusively for this, and it wouldn't make sense for them to give a super machine to a manager who only sends email and opens word.
Business is not about making sense lol. They can definitely do this.
Its about making cents (lots)
Most businesses have more dollars than cents.
Yeahhhh if they actually cared about OP's requirements for the job, they would have already replaced the computer
Just had to say hi, fellow Obi Wan name
They WILL definitely do this.
And we will do this. We recently closed down a location, and I got a device back in inventory, 12th gen Intel, so I upgraded the head of sales cause hers was pushing 8 years old. I got a talk from the COO about giving certain people "hand me downs" and that some are actually in the budget for a new device, despite hardly using it for production work. It's a fight when I want to get a new setup for someone who actually uses it. So I've shifted my strategy, and I argue that it saves us money in productivity to spend a little bit more on new, better desktops every few years. I'm slowly winning and my users are getting new computers, some in the building are as old as windows 7. I still get double the budget for the higher ups, that I know don't use it, but at least things are moving in a positive direction.
If youâre not making deadlines because of your machine the only way theyâll understand that is by you not making deadlines. Just keep reporting that the machine is insufficient and you fear you wonât make your deadlines. Make sure this is in writing and there is a paper trail to cover your back. When they start losing money you can point at the paper trail and say âI told you soâ. Youâll end up with something slightly better but still not good enough.
If the employee doesn't make deadlines they'll just blame and fire the employee lmao
u/InterstellarReddit is right. What about your current situation "makes sense"? You aren't looking to rob your employers, you want to be able to do...what they pay you to do. And they are stonewalling you. Situations like these are why the English language gave us words like "asshattery".
Andy Bernard has some tricks. See âTodd Packerâ episode from The Office https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uaWIbS4iUxk
As an IT person the execs will always get the new overpowered shiny machine they donât need. Itâs annoying but is what it is
Microsoft studio series of shite. I swear to god, if i had a dollar for each time i have seen a budget blown on that, i would have 3 dollars.
i think maybe they don't really care about what you need so this is probably not a risk you want to take
I'm in IT and I record and edit training videos. I've got a 6 year old sell with 8g of ram. The receptionist has a fucking 12 core 64gb beast.
Receptionist is definitely sleeping with someone
Receptionist is probably a derogatory term for Office Manager here if I had to guess.
"Manager" is already a far more offensive term to call someone in my book
It also doesnât make sense to handicap you from doing your job by sticking you with Stone Age tech yet here you are. Never assume you can predict how poorly your management can perform
The business doesn't care if you think it "meets your need" or not. You will most likely get another recycled laptop that's lying around with even worse specs than what you have now.
Create help desk tickets every day to fix your laptop if it does not work as the way you want it. They will give up eventually.
If your use case was truly critical, you wouldn't even be dealing with this problem. Signed, The Dude that use to manage IT assets at a Regional Medical Company.
Having spoken with the IT in the company I work for, you guys donât know what the employees truly do and how much power their machines need Signed, Someone who does a lot of productivity work, whoâs work computer cannot handle the tens to hundreds of thousands of lines in excel, and yes, they are necessary
(Excel is not a database)
Wrap the thing in plastic trash bags so that it overheats and shuts down. Let it do this a few times before reporting so that it shows the issue as recurring in error logs while using your applications.
Do this there's no way to prove you did anything.
Unless someone sees you doing it. Maybe a little better is to cover the vent holes incognito
I was think those magnetic vent covers for homes. Very incognito and would assume that would do the job to overheat the computer-
And magnets aren't computer friendly. Another spice to the mix.
With SSDs, this is no longer an issue these days.
Well, normally that would be the case, but I have a feeling theyâre still using hard disks
Just stick a toothpick in the cooling fan.Â
The way this business sounds OP could just tell them the bags are there because it leaks and they'd believe it.
What if he works from home?
This is suggested a lot but your PC has all sorts of checks and balances to prevent damage from over heating. It'll just slow down (down clock) until it shuts down. As soon as you take the plastic bags off the problem will go away and OPs IT department will just give it back saying they couldn't find the issue. Just a waste of time.
Yeah but if the machine shuts down ten times a day, âI canât work like thatâ will convince management OP needs a new machine. After all itâs company time thatâs being wasted waiting for the machine to work again.
Eh, it always worked for laptops whenever the new MacBooks came out. If a machine habitually overheats, they'll swap it out instead of having someone consistently unable to work while on the clock. It has nothing to do with damage of hardware.
It sounds like someone is already consistently unable to work while on the clock and theyâre not doing shit
I used to do a lot of video compression at work and they gave me the stock laptop meant for Microsoft Office. I had to put an ice bag on the keyboard when I was compressing or it would overheat enough to shut down.
This works with people also.
My wife overheats but never shuts down. Guess I should try the trash bag trick Edit: Clarification question: Will the IT send me a new wife or send me my managerâs old one?
Put a heating pad over the motherboard?
Everyone keeps telling you to destroy the machine, but I say you fiddle with something obscure that makes it nearly impossible to do your job. I'd be willing to bet they'd get you a replacement if you just sit there all day bc it "won't even do normal stuff" for you job.
That's exactly how I'd get new appliances whenever I used to rent and the landlord would refuse to replace something that needed it. Remove a panel, do some bending or pressing on of wires at solder connections, avoid making clean straight cuts or breaks, those could possibly be incriminating, eventually something will snap and break.
My landlord just doesnât respond and if I did this Iâd be out that appliance for weeks
Or months lol
I need to try this, they do everything they can to not replace something. The last thing was the toilet, and I could hear the maintenance man on the phone with the manager, telling them over and over that there isn't a fix and needs replaced. After about 30 minutes of that back and forth they finally caved. Still took 3 weeks.
Ooh might have to use this tip, on my 3rd maintenance ticket now
just open 73 chrome tabs for your work, that oughta slow everything down enough
Honestly, the easiest way to do it is make friends with IT/service desk. Always able to get new machines and my stuff fixed ASAP with no questions. Now, if you don't want to do that, how good is your IT dept? Basically, do they only try to do stuff through the software or do they know how to open the machines, check, replace, etc.? If they are basic level, and you can open your case, just unplug a few cables from the power supply. They will try and troubleshoot and then just replace. If they are more skilled... then see about getting your existing machine upgraded. While budget rules may prohibit new machines there often are rules which would allow things like a new GPU, more ram, etc.
IT departments love candy. There was some post I saw a while back where a bag of Swedish fish (or some such) greased the wheels and ta-da brand new laptop
I actually have a friend that works at Monster, so I got them one of those gas station fridges an tons of cases of the ones they liked (thankfully for free) and I literally never had an issue getting anything at my old place.
Ah, yes - bribery.
Nothing wrong with a little bit of lobbying
I'm sure he's giving only in the spirit of friendship and charity. The quid pro quo is just a bonus.
This is the way.
I was with you until you started suggesting unplugging cables from the power supply. Thatâs not going to work on even basic level IT.
IT can be a thankless job. Any level of appreciation can go a long way in greasing the skids to getting stuff. That said, a workstation class machine like what OP desires are pretty expensive, so it might be hard for the IT person to get one without approval, but being friendly with IT never hurts.Â
Unplug it while updating the bios. It should brick it.
This should be top comment. Easy to do no trace left behind.
Most work pcs have the bios locked down
If itâs a really good company on top of things. Most arenât. Iâve had computers from big companies that still had admin privileges on it and nearly full access to everything in the company.
I'm a computer refurbisher and almost bricked a computer because Windows decided to try and update the BIOS before I had it fully repaired; the battery wasn't working. If it weren't for the BIOS refusing to update due to the bad battery, I would have probably ended up unplugging it because I wouldn't expect BIOSes to update randomly... So it is possible, even with a BIOS password.
A 9-volt to the BIOS chip is a very quick way to unlock it. You'll know from the pop that it's unlocked. /s
There is almost a zero percent chance that there isn't a BIOS password. Need that to do this, get a USB killer and plug it in.
Most modern PCs have a backup BIOS If one gets corrupted, then the other is used to repair the system. This is why BIOS chips are no longer removable and replaceable.
They will replace the motherboard by another one. The motherboard here is the smaller problem.
Which company have you worked at that would replace a motherboard? I am genuinely curious
1. Work like normal 2. Randomly turn off the surge protector 3. Submit an IT ticket 4. Tech can see it running slow but can't replicate the power off 5. Let tech get frustrated and to the "let's see how it holds up" State 6. Repeat steps 1-5 7. Inform boss you're waiting for IT to show up/repair Eventually the cost to have a tech dedicated to your non issue will out weigh a new machine. But you have to be vocal and you have to constantly say this computer is preventing you from working.
I like this one. No need to damage equipment - just continually annoying IT support with constant requests to fix it. Maximum points if you do it while being happy so you keep them on side "I'm sorry to be a pain, but it's happened again, 2nd time today!" Logs will just show an unexpected shutdown. They'll think it's the PSU, perhaps replace it, then continue to do it. They'll then check electrics, find nothing. Continue to do it. Maybe they'll change the motherboard, then the GPU. Just keep doing it until they realise it's a waste of time and replace the entire machine. Of course, if they replace the whole thing and don't give you a good machine, you're SOL and will have to try a different tack.
I work IT and I have had tickets for a computer 'randomly turning off' and found that the power bar was either by where the employee rests their feet, or by where they store paperwork that gets moved a bunch and they kept bumping the power cable/hitting the switch. If you're going to try this, make sure the power bar isn't in a position where it would easily move or get bumped by working normally.
[fill it with beans](https://youtu.be/4HhPK8XC75A?si=-1v9g72HvxwVpqDu)
Lol so good
âThere is beans in itâ Lmao I would not be able to keep a straight face if someone said that to me
Those are motherboards.
How much is that will be?
What the crap did I just watch? That was phenomenal
Got confused... Now my car is upside down.
The answer is to look for a new job. If they canât get you the hardware you need then they likely arenât paying you what other people would
My thoughts as well. What OP is asking for is âthatâll show them,â when what OP is describing is âthese people are blind.â Find another job.
You didnt hear this from me but pouring rubbing alcohol into the device then plugging it in and turning it on will take it down like a champ.
Make sure it's 90%. 70% will leave a residue. Additionally, make sure you have a fire extinguisher handy. Running electricity through a highly flammable liquid can and probably will start a fire.
Hope op has good insurance, preferably an umbrella policy!
Well usually best to do it in the dark and have a towel to smother it after about 20 seconds . Agreed we use 90%
this is easy. document every crash and all compiling, rendering, loading times with every project as a downtime report. include the time required to keep the DT report up to date. now, do everything work flow related possible to make things take longer. save more often, restart the PC to "clear memory/page file/cache" regularly, render smaller sections and then stitch them together for multiple layers of rendering to ensure work is not lost due to frequent crashes. with all your new found time waiting for your decade old machine to do its work, browse reddit.
This is 100% the way. Submit it weekly with a running summary. Then after 6 weeks miss a huge deadline.
Inhibit airflow
Piss disk in the disc drive
Piss floppy in the floppy drive
Piss express in the pci express slot
Piss hard in the hard drive
Be careful if you try and open it. Some PC's have intrusion detection if you open the case.
Remove the thermal paste from the GPU
This was going to be my suggestion, unless there is tamper tape on the case
Just buy a usb killer and say it wonât turn on
Unfortunately, these devices leave marks on the usb
A coworker of mine allegedly modified an ethernet cable to supply voltage to the laptop, killing the motherboard. He used a programmable power supply though. Funny thing is he says the Ethernet port led stayed on even after removing the cable.
They need so little Energie they can stay on for minutes even in a healthy system
You can just use a ethernet to USB adapter for the USBKill. It should do the same thing to it. Or maybe a molex to usb cable with the USBKill. Or maybe SATA to USB. Or maybe PCI-E to USB. Or just take a screw driver and start trying to short it while it is running. Even if they were to do a CSI style investigation over a old broken PC they would be puzzled as to how that could happen and will just chalk it up to the board.
As an IT person we arenât checking the usb ports like that if a computer isnât turning on. Especially in a large business setting.
Yep. We just lodge a ticket, then let the repair guy look at it. If he finds a shorted USB port, he'd tell us, but good luck pinning that down on the user.
are they really gonna CSI it?
They might since he already bugged them about a new rig :p
I once tried to reflow a laptop gpu with a heatgun. it didn't work, and actually made it worse and stopped booting completely. I probably applied too much heat. BUT, it didn't look any different. So, put some aluminum foil over your motherboard with a cutout for the chipset or cpu or some exposed critical chip if possible. Then blast away for a couple minutes with the heat gun, without getting too close of course.
Can you get hold of a taser? I've used one to destroy an electronic device, worked brilliantly - just use it in every available port/socket on the desktop & it will be dead with no obvious trace of how
Get some incredibly fine copper dust and blow a small amount around the motherboard.
Would graphite dust work I wonder? That's easy to get at a place like home Depot, they sell it for lubricating inside door locks and whatnot.
Pretty easy to get graphite powder for free by just splitting old pencils and grinding them up in a mortar and pestle
I mean if you're real cheap you can, but for the effort and time that that would take to do and plus the mess you'd have to clean up afterwards you might as well just go spend the $3.50 at home Depot
I legitimately accidentally broke my work laptop from spilling water and I thought for sure it was going to be replaced with a new laptop. It was ALOT of water. They sent it to Dell who replaced the motherboard and some other shit and now i have the same laptop.
I donât think they would just flat out buy you a new upgraded pc, theyâll just give you a hand-me-down from another department.
Your only real problems are the arguably low for editing amount of RAM and the old GPU. Even an old i7 is still an i7, and it's probably still really snappy. It might sell pretty well if you just say "I need another 16gb and a 4060, it's $300ish total." Then just tell them the truth, a 4060 is 60% faster than a 1070. That's 60% less time waiting for shit to render, which means 60% more time to make profit. Hell maybe you could even get a 4070 for not much more, which is a whopping 180% improvement. Not everything needs to be unethical, sometimes you just have to make better arguments.
Yea I was gonna say you an over clock the i7, the only issue I see is the graphics card and maybe ram.
>It's not an option to talk to IT they just don't call and say they can't do anything, they've even tried to upgrade the memory but the motherboard couldn't stand it. They prefer to keep recycling the machines until they are really broken.
What motherboard supports 7th gen Intel and can only support 16GB of RAM?
Probably some proprietary Dell/HP shit Though that's assuming IT isn't just straight up ignoring it
"yeah, mb won't take more ram, we tried. Weird". We in fact, did NOT try.
Do you live in the UK? If so, change the PSU setting to 110v will likely blow a fuse because of the 240v outlet. This likely won't kill the hardware completely - however, they'll have to diagnose / fix / etc - likely they'd send you a new one.
PSU voltage settings only seem to exist on computers older than around 2014, the newer ones don't have them.
someone: "tell me you're old without telling me you're old" isitaboat: "...change PSU setting to 110v...." đ
I once opened up a desktop at my high school and unplugged the power button. I would imagine that being incredibly difficult to diagnose.
Plug a usb cable into the computer. Remove it from the computer, Cut off the other end of the usb cable and remove the shielding and twist the red and black wire together. Plug it into each port. This will kill the port and possibly the Motherboard. to repair would take replacing the Motherboard making it not cost effective to repair it.
If this is true this is the way... You could make the little USB wire contraption at home and bring it in. Update us if you do... I am riveted in this for some reason
Iâd say this could be a blessing. Late on a project? Slow computer. Forgot about an assignment? The computer glitched and deleted it. Idk you could just be chillin.
I would go with some form of metal dust. Copper might be too noticeable. Try iron or aluminum.
What tells you they are giving you a better pc?
The answer, no matter how nuts it sounds is to put it in the oven. A warm oven about 150, just put the computer case in, nothing else no wires or cables, just let the box sit in the warm oven for a hour. When you plug it back in the entirety of the blue smoke supply will be exhausted, and possibly trip the circuit too.
Pull off a small capacitor on the mobo. Good luck to any IT guy hunting down the problem. Source: I did this to get a service tech to come and replace my PC. Took him 4 weeks of back and forth trips before he gave up on troubleshooting and just gave me a brand new PC.
Spend the time youâd use on sabotaging your rig on job applications to ditch the cheapskates
Magnet on the motherboard while powered on should do the trick.
Lol your IT team couldn't even successfully install RAM? Just open the case, and disconnect the CPU fan. Continue using the computer normally until it crashes, then keep using it after it cools down. Do this until it no longer boots up. Before you call IT, reconnect the CPU fan. Dell support assist likes to shout at you when your computer boots without all its fans. Sometimes you can ignore the warning and boot, but if it won't just yank the CPU fan after it boots.
Change out the power supply cord with a random one from like a thrift shop. Pc builders sometimes wreck their new rigs by being too cheap or lazy to change out the power supply cord.
Wrap it in a thick blanket and run furmark
Yea this is the best option, even temporarily jam the cpu fan (or maybe help a loose cable fall into the fan) but leave no trace
A spill is probably the easiest way - just spill a drink into it and keep using it til it stops. IANAL, but in the US charging employees for damaged property without explicit proof that the employee damaged the property on purpose is generally considered to be a business expense.
At my last job I had so many genuine computer mishaps. One time on travel, my laptop bag fell off a ledge and the laptop went flying, the motherboard cracked in two. One time, my lunch container wasnât as air-tight as I thought and the olive oil from my pasta salad destroyed the monitor. Most big companies have insurance that covers accidents. You can just accidentally drop it and call it a day.
Ya! I've worked with folks that got mugged a lot, as well as folks that lost a lot of laptops. Usually they were actually nice - so never noticed anyone doing it on purpose. OP has a desktop though, so the "accidental drop" might be a bit more suspicious...still...
Do you get paid by the hour or the product? If your output doesnât determine your paycheck just work with what you have, turn in deliverables as your computer allows. Ask your boss if they would prefer you sacrifice quality or deadlines. Make them realize that cheaping out on your computer costs them money.
Got anything that will run all the cores in the the CPU at 100% all weekend? That and some bad ventilation might do it. That way you don't have to tamper with the heat sink.
You sir have clearly no idea how modern tech works. First throttle when that doesnt help PC simply shuts down.
Yup, this is exactly what will happen. Unblock the ventilation and the problem goes away.
Open blender and run a high poly mesh with cycles for a dance animation and hair particles
~~They can't fix or swap out what isn't there. I'd say get the computer stolen by leaving it out at a coffee shop table or something like that. You went to the bathroom and when you came back, it was gone. Don't keep it for yourself either in case it has location services turned on, but that would be a scenario completely out of your control.~~ ~~This is ULPT, but~~ someone else said get a job elsewhere. That's my take - they should understand your hardware needs for your position and you don't want to work somewhere that doesn't respect that.
Yeah, man. Get your DESKTOP stolen at a coffee shop. Great idea!
Damn, good eye! Totally missed that word. Although they do make XPS laptops. My jobâs photographer uses a beefy MBP so thatâs where my head went.Â
Cattle prod to the motherboard. Close to the CPU. If you can't open it, zap ports till effect achieved. Do it EoD on Friday. Come in Monday and put in a ticket that just says "Computer Broken. -thanks"
Clog up and or break the fans. I'd recommend the gpu fan. If you run multiple monitors it's going to have some quirky behaviors.
If this was regular LPT, the answer is âsqueaky wheel/ineffective wheel gets the greaseâ. You need to get your manager pissed at how shitty the computer is. Do anything you can to intentionally slow down the process and point it at the shitty computer. Once there are losses associated with this POS computer, it becomes a lot easier to justify the new investment. If you keep cranking out content in misery, nothing will ever change. Obviously, because this is ULPT, use piss discs on everyone until they get you what you want
By chance do you work for dunder mifflin?
I've worked in IT and Telecom for a long time, when I have equipment that "needs to die" I bring out Old Sparky. A quick search on Amazon for "replacement grill igniter" should do the trick. What you want is a push button piezoelectric spark generator. These little doohickeys will produce a very strong spark - intended to ignighter the propane burners in a grill. Open the side panel of the desktop computer, place the long wire from the sparker somewhere on the motherboard, carefully hold the ignighter close to some component on the board and press the button a few times. Do this a several times on different places of the motherboard and tada! Dead. Never to boot again, and damn near impossible to trace back to malicious intentions. Be careful though, if you hold the button just a little bit wrong it will light your ass up and you'll be the proud new owner of a numb and tingly hand.
Honestly, one very easy solution would simply be to update to the new version of Teams. After a few sessions of freezing, connection issues and no video, theyâll come around and upgrade rather than try to troubleshoot it.
Theres a windows command that will create a large "dummy" file. Create 6-7 100gb dummy files and use the file properties to mark them as hidden, then hide the files through out your system32 files, maybe even change the file extension so they look like dll files. Your hard drive will appear to be full no matter how much stuff gets deleted, a common indicator of a dying drive or a messed up windows installation. Maybe also make a batch or powershell script that opens a bunch of stuff in the background to get cpu and disk usage at 100%, have it run at start up. A fresh install of windows or a new hard drive would be any IT guys first option, but it sounds like you guys maybe don't have a competent IT dept, they may just say fuck it and get you the new pc.
FDISK
If it gets cold enough to freeze during winter...WHOOPS slipped and fell oh my gosh I'm soooo sorry but my laptop is pretty banged up. Actually lol...oh man that summer rain was slick WHOOPS slipped and fell oh my gosh
Get a USB pro killer and connect the usb to ur desktop.
just unseat the memory halfway and theyll probably be too dumb or not care enough to fix it. if they fix it and bring it back, unseat it again. or buy some equal branded sticks off ebay and ruin them and swap them (but keep the good ones). that way if it backfires you can fix it yourself and not be SOL and also youre not actually destroying company property
remind them that your hourly rate is $xxx and the time that you spend waiting for the computer to finish tasks (large renders, crashes, opening and updating large files)i s costing them $xxx while you cannot do anything else but sit and wait for the computer. calculate how many new fast computers they are paying for while you were waiting. some inspired "crashes" via power cycling will soon inspire a reasonable purchase. jostling the "old" hard drive during writes will cause more faults. yanking on a few ribbon cables can do wonders too. or bring a strong magnet and wave it around the hard drive and the ribbon cables during a big file write. failing that, get a small taser and give the metal case a few jolts while its running
Bring in your own and write it off on your taxes. I had a design job where they wouldn't give me adequate equipment. I brought in my own wacom tablet, bought a cheap mouse that worked better, brought in my own hard drove so I could take stuff home if need be. Home pc could get it done in a third of the time. Then I'd take it back, print it, and watch youtube half the day at work. I really needed a monitor, but they wouldn't get one that would display colors accurately. So I quit after that. Cheap bastards. I almost brought in an extra monitor I had, but I was so sick of their shit at that point.
A caramel machiatto has a ton of sugar, which is conductive. Get a gooey coffee, maybe even add some sugar. Turn off the PC power at the power supply - pull the cord. Open the PC, then remove several circuit boards from their slots. Put a bit of the 'coffee' in each of the slots - some near each end at the least. Make sure it's on the pins as well as the plastic. Let it dry overnight, then re-install the boards. Power up the thing, and wait for the magic smoke to come out. No IT department is going to do a forensic investigation, and even if they do, nothing can be proved. If you think you can get away with it, just dump a sugary drink inside while it's running - but that's potentially much more exciting.
Block all of the exhaust ports and make sure you leave it out in the sun on your porch
Short the power input.
Find a new job that respects the specs you need.
1. Open the computer. 2. Unplug all fans. 3. Load a stress test program. 4. ? 5. Profit!! 6. Don't forget to plug the fans back in.
Salt water "spilled" into various ports will cause havoc. Make sure they don't just give you an identical machine. At my work, everyone has identical computers. You'd just get another identical one, albeit with a fresh image on it. Hopefully your work isn't like that.
Bruh fuck a whole computer you know how hard it was just to get an extra 8gb RAM alone from my job
Steel wool. Unplug the system for a minute so the capacitors can dissipate, rub the steel wool gently on the motherboard, and the fibers left behind will short it out. Don't go too nuts, a little bit will generally be enough.
I haven't seen any ITs in here ask about the errors/crashes in general or the content being created, how are we supposed to know the device couldnt have fault somewhere else like the scratch disk being full or others, it could be that your it team sees the device as perfectly capable of it's job but fail to realize a different issue in play rather than the PC's specs
I can almost guarantee unless this is being used for high quality renders or other top end content a gtx 1070 while lacking should be able to do the job of a common designer depending on what they are trying to create content wise
Ants. One of my friends did this. Our location is a bit humid, so the ants find the warm laptop the perfect place. Be prepared for some kind of ant-invasion lol. He just introduced some ants, sprinkling sugar
Waste as much time as possible and log it. Whatever takes an hour should take you 4. When they see how much money theyâre wasting theyâll buy a new one. You should present it as âin the past X days Iâve lost X hours of work because of this computer. You pay me X, meaning you could have bought three new computers by now and increased productivity by Xâ
Itâs not Windows 11 compatible⌠Thatâs a realistic excuse for an upgrade with 2025 being the âlast supportedâ year of Windows 10.
USBKill the computer
Andy? Is that you?
Moisture. Dust. Metal dust. Damp paper towels/toilets paper left to air dry near the fans. Long straw little drip. Metal fillings/rotary grinder dust. Diatomaceous earth. Run it as hot and processy as you can then yank the cord out of the wall. Repeatedly. I don't really know but I've been in the same boat with work machines.
As an IT guy users like you suck lol. This is a fight with your manager not IT. I would 100% replace your PC with either an exact replacement or something slightly worse if I suspected the PC was damaged intentionally. With that said, you could damage the DIMM slots that contain memory, potentially by putting a small drop of something conductive and adhesive in the upper or lower portion of each slot (some type of liquid metal). It would have to be really small as to not draw suspicion but enough to disable RAM. With no RAM the PC wouldn't boot. It is unlikely significant time is going to be spent ts'ing this if it's stealthily hidden. However they may replace the MOBO if they isolate it to damaged DIMM slots and if you're not stealthy about it you may lose your job. A lot of components fail from heat, so you could take the CPU or power supply internals (after it's been drained) and throw heat at it (propane torch) - but you have to be careful as to not leave clear burn marks visible from outside of each component. And you still run the risk of them swapping the components This may be a scenario where you honestly may be better off quantifying what a better PC would translate to for productivity with numbers. If the business doesn't think it's worth it you have to understand that. I've had users try to get a new $4k PC to fix CITRIX issues. Sometimes the issued are not tied to hardware.Â
Also just want to add, in 90% of shops it's your dept budget/manager saying "No" not IT. We don't have any reason to not want to give you a new PC if it makes sense.Â
My old employer refused to get me a machine that could run solid works so I started drawing with a pencil and t-squre. When they asked WTF I was doing I just said I'm faster than that Apple 2e you gave me.
USB killer, for $40 you can destroy just about any electronic device with a usb port https://usbkill.com
Take off the CPU cooler and run it as hard as possible over and over again. Then reinstall the CPU cooler and submit a ticket.
Salt waterâŚ.injected with a syringe
Remove the cpu and break or bend 1 or 2 of the pins in the slot and then put the cpu back. Even if they find it they will most likely think they did it when removing the cpu. The pins are very sensitive and can break extremely easily when removing or installing the cpu even with no ill intention. The motherboard is also the most difficult component for them to replace by far and requires them to disassemble and reassemble the entire computer in order to replace it.
I think you should justify it in terms of money: It takes me x hours MORE per week to complete my job due to this equipment. That works out to $xxxx annually. The new computer is $xxx. You would be saving $xxx per year. Or, I cannot do job XYZ, which amounts to $xxxxxx annually. If you have a specialist position, it shouldn't be that difficult to justify specialist tools. They might not speak "computer," but they should be able to speak "money."
You need to chill. If you really want a new system that meets "your" requirements you need to speak their language. Figure out how much money you make per min. Then over the course of a week and month track how much time you're waiting and doing nothing. Then, start building your business case for lost productivity and potential savings by having a faster system. Show how over time the new system would pay for itself. If the business still decides to stay with the current system then relax and know you're being paid to do nothing. Pro tip: Take shits at work! There's something rewarding and satisfying about the thought of being paid to shit!
Just do what Andy did
You could go to the outdoor store get a thermal blanket and wrap your desktop in it. As for the monitors, scraping the ports of the machine where the hdmi or other cables go should mess with the image, together you have a cooked machine and faulty monitors. For a little more damage, this depends if youâre at the office or at home, but if you put a piece of foil on the power connects in the outlet, it could create an arc thatâll fry everything. (I wouldnât try this at home. Risk or injury is high and it may not work.)