Now, this might sound stupid, but is there any way to brick a laptop on purpose? I kinda want to help a friend here, he currently has this crappy laptop that he wants to get rid of, being a 16 year old who still lives with his parents, he's stuck with it, even if he had the money to buy a budget/pretty decent PC, his parents won't let him, they say it will make his grades lower (typical asian parents). I'm sure he'll get a replacement PC if he "bricked his laptop", since his parents usually gives him something-to-pretty-much-complete-his-life (I don't know how to describe this), like his broken Ps3, which he got a new replacement of, and his broken Razer Blackshark which is replaced by a Corsair headset.
Anyways, can any of you guys tell me methods of bricking a laptop? Thanks. ^-^
you can find a way to download a desktop bios for a laptop depending on the chipset maker and processor, and then overclock it until it breaks, its really that simple if the heat restraints dont kick in, or you could take it apart and remove the heatsink and fan and start it up multiple times, that could also kill it from heat. I dont really recommend this though, if he is 16 tell him to get a job, or do something that is more productive than sitting around, I got a job and then built my pc, if I can do it then anyone can.
I say grab some tape, then cover all the vents with it then, run some stress test programs that will cause the computer to overheat. It will most likely take a few to 50 tries to kill it with heat because computers have a threat threshold that forces it to shut down at a certain temperature, unless like Jammy said flash a bios that will allow overclocking, good luck with that though.
Accidentally "spill" your drink on it, or shove it off the counter "accidentally" so that the impact will kill the h/d and maybe the mobo...Inject superglue into the cooling fan motor and turn it on and walk away. take off and forget to take it off the roof of the car, scrub it of all data and leave it at the bus station, no, dun do that it might cause a ruckus or a bomb scare...break the plug in and let the battery die...as a tech I know thousands of ways to kill a machine, both through experimentation and working on them, once had a person with a new alienware lappy pour 32 oz. of diet soda into his machine, asked if I could fix it so he could keep his expensive warranty unsullied, sorry dude, ain't a miracle worker , specially when it is still dripping soda out the bottom.
Fun times, trying to tell the general public why it is impossible to save their machines, and helping them deal with the mostly nonexistent customer service...Shoot Me.
Listen man, actually bricking/breaking the laptop is a bad idea. This could backfire in so many ways, that it isn't even funny.
What I would personally do is open the laptop up and unplug the SATA connector for the hard drive/SSD, or any other connector that make the laptop look as if it were bricked.
It is called not being entitled. He got a a laptop bought by his parents. There are tons people who would love to have a computer. Seriously tell him to get a job.
The main issue is that his parents won't let him spend his OWN money that he earn HIMSELF on a computer. So it's left him with few options, so he's looking into the option of purposely bricking his laptop so that way he'll have a reason for wanting a new computer.