When Good Motherboards Go Bad

This is an Abit VA6 Slot 1 motherboard. A decent motherboard for the money 2 1/2 years ago, and it worked well. Until recently, anyway. On 7/19/2002 it died. Windows blackscreened and no amount of adjusting would convince it to boot again, much less POST or even beep. It was dead. Departed from this world. It had simply ceased to be.

On 7/21/2002 it was replaced by an Asus P3C-2000, courtesy of the MIT Flea Market. Not as good, but the computer worked again. The only question, then, was what to do with the old board..

Being a vengeful sysadmin, I reached the natural conclusion that the misbehaving hardware needed to be punished for its acts. And since this was a major infraction, serious measures were called for.

Thus, the board was split in two. Looks painful, doesn't it?

That was good enough, until more interesting ideas crossed my mind. Why not roast the damn thing!?

And so the stage was set. Tin foil laid down on an old grill, lighter fluid applied liberally under and on the board.

Then the board was lit. A slow start at first..

..but the application of a little extra lighter fluid got it going.

Flames are beautiful:

Mmm.. crispy! I think it's suffered sufficiently now. The mighty sysadmin, as they say, has been appeased.

Tips for those thinking about trying this themselves:

• Electrolytic capacitors explode when heated. Do not stand near a burning motherboard unless you wanted to be pelted by high-velocity pieces of capacitors.
• Same thing goes for lithium batteries, and probably other components.
• The smoke from burning plastic stinks at best, and might toxic at worst. Don't stand too close unless you want a headache for a while. Don't do this near a building unless you really hate the people indoors.
• Don't try this at home, kids!