Hardware Jokes
These jokes require delving into the computer's hardware and opening up the system unit case (remember that the unit must be unplugged, due to the extreme hazard of electrical shock,). For these jokes, it is best to have unobstructed access to a computer for which the case can be opened easily.
Because these jokes require having access to the computer's insides, they can obviously only be carried out when the intended victim is not around. You can try it while the intended victim is out of the room, but coming to work before everyone is an even better way to ensure the necessary privacy. Of course, you also need to be sufficiently familiar with computer hardware.
To pull this one off, first open the system unit case. Next, unscrew the screw holding the video card and pull the video card out of its connector slightly. The card only has to be pulled out a little - one or two millimeters of the upper connector part showing above the connector on either side is enough. Now, close the case again. A cursory inspection will not reveal anything wrong, but the computer will not boot. All the victim will get during attempts to boot the system will be a bit of beeping.
If you are unsure which expansion card the video card is in, you can find this out easily by tracing the monitor cord to the system unit.
What makes this joke difficult to solve is that only someone who knows the beep codes of the particular motherboard can pin down the problem. Others will search for the cause of the problem for a long time, as a small gap in the contacts won't be easily noticeable, so everything inside will appear to be in place.
To make the task of sorting out what is wrong difficult even for a professional, the PC speaker can be disconnected. This small speaker inside the computer is often fixed to the bottom of the system unit or to the lower part of the front panel. I personally always disconnect this speaker in my computer to keep its shrieks and wailing from getting on my nerves. This does not affect the audio obtained from the sound card and its speakers. It simply provides even fewer clues for your victim, as system error beep messages are not routed through the audio card.
Forgetful Memory. Some motherboards have three memory connectors. The third of these memory slots may not work with two-sided memory modules. If this is the case, and the computer has only one memory module (which is often the case in older models), this memory module can be installed in this third memory slot. It is doubtful that the owner will know about this peculiarity, let alone be aware which slot is the first and which the third.
Modern motherboards may have four memory slots, into which an even number of memory modules is installed (two or four). If there are only two memory modules, they often have to be installed into the first two slots. In this case, they can be switched from the first two slots to the last two.
This will not damage the computer, but it won't work when configured in this way. The important thing for our purposes is that the cause will not be discovered easily.
No ATX System Case Is a Fortress. I am in an ongoing state of computer joke war against my boss and his assistant, because they both have a good sense of humor. They also both have ATX system cases with special loop tabs through which you can put a lock for their computers. One day my boss used a screw with a nut instead of lock (no lock happened to be handy at the time) and stripped the thread off the screw end. But he did not realize that, very often, ATX cases have an upper lid or the front panel that can be removed easily and that cannot be locked. I took off the top, one side wall (the other was locked with the screw), and then the front panel. This particular computer had three 5-inch bays. The upper one had a CD-ROM installed in it, but the other two were empty. I stuck my hand through the opening made by these two vacant bays and, by feeling my way around, disconnected the power from the 3.5" floppy drive. Afterwards, I fished a whole stack of perfect diskettes out of the trash can that my boss thought were defective when, in fact, the problem was with the floppy drive. In addition, I received the respect of my coworkers for my inventiveness and was deprived of bonus pay by the boss for my brazenness.
Disconnections. The motherboard battery can be taken out. The computer will work on the whole, but its settings will reset after each power down. The user affected will make full use of a special vocabulary (I don't mean technical), and even possibly invent new words, until it dawns upon him or her to check the battery, which may take a couple of days - or even longer.
Moving on to the next trick, you can pull the monitor plug out of the video card connector just a little bit. The computer will work, but there will be no sign of this on the monitor. Actually, there are a number of things that can be disconnected. Printer power plugs are especially well suited for this purpose. Their female connector is deep, so it is easy to insert the male plug without making actual connection. Everything looks normal, but the printer doesn't work.
I just advise you not to get carried away with jokes involving connectors that have power carrying contacts. Should the contacts arc, both the computer and the device you are trying to play the joke with (eg., the monitor) will burn out.
If you have complete access to the innards of your victim's computer, the jokes move to an entirely new plane. On the motherboard, you can switch the places of the wires connected to the Reset and Power buttons. Here, even a sharp victim will take a while to figure out why the computer refuses to respond to the Power button.
Anything can be disconnected, from the hard disk and CD-ROM drives to the processor cooler. I personally like the latter trick the best because, if it is an Intel processor on the motherboard, it simply turns off a short time after the computer is turned on - when it overheats. This makes the computer appear to hang, or to turn off altogether.
However, if you are not sure now how the victim's hardware will react, I advise you not to monkey around with processor cooling, lest you burn out the processor (some earlier AMD processors do not turn off when overheated, with all of the natural consequences). In such an event, the recognition you receive for your ingenuity may be in the form of a black eye or a concussion.
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