03-13-2006, 11:10 AM

I was just talking with some people about strange foreign objects we've found inside of computers over the years.

At my high school students would frequently stuff rubber bands, paper clips, breath mints, and lots of other garbage inside the CD-ROM and floppy drives of the computers.

I once bought an iMac G3 off of eBay and when I opened it to put a bigger hard drive in it I found a screw driver stuck under the logic board.

And someone's niece once put a peanut butter and jelly sandwich inside the tape drive of a Commodore 64. Oh boy!

03-13-2006, 11:29 AM

a spider crawled out of my imac yesterday after i started using it.. probably got to warm (if they can feel warmth)

03-13-2006, 12:08 PM

i hear that people are finding intel chips nowadays, weird!!!! just kidding

ive only found dust, but i wouldnt mind finding a pb&j sandwich right now, im hungry!
-chris

03-13-2006, 01:45 PM

Surely not one that has been around for a while though......

03-13-2006, 02:21 PM

A few years ago a friend bought a computer at an estate sale condition unknown (it had been stored in a detached garage).

It wouldn't boot up so he calls me over to take a look, mainly to see if there was anything salvageable inside.

Popped the side panel off - found a mouse family and nest. Mama, papa and three small ones. They'd chewed throgh the hd drive ribbon cable (and a few other things) enough to keep it from booting.

Mouse family was transplanted to a mouse habitat at a local zoo. The computer was disassembled, cleaned, reassmbled, cables replaced (cost more than he paid for it), my friend ended up with a dual Pentium 3 Xeon system for under $50 and everyone was happy.

bfx

03-13-2006, 02:33 PM

I remember seeing a snake inside a PSU on the web:

http://www.insectimage.com/Gallery%2017/snakecomp1.html

http://www.insectimage.com/Gallery%2017/snakecomp2.html

http://www.insectimage.com/Gallery%2017/snakecomp3.html

Willies, anyone?

03-13-2006, 03:18 PM

This isn't so much a foriegn object, but it is funny. Skid (member) and I were working on this computer. It wouldn't power on. So we busted it open, and the power supply looked pretty dirty (slots covered, etc -- the usual). So we tore the PSU out, and opened it up to give it a good cleaning. When we got it open, we discovered that it was completely caked, and I mean to the BRIM, with dust, lint, cigarette ash, etc. A simple can of air could not have done the job alone. We had to vacuum it out.

Once it was all clean, we hooked it back up, and it worked like a charm.

I've also found everything from tools, to food, to various parts just laying inside cases. I've also seen people try to use credit cards in their floppy drives.

03-13-2006, 05:17 PM

My Dad and uncle own a law firm together. A year or so ago, the lease on their offices were up, and since the building was becoming the kind of place you don't want to be period, much less for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.

So I'm helping him move stuff and we stumble on some old computers. I took them home and decided to pry them open and see if any of them could even boot. Well, one of them had a bunch of files from an old case that my Dad thought were gone.

Ironically, this was around the time of the Michael Jackson trial, and who had he represented in the case? A guy named Michael Jackson (no relation). Apparently, his old secretary used her computer to literally hold files!

03-13-2006, 05:31 PM

supposedly, computer "bugs" got their name because during the first bug, a moth just happened to be stuck under the screen. So it was literally, a computer bug. I wanna say this is was Hawaii... but yeah.

Again, more random useless info that I know of.

03-13-2006, 07:57 PM

Originally Posted by BlindingLights

supposedly, computer "bugs" got their name because during the first bug, a moth just happened to be stuck under the screen. So it was literally, a computer bug. I wanna say this is was Hawaii... but yeah.

Again, more random useless info that I know of.

Think the 'computer bug' term goes further back than that - all the way to the days of relay logic .... no i.c.'s ..... no cpus .... no vid even.

Seems roaches and ants liked the insides of those systems - they often filled several floors.

Anyway - they'd get on the relay contacts - the contacts wouldn't connect - calculations turned out wrong - computer bug.

Or so the story goes.

bfx

03-13-2006, 09:54 PM

Originally Posted by edge

This isn't so much a foriegn object, but it is funny. Skid (member) and I were working on this computer. It wouldn't power on. So we busted it open, and the power supply looked pretty dirty (slots covered, etc -- the usual). So we tore the PSU out, and opened it up to give it a good cleaning. When we got it open, we discovered that it was completely caked, and I mean to the BRIM, with dust, lint, cigarette ash, etc. A simple can of air could not have done the job alone. We had to vacuum it out.

Once it was all clean, we hooked it back up, and it worked like a charm.

I've also found everything from tools, to food, to various parts just laying inside cases. I've also seen people try to use credit cards in their floppy drives.

ROCK ON edge ah the good old days

i have seen a mouse in th computer at a sterio shope this mouse would go inside the computer to sleep everynight and he used to get in he drawer where we keep the katchup and took about 7 katchup packets through thePCI slot i gues he musta layed on them to sleep or something

03-15-2006, 06:17 AM

How'd the mice get in and out? Missing a drive cover or something?

Originally Posted by bfx

Popped the side panel off - found a mouse family and nest. Mama, papa and three small ones. They'd chewed throgh the hd drive ribbon cable (and a few other things) enough to keep it from booting.
bfx

03-15-2006, 11:51 AM

Best we could figure was they squeezed thru a fan - one was missing the finger guard.

bfx

03-15-2006, 03:19 PM

in my case we had a PCI slot cover missing and he squeezed through there with his katchup

03-15-2006, 05:54 PM

When I was younger and had no money for fancy up-to-date computers I pulled a Tandy 386 out of a boneyard pile of old computer parts at my church and beat it back into working condition. Found a spider's nest inside an empty drive bay. I installed a 5.25" floppy drive in that same drive bay (WEIRD, huh?) In that same computer used a piece of foil to complete a connection between one of the SIMMs and the socket so it could have a whopping 14 MB of RAM. I used it till my Mom GAVE me her old Powerbook 180. As far as I know it's still in my parents' attic.


Ahh I miss the good old days... wait, no I don't!