Just a quickie post to share an experience I had the other week when a neighbor asked me to look at one of their computers. It was reported as 'not working', being mainly used by the kids for games I assumed that I would encounter a virus infected box that had I would just have to tidy up a bit.

One first inspection the box was completely dead, no response to the power button so I opened up the case reseating the memory and various connectors sniffing the PSU wondering if that had failed. I had just about come to the conclusion that the PSU was the cause when I pulled a ribbon cable that fed through to the front panel, it came free. The end looked like it had been roughly cut, pulling off the front panel revealed another cable also cut through - both had been nibbled by a mouse or other rodent.

When asking how a mouse could get inside the metal case (There really wasn't any gap that was small enough.), it seems the side access panel was left off for cooling. I explained how the maker had designed the airflow and even fitted two fans on the panel that had been removed to drive air through the case and across the processor.

The repair was straight forward, the cable supplying the headphone and mic PCB could only be soldered directly on to the track side of the font panel sockets PCB. While The ribbon cable (That carried the LEDs, reset button and 'power on' signal to the PSU.) had to be joined together mid-cable, with twisted and soldered ends protected with small lengths of 1.5 mm cable insulation (not in picture) held in place with superglue.

When it was working again, a nice selection of four different viruses and a trogen infections found affecting about 250 files. It now has AVG running full time and has a USB Autorun protector in place. I also created user accounts for the children of the family and only told the new admin password to one of the parents. I expect that security will only be in place a few weeks at most.

Inspite of the best efforts of software writers and hardware manufactures; the weakest element of any computer protection is the interface between keyboard and chair, the side panel will come off again and the admin password will be given away for some reason.

Looks more like someone took a scissors to the cables

Repaired a PC which belonged to my Condo owner. 1 week later the PC was screwed again , his reason was kids playing games

Edited October 29, 200916 yr by spacemunk

At first I thought it was a vengeful kid attacking it when I saw the ribbon cable, it didn't look like a typical mouse attack. But the second cable had teeth marks and it was not quick and easy to remove the front panel, too involved for a something that could be done with a sharp stick on the system board or the cables seen there.

Mice can get through very tiny entries - I have seen them go through a door keyhole. And they love hot wires. We had them eat control cables on a Braun Dishwasher several times. We no longer have dogs in the yard so stray cats take care of the rat population now.