The worst physical damage I've ever seen

I wish I had some pictures to accompany this post, but this happened over 3 years ago and I've lost the pictures I took. I think a lot of people here would still enjoy this story.

In High School I was working at a local computer repair shop, just run of the mill consumer clients so I got my fair share of WTFs while I was there. One memory in particular is still very vivid in my mind.

Near the end of the day while it was a bit slower I had a customer come in with a large beaten up box, saying "I just moved here. I shipped my gaming computer across the country and now it won't turn on. Will you take a look at it?". Now, I'm already fearing the worst, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw. We generally take a quick 5-10 minute look at computers when they come in if it's more involved than "It boots but has viruses", and when it's slow if a customer is pleasant we'll run through a rudimentary physical diagnostic on the machine.

Anyway, we get the tower out of the box, run of the mill steel case. The entire case is skewed, just a bit, enough to not quite sit level on the counter. Somehow, we were still able to get the side panel off without much difficulty, and our jaws hit the floor.

The first thing I see is a rather nice after market CPU cooler, resting on top of the video card. One of those huge, chunk of solid copper tanks that require a special mounting bracket. I gingerly pull out the heatsink and set it on the table, and can already see the despair in this guy's face. Oh well, might as well see how far this damage goes.

As I'm pulling the heatsink out, I notice not only is the CPU still firmly attached to the heatsink with thermal paste, but the socket is still hanging on to the CPU. This was an Intel machine, LGA775, and where the socket should have been on the motherboard you could see the pins from the land grid array, gnarled up and sticking out in every direction.

Unfortunately, that wasn't where the damage ended. Being such a hefty after market heatsink, it crashed into the videocard with quite a bit of force. The plastic shroud was cracked, the PCB had been marred, and it was no longer mounted into the case. I don't remember if I had found a sheared screw, or whether it was just missing, but it ripped the DVI connectors halfway off the board as it came loose. As I pulled the video card out and unplugged the power pins, what amazed me the most was that the PCI-E socket was still affixed to the card's slot. It had been ripped clean off the motherboard.

This guy looked very distraught as his mangled heatsink, CPU, and video card with accompanying sockets still attached sat in a heap next to his tower. I'm not sure what he was expecting, carrying in a desktop that very obviously had jostling parts inside.

I had to tell the poor guy that he pretty much needed a new desktop built, as if that wasn't already clear, and we might be able to save him a couple bucks, as the optical drive and RAM were unscathed. He gathered the remnants of his desktop and I never personally saw him come in again, although as a part time employee he very well could have come back and gotten a new system. I'm not sure if he was able to file a claim with UPS/Fedex about it either, but I'm doubtful as it looked like he just set the tower in a box with no padding.

The moral is of course, package your electronics properly, declare their worth and make sure your shipping company knows it's fragile!