How to Void Warrenty

[nick_sabatino]

Hey all,

For the past few months, I've been operating a small gig making custom PCs for people around the city here. Lately though, I've been doing more volume than I expected, (about 4 or 5 a week) and and running into some troubles with warrenties.

Usually, I give people free labour for the first year, and then 50% off my already reasonable rates for 3 years after that. For parts, I jsut give whatever each part's manufaturer gives.

Anyways, thats been working out fine lately, untill one guy decided to upgrade his processor and bent all the pins on his athlon 64.

Not having a policy that expressly prohibits this, I ordered him a new proc and installed it for him.

Anyways, what I want to do now is put some sort of mechanisim on the computers that i build that will void the warrenty if they open the case.

I've seen some on the internet that are like little stickers that leave a trace when they're peeled off. Like this.

The only problem though is that I have no way of removing the sticker cleanly to do work.

What other solutions can you guys recommend?

Thanks

 

[TerryG]

I don't think those stickers are made to leave a trace on the case as much as they are to make the removed part unusable, so a person doesn't remove the sticker, mess around, and put it back on. I'm pretty sure the traces left behind can be removed with alcohol and a little rubbing. I seem to remember cleaning some off using that method a few years ago, but I could be mistaken. If it can be cleaned off, I'd recommend using those stickers and anytime you have to service one of the machines, just clean the traces off and apply a new sticker.

 

[jpmkm]

What's wrong with just scraping off the residue from the old sticker and putting a new one on? btw, cyberguys has pretty much those exact same stickers for a shitload cheaper(about $8/100 stickers). Or you could just change your policy to prohibit what you described. It should be pretty obvious that bent pins on a processor isn't a manufacturing defect and it didn't occur as a result of your worksmanship.