Real worm breaks man's computer, sick of software worms getting all the glory

A UK man named Mark Taylor had his Gateway laptop fried by an actual earthworm, which was believed to have crawled inside the machine’s air vent to escape the man’s cats. Taylor received an error message that his processor’s fan wasn’t working and, upon inspection by an IT professional, it was found that the five-inch worm had been “cooked” after wrapping itself around the CPU fan, which in turn broke the fan, causing the computer to overheat.

According to the Telegraph:

Computer technician Sam Robinson, 28, who discovered the worm said: “The machine was displaying a message saying that the processor fan was unworkable.

“I took the back off and had a look inside. Then I spotted what at first I thought was some sort of hair band or elastic band wrapped around the fan.

“I soon discovered that it was a worm which had been burned to a frazzle. It had obviously wrapped around the fan when somebody had turned on the computer and caused the breakdown due to the fan jamming.

Now that’s a new one. I wonder if Gateway’s warranty covers death-by-earthworm.

[via The Raw Feed]