So I'm sure most have you have opened up computers and looked at years of caked dust on the inside and wondered how the computer even manages to work. Well, this is much worse.
I was called by a friend's mother, who's 70 years old, crippled (so she doesn't go out), living in a small apartment, and a chain smoker. She had a computer for a couple years, and it suddenly stopped working. It was plugged in and all the usual stuff, so I figured I'd give it a good cleaning. Well, it was dark, so I couldn't see anything obvious. I took off the case, took it outside (because it smelled so bad), and blew (with my mouth -- no canned air handy) and shook it upside down, and pretty much all the stuff you shouldn't do. I took it back in, and it still didn't work. The warranty has expired, so I offered to take it home to see if I could troubleshoot it.
I brought it into a lighted area and, to my horror, even after the half-assed cleaning I gave it, and only being a couple years old, this is what the innards looked like:
This was the first computer I've ever personally seen that's died of second hand smoke.