[Doohickey-d]

This does happen: for example in Macbook repair, it is common to buy defective motherboards, in order to salvage the chips off them (which are apple-specific, hence not purchasable elsewhere). Those boards often come from China, and often have holes drilled in them, I guess exactly to prevent them from being repaired.

It's a shame, because some of those boards could (and would, they are valuable enough) be fully repaired by a skilled repair person. Instead, the chips are picked off and the rest goes to waste.

I did buy a batch once that didn't have holes drilled, and they all turned out to have all sorts of strange, often random issues, so I suspect those were RMAs that somehow "fell off the back of a truck" and escaped the drilling.

[p1anecrazy]

Why do you think the ones with holes didn‘t have the same defect?

[krackers]

There is this insane video where someone actually does repair one of the prototype boards that have been drilled

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reQq8fx4D0Q