
I should've taken some pictures! My buddy would come over somtimes, and I'd say, "wait, wait, you HAVE TO SEE this one!! What the FUCK were they thinking?"
One with the entire LPC, top and bottom D0 TOTALLY trashed, it looked like someone had used acid-core solder and a 100-watt soldering gun. I mean, the PCB had been eaten into. This board was a loss, no way to get it going.
A motherboard entirely covered in an oily film, like it had taken a ride on the conveyor at the Coca-Cola bottling plant, then sprayed with WD-40. I bathed it in alcohol and distilled water, replaced the TSOP, and it served a tour of duty as my test/config motherboard for almost a year. R.I.P.!
My favorite: One with MULTIPLE burned/broken traces on the top and underside of the board, some nowhere NEAR the LPC and D0 points. Also three missing caps and three missing resistors. I repaired FIVE traces on bottom, THREE on top, made FIVE repairs on the LPC, and replaced the three resistors and three caps, and got it going. Donated it to a friend (a PS2 owner in need).
Too many to count: Boards with resistors and caps that had been knocked off, and mountains of solder applied in their place. Which obviously (to us) didn't work. Amazingly, most of these still worked when the correct component was replaced.