not exactly a brick, i suppose, at least not exactly what a lot of people would call a brick, but similar...
own a playstation 2 that i paid somebody to install a mod chip into. eventually the mod chip stopped working. opened the console, saw that one of the chip's wires had come loose from the motherboard. don't have much soldering experience, but no big deal just putting one wire back onto a broken solder joint. plugged the console into AC power without completely reassembling the case. wanted to test the chip first. not such a good idea. touched the power button. loud pop, something smells burnt, console won't power on. searched around in the console with a flashlight, noticed that a removable fuse on the power supply looks like it's burned.
went to electronics hobby store with burned fuse, asked guy to help me find a replacement for it. he asks what machine the fuse came from. i tell him it's from a playstation 2. "REALLY? HOW IN THE WORLD CAN YOU BURN A FUSE IN A PS2???" i'm like "ummmmmm, uhhhhhhhhh. yeah... well..."
went home and placed the new fuse in the ps2. assembled the ps2's case completely before trying the power. thankfully it powered on just fine, and the mod chip was also working right again.