Oh for the days of removable chips. But perhaps not. They could come loose, but at least it could be posted cheaply - if you could afford the updated chip, that is.
My first Vaio was an insurance write-off. I'd found the BIOS chip floating about, along with its tiny daughter board, inside the case. It was said there had been malicious damage while at a college, and some of the print showed scratch marks.
I sent it to Sony Brussels and come back with an estimate of £1,200 for a new motherboard. I called the head honcho there and mentioned the whole thing had only cost 999. He didn't care, but took the trouble to mention that they fingerprint check the inside of every machine and if even one print is found they invalidate the guarantee.
The odd thing was that the daughter board could be plugged in either way round. I don't recall how, but I came to some conclusion, cleaned up the print, and away she went. Wrote part of me book on it.