Q:

What do you do before sending your self-installed linux machine to the manufacturer for service?

I was just wondering what people do when their linux machine (which was previously running Windows) needs to go into the manufacturers shop for maintenance. 
I have this ASUS laptop that I've been using for about the past year. Short story, someone sat on my laptop bag and my power brick pressed into the back of the causing a small screen defect. I've been using the laptop as is due to all my work being on it, but I'd really like to send it to Asus soon'ish to have it fixed.
I was just gonna back it up, reinstall Windows with the old key, and hope that ASUS doesn't have something on the motherboard that logs anything that would void my warranty or give them a reason to deny servicing it. 
Do you do anything special?

A:

Reinstalling Windows may be overkill in your situation since this is not going to be a warranty repair and the repair depot folks will be able to repair your laptop regardless of whether it has Windows, Ubuntu or even no operating system installed.
But since you asked, I don't know that vendor repair would be the fastest and least expensive option for you.  You might check around for local repair shops that have good reputations and good reviews to see what sort of price and repair turn around you can get from them.
Regarding ASUS specifically, I have a number of ASUS powered computers and have been a long time customer of theirs.  They do support Linux... sort of.  There is nothing on the mobo or elsewhere that "logs" what operating systems have been installed so no worries there.  The problem with ASUS is that if something doesn't work, they will automatically decline to do anything to fix the problem if it is running a non-Microsoft OS.  Again, this does not apply to clearly broken hardware.  But if you had a complaint regarding something about the way graphics are displayed and you sent the laptop in with Ubuntu installed, you will likely get a "sorry, Ubuntu isn't supported" response from ASUS.

