Unfortunately the "petty competition" is a fact of life: after all, in the dog-eat-dog world of Ryuseki High, nothing would be more stimulating than the promise of getting cred for solving this situation.

As for what you say, it makes no sense. SURELY doing all that would mean the problem should be solved, unless by some reason there's something darker or deeper taking place here. Something beyond a mere computer problem. We certainly can't wait until some chance event brings on an EMP to kill the computer system...