Author Topic: PC BIOS struck?  (Read 1484 times)

GenuineAdvantage

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PC BIOS struck?
« on: 11 August 2006, 04:57 »
One of the guys I know who I think I mentioned here as having a virus farm and not caring, his PC ate it. Last week I think. The thing is gone. No need to mention anything, it's been tried. He said he was just playing world of nerdcraft and it just went blank and stayed that way no matter what. Like I said, this is a PC that is just left to rot with infections and no kind of anti-virus for as long as it still kept running, other than using Enditall at login to kill stuff which caused it to lock up later. But it's time seems to have run out. The fans run but there is no screen error of any kind displayed, and the hard disks don't respond unless the IDE cables are disconnected. I've never seen it myself but what exactly happens when a BIOS is incorrectly or maliciously flashed? Something like this, right? Or do motherboards suddenly bite the dust?

edit: oops, this should have been in the other forum. move please if you like.

x 2, I should have said the general forum or some. this isn't technical support query, more of a general topic of opinion. there's no way for someone to tell me with certainty what the cause of this is. but whatever, the same thing can be said for a lot of stuff I've posted here.


Orethrius

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Re: PC BIOS struck?
« Reply #1 on: 11 August 2006, 07:18 »
I'd say it could very possibly be a bad BIOS "update" (my P4P800 almost ate it after one of those went bad, but the checksum failed so the malware was never loaded).  It should be possible to bypass any disk-read errors and reflash the BIOS from a recovery disc, if he were to short the correct pins (assuming that the mobo stores settings in NVRAM).  That is, unless he tossed that, as well.  After all, running Windows without a decent anti-virus is like walking through a Red Light District after eating five metric tonnes of Viagra.

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pofnlice

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Re: PC BIOS struck?
« Reply #2 on: 11 August 2006, 08:58 »
Quote from: "Orethrius"
After all, running Windows without a decent anti-virus is like walking through a Red Light District after eating five metric tonnes of Viagra.


:O

Anyway...I have to agree. Reset the Bios to factory default, then try a flash update witht the proper flash util n prog...see what happens.
Quote from: "Orethrius"
After all, running Windows without a decent anti-virus is like walking through a Red Light District after eating five metric tonnes of Viagra.

GenuineAdvantage

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Re: PC BIOS struck?
« Reply #3 on: 11 August 2006, 09:13 »
I just talked to him on im, he says the motherboard is crash free bios so only a fried bios chip would do it, which doesn't happen just with flashing. Says he's just replacing the motherboard. How the heck this happens is very strange though. I've never seen something like this. It's probably safe to consider it was tampering though.