Can a Virus Destroy Hardware?

[John P]

My brother's computer had NAV find some sort of virus and come up with an alert message. He thought NAV took care of it but another message came up later and then his computer shut down. He tried to restart it several times to no avail.

He took the computer to a friend of his that does works on them for a living (not sure what exact line of work he is in.) Anyway, the friend told him that the virus fried his motherboard and hard drives and I think all his components. He mentioned that only his case and power supply seemed to work and that it appeared that the computer tried to reboot itself several hundred (thousand?) times in a very short period of time (how could he tell that?).

How in the heck could a virus do all that?

Sorry if I am kind of vague on this, I will try and get some more details - I asked my bro to ask his friend the exact name of the virus.

 

[Macro2]

The answer is yes.
Whether that virus did in his computer, I can't answer.

 

[charlie21]

There was that Chernobyl virus that could fry your BIOS, but that was years ago.

 

[Mikesta]

Yes, It can infect it and also cause death.

 

[John P]

How does it go about destroying the hardware?

 

[charlie21]

Originally posted by: John P.
How does it go about destroying the hardware?

That's what I want to know. I'm going to call BS on this one.

 

[Stealth1024]

there was a virus that claimed to be able to physically destroy a hard drive..

 

[Bleep]

I dont for a minute believe that there is a virus out there that can do that, the guy that made the call on this has no clue.

Bleep

 

[StraightPipe]

I heard of one that was able to adjust the fan speeds on some mobo's, and actually shut down your HSF.

not sure if it's true.

I do know that there are some viruses that will crash your sytem and the only way to completely recover is to reformat.

most viruses lately have been denial of service attacts against large comapnies.

 

[Carp1812]

Originally posted by: Stealth1024
there was a virus that claimed to be able to physically destroy a hard drive..

I remember this as well- I think that it forced the drive to spin at speeds well above its rated speed. This would either cause the mechanism to shatter or got so hot that it would start to melt.

 

[Macro2]

RE:"There was a virus that claimed to be able to physically destroy a hard drive."

This is true...

Mac

 

[WarCon]

There have been several bios writing virii like Chernobyl (as was mentioned above). There have been virii that have been known to try and park your head on your hard drive at random locations in an attempt to physically damage the platters, but I don't believe hard drives have been susceptible to those type of virii for quite a while.

If someone did write a virus that was a bios modifier instead of writing garbage it could modify voltage regulator settings to way out of bounds (if the hardware even allowed such a thing), then maybe a virus could do physical damage to other components, but I sure haven't seen anything like this. (P.S. Just to be able to do this to more than one brand of mobo/bios type the virus would have to be pretty big.)

If all this guys stuff really was fried, then I am guessing he had one of his rails on his powersupply die and soak the motherboard / drives / peripherals with AC or a really bad spike. And because the powersupply turns on by shorting the green wire to ground this "tech" believes its still good.

Or this "tech" just wants to sell some spare parts he has had laying around for awhile........

 

[Tab]

Their is a rumor that a version of the MSBLAST D Virus would attempt to overclock your video card if you had a ATI one. I wouldnt be surprised though if it did kill your hardware.

 

[Jetblade]

I think I have a virus on my PC. Everytime I turn on my PC and leave it on for like 30mins. My CD rom starts spinning for no reason. It spins as fast as it can go. There has to be a CD in there though.

 

[Macro2]

RE:"I think I have a virus on my PC. Everytime I turn on my PC and leave it on for like 30mins. My CD rom starts spinning for no reason. It spins as fast as it can go. There has to be a CD in there though"

Well run an up to date anti virus program. You can get a free one from grisoft.com
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php
Also, check your task manager and see if you have findfast running.

 

[dawks]

My brother's computer had NAV find some sort of virus and come up with an alert message. He thought NAV took care of it but another message came up later and then his computer shut down. He tried to restart it several times to no avail.

There seems to be a variant of MSBlast that corrupts harddrives. I've seen three-four posts here about people receiving the shutdown messege, their computer is then shutdown, and afterwards, they cant boot, because some or all of the data on their harddrive is corrupt.

From what you've stated, this is a more reasonable assumption, seeing as actually damaging hardware isnt the easiest thing to do via software. And perhaps this so called 'computer guy' is just an idiot.

 

[StraightPipe]

Originally posted by: DaZ
From what you've stated, this is a more reasonable assumption, seeing as actually damaging hardware isnt the easiest thing to do via software. And perhaps this so called 'computer guy' is just an idiot.

-or a shmuck

 

[Curley]

I would say no. But I would think that if someone wrote a virus to stop the fan on an older AMD system (new mobos have overheat protection), that would physically fry the chip but besisdes that, I don't know of any instance were a virus could physically grow a hammer and destroy hardware. The chernobyl virus just overwrote the bios chip, it did not physically destroy it.

 

[dkozloski]

All that is required to rid your computer of the dreaded hardware destroying virus is to put it in a big pot of water and boil it. I think it is significant that no one responded to this post except with third and fourth hand anecdotes. Let's put to rest yet another urban legend.

 

[John P]

None of you guys have addressed the rebooting question from the original post:

Could a Virus cause a computer to reboot itself several hundred times within a few seconds?

How did my brother's friend know that had happened?

Could that have caused some sort of short out in the hardware?

I would have guessed the power supply caused the problems also - if he hadn't got the NAV Virus alerts right before it happened.

Please abstain from calling my bro's friend an idiot/schmuck/whatever. He is trouble shooting his system for free, better than being raped at some computer shop. I would be doing it, but it's kind of difficult when we live 1800 miles apart.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Curley
I would say no. But I would think that if someone wrote a virus to stop the fan on an older AMD system (new mobos have overheat protection), that would physically fry the chip but besisdes that, I don't know of any instance were a virus could physically grow a hammer and destroy hardware. The chernobyl virus just overwrote the bios chip, it did not physically destroy it.

Wouldn't the PC sooner crash from overheating, prompting some kind of user interaction? I'd guess that with a crash, it'd go to 0% CPU usage.

The super-virus described in the first post - most likely doesn't exist. This sounds almost like that great virus story of a virus.....ah, here it is, thanks again to Google:

Goodtimes will re-write your hard drive. Not only that, but it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer. It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream goes melty. It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, screw up the tracking on your television and use subspace field harmonics to scratch any CD's you try to play. It will give your ex-girlfriend your new phone number. It will mix Kool-aid into your fishtank. It will drink all your beer and leave its socks out on the coffee table when there's company coming over. It will put a dead kitten in the back pocket of your good suit pants and hide your car keys when you are late for work. Goodtimes will make you fall in love with a penguin. It will give you nightmares about circus midgets. It will pour sugar in your gas tank and shave off both your eyebrows while dating your girlfriend behind your back and billing the dinner and hotel room to your Discover card. It will seduce your grandmother. It does not matter if she is dead, such is the power of Goodtimes, it reaches out beyond the grave to sully those things we hold most dear. It moves your car randomly around parking lots so you can't find it. It will kick your dog. It will leave libidinous messages on your boss's voice mail in your voice! It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold. It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve. Goodtimes will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up. It will make a batch of Methanphedime in your bathtub and then leave bacon cooking on the stove while it goes out to chase gradeschoolers with your new snowblower. Listen to me. Goodtimes does not exist. It cannot do anything to you. But I can. I am sending this message to everyone in the world. Tell your friends, tell your family. If anyone else sends me another E-mail about this fake Goodtimes Virus, I will turn hating them into a religion. I will do things to them that would make a horsehead in your bed look like Easter Sunday brunch. So there, take that Good Times.

 

[John P]

Nobody kicks my dog, NOBODY!! Dang virus....

 

[bjc112]

Originally posted by: Stealth1024
there was a virus that claimed to be able to physically destroy a hard drive..

A hard drive yes, certainly not the MOBO, CPU, RAM, GPU and the works...

"It tried to reboot several hundred or thousand times"

I would go investigate myself..EDIT ( I now see you are 1800 miles apart ) Find out how good this guy really is, does your brother have some nice hardware? He may be doing him in for some free hardware...

 

[John P]

does your brother have some nice hardware? He may be doing him in for some free hardware...

No, this a trusted friend. All my bro has an older MSI mb (probably KT133) and a Duron 1.1ghz.

I just talked to him again, it is unclear if "everything" is actually fried or the computer just won't boot up and only his hard drives are corrupted. He needs to talk to his friend again and get me some more details.

 

[bjc112]

Originally posted by: John P.

does your brother have some nice hardware? He may be doing him in for some free hardware...

No, this a trusted friend. All my bro has an older MSI mb (probably KT133) and a Duron 1.1ghz.

I just talked to him again, it is unclear if "everything" is actually fried or the computer just won't boot up and only his hard drives are corrupted. He needs to talk to his friend again and get me some more details.

Just chceking...

But yes, i would look into it more, i highly doubt the ENTIRE system is toasted.. IF anything the hard drive may be damaged..