is it possible to fry a CPU regardless of cooling?

[IBdaMac]

I have a few people here at work who believe they can design some sort of OS, or something that will do more than make my CPU run at 100%, but will make it do something (not raise the power too much or anything) that will make it get too hot and blow up.

I have a 2800+, and they think that with my Aero 7 cooler, they can program something to make it fry.

Someone please tell me if this is possible. Remember, they said not messing with the voltages or anything like that. Just making the processor do what it's supposed to do, too fast until it fries itself.

I don't believe it and anyone that can help me prove these guys wrong would be great

 

[myocardia]

Well, if they design something that raises your fsb, they can make your system freeze every time, but they can't do anything that will actually fry your processor. There is nothing that can be done with software that will harm hardware, unless of course, it is destroying the boot sector of your hard-drive, which still doesn't destroy the drive, it just makes it unusable, until someone who knows what they are doing makes it usable again. Tell them I'll bet them my computer, against their houses, that they can't do anything to mine, to even make it overheat, and I'm using air cooling!

 

[IBdaMac]

see that's what I said...I said it was total bull...I told them that if they make it, they can try. They said it has nothing to do with raising the fsb or anything hardware related...they said it would all be software...open and close all the gates of the processor over and over again or something.

I need more than just one opinion. Can software cause a processor to kill itself basically?

Addition: They also said that there can't be anything to shut it down....basically, I run my processor at 100% at all times (United Devices) and it hits a top temp of like 43. I told them they couldn't make it run so hot that my Aero 7+ wouldn't matter.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: myocardia
Well, if they design something that raises your fsb, they can make your system freeze every time, but they can't do anything that will actually fry your processor. There is nothing that can be done with software that will harm hardware, unless of course, it is destroying the boot sector of your hard-drive, which still doesn't destroy the drive, it just makes it unusable, until someone who knows what they are doing makes it usable again. Tell them I'll bet them my computer, against their houses, that they can't do anything to mine, to even make it overheat, and I'm using air cooling!

Read the section in bold again. Oh, and bump for another opinion!

 

[IBdaMac]

myocardia, I don't mean you any disrespect but I can't assume you are 100% correct. Only way is majority I guess.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: IBdaMac
myocardia, I don't mean you any disrespect but I can't assume you are 100% correct. Only way is majority I guess.

Agreed. Another bump for some more opinions.

 

[scottws]

My CPU works at 100% almost all the time, especially since I'm running SETI@home in the background and the processor-intensive (why?) eMule. It hasn't burned out in a year. How can they make the CPU do more than 100% work without overclocking?

 

[Soulkeeper]

yes, voltage kills even with subzero cooling

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Soulkeeper
yes, voltage kills even with subzero cooling

Yeah, but if I understood his original post, he said it would be without changing the vcore any at all, which means that the answer is still no.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

The crazy cia wannabe professors at my college could give a diffenitive answer... but they are scary and I don't want to ask them.

 

[IBdaMac]

I'm trying to get the technical explination on how they plan on making it overheat without raising the vcore or anything like that.

I know, it sounds really stupid...but they're so positive that it can be done, and they make me feel like and idiot since I'm still fighting it.


Please, ask your CIA looking prof's

 

[IBdaMac]

IMName: alternate the high and lower power of its transistors so fast that it effectively melts


still don't think it will work

 

[mechBgon]

It might be possible if the CPU is weak to start with. I had a well-cooled Pentium3 whose SSE unit went *POOF* the first chance it got to run streaming video from broadband Internet (the cable installer wanted to show off how fast my AT&T @ Home was). Screen went black, the AT&T @ Home cable installer and I went ~ huh?, and that CPU (which was in a dualie) never ran SSE-enabled *anything* again without crashing the system, as I eventually figured out from sheer stubborn deduction and testing.

 

[kamper]

what if you were to study the architecture of a specific processor, down as far as, in your case, the AMD people know it. Locate some circuit that is rarely ever used by conventional x86 instructions and isn't designed as robustly. Then figure out which instruction or sequence of instructions will repeatedly utilize that particular circuit. Then either run that in a loop or fill all of memory with that sequence and start the processor executing at the very beginning. Then maybe you can fry this single circuit.

But then, the quality of that circuit will probably change from processor to processor, batch to batch, stepping to stepping, .... And as much of the design is probably managed with some sort of software (no clue ) there are probably very few people on earth who could identify such a circuit or instruction.

So that's my little musing from the perspective of these "let's destroy a processor for fun" people. Obviously I don't think this is intentionally, humanly possible although mechBgon has proved that it's unintentionally possible. But I also can't claim to know much about processor architecture either

 

[IBdaMac]

They say that it will not be just one little circuit somewhere in the processor, or anything like that. They said specifically that it will make the processor so hot that it will fry from heat....basically make it glow red!

Please mister Microelectrical engineer, you've gotta be out there to answer me and help me prove these losers wrong!!

 

[Abhoth]

O.K., look... it's horse hockey, bullshiz ya know. It'll blow a circuit before it glows and if it was possible don't you think the little kid virus writers out there would have used that one?

 

[BlackMountainCow]

That is BS! It's like the old myth that there are viruses that can make your screen explode or kill your hardrive for ever (not just till the next format). I'm not a technician, but if this was possible, somebody definitly would have written an virus by now and LOTS of CPUs would be dead. A processor, that glows red is just impossible!! Look at TomsHardwareGuide (I don't like that site either, but here it's good). They made a video in which they removed the HS fom an AMD and it fried within a few secs. So, if the CPU fries, the rest of the system will shut down either. A red glowing CPU is just a bad joke from your collegues.

Besides that, just assumed they could do that, why not tell it to AMD and get some good big money for keeping it a secret?

 

[IBdaMac]

Again, it's not necessarily a virus. He believes that by booting an "OS" that he writes on this floppy, he can cause this to happen. It's not while in windows, and it's not just having the processor compute anything. It's just alternating the high and low voltages in the CPU so quick, that it overheats.

"creatin a custom operationg system that custom regulates the registers" was his explination.

Someone give me a super technical explination.

 

[saechaka]

Originally posted by: IBdaMac
I have a few people here at work who believe they can design some sort of OS, or something that will do more than make my CPU run at 100%, but will make it do something (not raise the power too much or anything) that will make it get too hot and blow up.

I have a 2800+, and they think that with my Aero 7 cooler, they can program something to make it fry.

Someone please tell me if this is possible. Remember, they said not messing with the voltages or anything like that. Just making the processor do what it's supposed to do, too fast until it fries itself.

I don't believe it and anyone that can help me prove these guys wrong would be great

YOU NEED TO GO IN THE HIGHLY TECHNICAL FORUM MY FRIEND.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: IBdaMac
Again, it's not necessarily a virus. He believes that by booting an "OS" that he writes on this floppy, he can cause this to happen. It's not while in windows, and it's not just having the processor compute anything. It's just alternating the high and low voltages in the CPU so quick, that it overheats.

"creatin a custom operationg system that custom regulates the registers" was his explination.

Someone give me a super technical explination.

Just call his bluff.

Double-dog dare him to JUST DO IT!

 

[sonoran]

Originally posted by: IBdaMac
I have a few people here at work who believe they can design some sort of OS, or something that will do more than make my CPU run at 100%, but will make it do something (not raise the power too much or anything) that will make it get too hot and blow up.

If the thermal protection on that 2800+ system isn't up to snuff, they might be able to do it, but I'd bet against it. And I've got $100 that says they can't do it to any P4 system.

And by the way, there used to be ways to write software that could damage some hardware. I don't remember the specifics, but it used to be possible to fry some monitors with malicious (or more likely poorly written) video code. I don't believe that's a problem with today's monitors.

 

[high]

So stupid, it cant be done IBdaMac, accept it and leave, this is a waste of forum space now.

 

[Jeff7]

Turning the gates on and off rapidly? That's what a CPU does anyway to calculate anything.
There's a program out there, think it's called CPU Burn. It is designed to heat up the CPU. The only thing I burned out with that was a cheap power supply - 300W thing couldn't power a few hard drives, and a 1GHz Tbird running at 1.4GHz. That's what you get for overloading generic power supplies. The only thing I can think of that'd really disable something would be a program to scramble or erase the BIOS. PC would run fine - until it tries to reboot.

 

[glugglug]

It is possible to break a modern CPU in software, but it has nothing to do with heat. Basically you use the fact they now have updatable microcode and give it a bad flash.