[mdlug] BIOS viruses ? Oh my!

[Ingles, Raymond]

> From: Raymond McLaughlin
> >>> > > On Tue, Nov 20, 2007 at 03:18:01PM -0500, john-thomas 
> richards wrote:
> >>> > > After pouring much time into this, it has been determined that this
> >>> > > (and the other two) motherboard has a very special and very specific
> >>> > > failure that keeps it from booting a GUI.

> > Now, my feeling here is that these machine when running Windows came
> > across a site that was probably compromised and the compromiser had it
> > in for any IBM hardware. Created a BIOS hack and got it to load via
> > Active-Hex via Infernal Exploiter or Lookout... voila, unfixable
> > machine.

 And not cleared by a BIOS update? I won't say it's impossible, but I'd guess
it more likely that there was a bad production run - perhaps a dodgy capacitor
was used. Switching video modes is a lot harder on a monitor than a video
processor, but it still does draw some current and would send some surges into
the lines. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but if the filters on the lines
didn't handle the ringing, or allowed some signal to leak onto other lines...

 That'd be the kind of thing that'd take a while to show up, but in a batch
of machines that were all used in similar ways, they might flake out the same
way at roughly the same time.

 One possible thing to try - a video mode switch without a monitor connected?
That'd change the load significantly... these things might make useful
headless servers if that were the case.

 Sincerely,

 Ray Ingles                                             (313) 227-2317

  "Real faith, you see, leads us to deeper reflection and not -- not
 ever -- to the thing we as humans so very much want: Easy certainty."
                           - Jim Wallis
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