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General discussion

Are there any viruses that prevent Hardware from working?

Feb 22, 2004 3:36AM PST

i was wondering are there any viruses, trojans or other malicous software etc. that can prevent the monitor, mouse or keyboard from working.

Discussion is locked

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Re:Are there any viruses that prevent Hardware from working?
Feb 22, 2004 3:51AM PST

Not the hardware itself, but malware could definitely infect the drivers, intercept interrupts and whatever else you (don't) like. Why do you ask this question?

Kees

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Re:Are there any viruses that prevent Hardware from working? = Yes.
Feb 22, 2004 3:54AM PST

"The CIH virus attempts to ERASE the writable FLASH BIOS of infected PC's, and also overwrites the first 2,048 sectors (1,048,576 bytes) of all of the system's available non-removable writable disk drives! While this behavior places the CIH virus among the nastiest of all viruses, the damage is more recoverable than at first appears:"
- various web sites.

YES, there are such things. The good news is such a virus snuffs itself out by doing so.

Bob

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Re:Re:Are there any viruses that prevent Hardware from working? = Yes.
Feb 23, 2004 1:00AM PST

oh i was just wondering as my mouse was acting a bit funny.no viruses on my PC though Happy

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Be sure to record a bit funny acting mouse on tape for others to watch.
Feb 23, 2004 2:07AM PST

But seriously, you have something you want to talk about. Your first post and question is answered and the add-on comment contained no question or added information.

You could read about Adaware, Spybot, Cwshredder and the plague known as KAZAA that I see too often causing people to bring a machine into repair for "funny things happening with my PC."

1. Tell more, get more and don't allow the other-than-virus items on your machine.

2. One could write such if their mouse was broken.

3. Or on a 128 Meg machine running Windows, a firewall, a pop-up stopper, playing a DVD and trying to record a CD at the same time, but that's just an extreme example of someone that did ask "Why can't I do that?"

Bob