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Fri 9 Dec, 2005 05:11 am
I've heard before that it is possible for a virus to destroy hardware, but I never believed it until two nights ago when I was sitting here, minding my own business and suddenly my monitor made a pop and smoke started billowing out the back. The screen fizzled away just like an old time TV set shrinks to black when you turn it off.
So I immediately get into my truck and drive down to CompUSA to pick out a new 19" flat screen. The flat screens suck compared to the deep monitors in the image quality department, by the way.
So, I plug in the new monitor and try to get back onto my computer only to discover that I can't access any of my hard drives. Both hard drives are inaccessible but yet, I could still open up applications. I couldn't open any files with the applications though.
I ended up reformatting and installing everything from scratch.
I can see how a virus could destroy hardware, I guess it could destroy a monitor by sending a few rapid commands to change the MHZ output, or throw in a couple of quick degauss commands. I don't know, is it possible? Or was it just time for a 5 year old monitor to go and it sent a power surge back up the monitor cable to my computer which crashed my hard drive. What are your thoughts?
don't sound very likely but i don't see why the virus couldn't request a higher hertz rate that the monitor just couldn't cope with hence frying it. Its scary to think what these viruses might be doing a in a few years, probably something like blowing up your machine into a fireball in front of your very eyes.
Invalid refresh rates just result in a garbled screen. Even on ancient monitors. Leaving such a refresh rate on for a long time can damage an older monitor, but not produce the effects you described.
Unlikely to be a software issue - the sparks-and-smoke error message generally indicates a pretty straight forward hardware problem.
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