Can viruses do physical damage to a pc?

[karadan]

Hello all,

So my home pc died last Tuesday. I got a blue screen of death. it happened a few more times within 10 mins of turning my machine on so I thought it might be an issue with my RAM. I took out both sticks and tried again. This made no difference. I then removed my graphics card, but my machine was no longer able to get into windows safe mode. I made a system restore point a few weeks ago before installing some software, so, I put the graphics card back in, started win7 in safe mode and tried a system restore, at which point it told me there weren't any!

Anyway, after a few hours of trying to diagnose the issue, the machine seemed to have given up even being able to get out the startup bios screens. By this point I'd pretty much resigned myself to buying a new machine. Anyways, I went away this weekend to play golf. Whilst on the 14th, I got a call from a mate. He told me my old world of warcraft account had been hacked as there was someone running around with my character who was using an obvious bot. (I've not used that account for a while now). My mate then logged onto my battlenet account (the hacker hadn't changed the password!) and changed the password for me. What is weird, is that whoever was using my account hadn't thought to change acc details and had actually paid for a months subscription. This led me to believe my details had been sold or passed on.

This morning I got into work and tried to log into my gmail account but it told me my password was incorrect. I'm currently waiting for confirmation from google to get my account back. my facebook account hasn't been touched and neither have any of the forums I actively use.

I'm usually very careful but I don't think it is coincidence that my machine died just before my online accounts got hacked. All the symptoms my home pc is displaying are for hardware failures. I was just wondering if any of you guys had heard of viruses which can actually do physical damage to a pc?

Any answers greatly appreciated.

[The Magic Pudding]

Years ago Chernobyl used to damage motherboards, probably a bad flash I suppose, I haven't heard of any lately.  Legit programs control fans so a dodgy one could, but the bios is usually set to shut down when things get to hot.
You can try a live Linux distro http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=69 if the hardware is OK it should work.
There is a memory diagnostic available free from Microsoft.

[Tank]

I have never heard of a virus that could do physical damage to a pc. Obviously the bad ones bugger up your File Allocation Table (FAT) which is a disaster and would emulate the effects of a hard disk crash. Looks like you caught a trojan that went through your files and then covered its trail. What anti-virus software did you have loaded?

[Asmodean]

Viruses can damage hardware, yes, but indirectly.

Your bluescreen can be a result of several issues, from new or changed hardware and drivers to conflicts and incompatibilities to worms. Hard to say without the system specs, but I'd try figuring out what changed before the problem started. There might have been automatic driver updates, for instance.

[karadan]

I have never heard of a virus that could do physical damage to a pc. Obviously the bad ones bugger up your File Allocation Table (FAT) which is a disaster and would emulate the effects of a hard disk crash. Looks like you caught a trojan that went through your files and then covered its trail. What anti-virus software did you have loaded?

Fully up-to-date norton. I regularly run spybot, malwarebytes and registry checking software.

[Asmodean]

Fully up-to-date norton. I regularly run spybot, malwarebytes and registry checking software.

The first one alone [Norton] is sufficient for "normal" internet use. First and second are sufficient for nearly everybody.

Unless your pc is really old, a mess in registry is not likely to slow it down so you do not need regcheckers unless something is broken.

[Tank]

I have never heard of a virus that could do physical damage to a pc. Obviously the bad ones bugger up your File Allocation Table (FAT) which is a disaster and would emulate the effects of a hard disk crash. Looks like you caught a trojan that went through your files and then covered its trail. What anti-virus software did you have loaded?

Fully up-to-date norton. I regularly run spybot, malwarebytes and registry checking software.

Sounds good to me.

[AnimatedDirt]

Fully up-to-date norton. I regularly run spybot, malwarebytes and registry checking software.

OR...you get a MAC and never have issues with virus'.

[The Magic Pudding]

For those who haven't used a live Linux disk I'll do some explaining.
You download an image for CD/DVD, one is here http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=69.
You burn the image to disk, then you can boot the computer into a functional Linux operating system without installing to or changing the hard drive, it's easy.  If you can do this it eliminates hardware faults and means you don't need a new computer.  If it only works for a while you may have a heat issue which may be solved be cleaning.  I assume fans are spinning.  Heat sinks shouldn't be unbearably hot to touch.  A setting in bios or pressing F8 (usually) during boot process may be required for the computer to attempt booting from DVD.

If you have removed the video card (do you have an on-board one as well?)  and memory make sure they have been reseated properly.
Post Beep Codes can be found here http://www.technick.net/public/code/cp_ ... beep_codes

A free version of Acronis drive backup is available for those with a Seagate/Maxtor or Western Digital hard drive.

Coincidences do happen, often.

[karadan]

Fully up-to-date norton. I regularly run spybot, malwarebytes and registry checking software.

OR...you get a MAC and never have issues with virus'.

Hmm, last time i checked, Macs weren't that great for gaming and hardware upgrades.

[karadan]

For those who haven't used a live Linux disk I'll do some explaining.
You download an image for CD/DVD, one is here http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=69.
You burn the image to disk, then you can boot the computer into a functional Linux operating system without installing to or changing the hard drive, it's easy.  If you can do this it eliminates hardware faults and means you don't need a new computer.  If it only works for a while you may have a heat issue which may be solved be cleaning.  I assume fans are spinning.  Heat sinks shouldn't be unbearably hot to touch.  A setting in bios or pressing F8 (usually) during boot process may be required for the computer to attempt booting from DVD.

If you have removed the video card (do you have an on-board one as well?)  and memory make sure they have been reseated properly.
Post Beep Codes can be found here http://www.technick.net/public/code/cp_ ... beep_codes

A free version of Acronis drive backup is available for those with a Seagate/Maxtor or Western Digital hard drive.

Coincidences do happen, often.

Thanks for that Magic, I'll defo try that linux boot disk. My pc definitely is not over heating. All the fans work and I get the compressed air out every few months. I was tinkering last night and I think it might be a simultaneous issue with my graphics card and RAM. I have a mate coming round to have a look at it tomorrow but he thinks the power supply might be to blame. If it is, I'll be very unhappy. It is only nine months old and cost me 85 quid!
There's been no beeping from the motherboard when turning on the machine. The motherboard does have an on-board graphics card.

I got my Gmail account back yesterday afternoon. I was unable to find anything untoward. Needless to say, I've changed all my online passwords.. Lucky I don't do online banking I suppose. As you said, it could entirely be a cooincidence.

[AnimatedDirt]

OR...you get a MAC and never have issues with virus'.

Hmm, last time i checked, Macs weren't that great for gaming and hardware upgrades.

If that's the best it does...then I don't argue.  Buy a PC, keep the security, virus, and adware companies wealthy.

[hismikeness]

Fully up-to-date norton. I regularly run spybot, malwarebytes and registry checking software.

OR...you get a MAC and never have issues with virus'.

Hmm, last time i checked, Macs weren't that great for gaming and hardware upgrades.

The MacPro (tower) is easy to upgrade the hardware. It is spendy though. And... it can run Windows. Mac's are getting better at gaming, from my understaning. I don't do a lot of computer gaming, so I wouldn't know, but the Mac market share is growing enough that the major game developers are making Mac compatible versions alongside their PC based ones, or porting them over later.

[Asmodean]

Hmm, last time i checked, Macs weren't that great for gaming and hardware upgrades.

[AnimatedDirt]

Hmm, last time i checked, Macs weren't that great for gaming and hardware upgrades.

Maybe so...but if so, the number is so few that in 6 years I've not had to worry about any and have not had any such problems on at least 5 machines of my own and 3 that I use from another source that are all still in use.