Is it possible for a virus to damage hardware?

[iolair]

I have a machine, supposedly protected by Symantec Endpoint Protection, that is acting like it has hardware damage. I was getting messages that Symantec had multiple problems, couldn't load and was sending error messages to Symantec and Microsoft.

I installed a new hard drive, and completely reinstalled Windows, and then the first thing I did was to reinstall Symantec BEFORE I loaded any of the user's files. But, I am still getting the same message as before.

Are there any known viruses/malware that can destroy BIOS chips, Processor chips or similar?

Iolair MacWalter
Network Engineer

 

[DrB0b]

Are you completely aware that there are no hardware problems? Have you ran memtest and/or hard drive test just to rule out a bad new drive as well. Any stress tests to the CPU or motherboard?

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[xit]

A little more input about your system may help somewhat.

 

[rclarke250]

No, and I agree with the above. What error, and have you run any diagnostics.

 

[Sympology]

You can get boot sector viruses, BIOS viruses, but now processor or memory virus.Most mobo's protect against BIOS ones these days, so I'd rule that out.
However, symantec can have issues and do stupid stuff (I know we are forced to use in on mine and it often disables the network card on boot)

Uninstall and try something decent else, such as MS Security essentials or Avast.
then see what happens.

Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

http://alvechurchlounge.org.uk

 

[iolair]

It's a Dell Optiplex 745, and I did boot from the Dell CD and run all the diagnostics. It returned no errors. I will try another hard drive today and see if I can get any better results. I also created a different user on the same system, with the same results.

Unfortunately, where I work has a software contract with Symantec and I can not change that right now.

Iolair MacWalter
Network Engineer

 

[DrB0b]

Being in a contract doesnt stop you from uninstalling and reinstalling tho. Could just be a settings issue or an update gone bad.

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[iolair]

That's what I'm hoping.

Iolair MacWalter
Network Engineer