Casper H.S. Dik wrote:
> Sebastian Gottschalk <seppi@seppig.de> writes:
>
> >> Signaling is not accessible by 'machine code' in a virus.
>
> >It is. How do you think all those fan control software packages work?
>
> There are several different implementations.
>
> There are there were the BIOS controls the FAN directly and there
> is no intervention of the OS.
>
> And then there are those were the BIOS generates events for the OS
> and the OS has to actively control the fan speeds.
>
> On PCs this is all handled by ACPI; as an OS developer I have
> worked on some of the ACPI codes and we did find systems which would
> overheat and shut off when the OS does not handle this properly.
>
> Unfortunately, we've found that there are systems were such a
> hard off switch does not occur or not soon enough; and the system either
> stops working or its lifetime is shortened.
>
> Specifically in the realm of passive cooling the OS generally has a
> say and if the OS ignores the BIOS (or a virus makes it ignore the BIOS),
> this usually does not bode well the life expectency of the system.
>

But could such damage be done on the average PC nowadays by a virus?
Is there anything that a virus can do to the average PC that could
possibly
force a replacement of hardware?

> Casper
> --
> Expressed in this posting are my opinions. They are in no way related
> to opinions held by my employer, Sun Microsystems.
> Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may
> be fiction rather than truth.