Can Software Damage Hardware?

[imagoon]

More random examples:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_poke

 

[imagoon]

But the software in question wasn't doing anything with the clock speeds. It was simply running very fast code without any rate limiters.

The equivalent is running something like superpi and having the CPU fail. Would you say that super pi damaged the CPU? no, because superpi was only using the CPU as intended.

In the case of starcraft 2, the GPU was being taxed by the starcraft menu system. The fact that GPUs were damaged is the fault of the GPU manufacturers, not blizzard. The GPU manufacturers are the ones that should have downclocked their GPUs when the temps got high or delivered GPUs with fans that could dissipate the heat they were generating in the first place.

I agree. It wasn't that Blizzard sent something like "GPU over clock yourself by 200%" and "disable fan" and then let the card bake until it died, they just utilized "100%" of the cards rated performance and the cards horked over. Card should thottle or thermal hang at that point.

 

[lamedude]

Windows Update now does that.

 

[imagoon]

FTDI drivers are killing bootleg chips..

I fixed that for you.

 

[chrstrbrts]

I fixed that for you.

How can you permanently brick a chip?

I'm assuming that the transistors that comprise the gates are stuck in one state and can't be switched any longer.

How can you possibly do that?

Thanks.

 

[chrstrbrts]

Setting which says which audio source gets directed to which physical speaker or other output.

And this destroyed your chip? Other than overheating and melting a chip or literally smashing it to pieces, I don't understand how a chip can be damaged.

After all, there are no moving parts.

Do you know anything about the material science behind chips and their components that can explain how chips can be destroyed?

Thanks.

 

[Markbnj]

Do you know anything about the material science behind chips and their components that can explain how chips can be destroyed?

There are better forums for this topic, probably, but one of the essential problems is that chips consist of conductive and non-conductive pieces that taken together form circuits from which logic elements are built. High temperatures or higher than acceptable currents can permanently alter the dielectric characteristics of the materials, causing current to bleed across the microscopic insulation between conductive paths.

 

[alkemyst]

The OP is trolling.

 

[chrstrbrts]

There are better forums for this topic, probably, but one of the essential problems is that chips consist of conductive and non-conductive pieces that taken together form circuits from which logic elements are built. High temperatures or higher than acceptable currents can permanently alter the dielectric characteristics of the materials, causing current to bleed across the microscopic insulation between conductive paths.

I see. The whole idea behind a chip is to control the flow of current to carry information, and if you just let current bleed through everything then you lose that control.

Thanks.

The OP is trolling.

No, I'm not. I'm simply curious.

 

[imagoon]

The FTDI chip thing is a firmware flash that doesn't truly "brick" the chip but makes it hard to communicate with. It resets the USB IDs to invalid values for example. However those chips have firmware and doing something placing a jump op code to the same address the chip boots would make it never start again. If the thermal controls are software driven that could lead to thermal run away etc.

Example would be flashing the BIOS EEPROM on a computer with nothing but JMP F00F. It would take removing the EEPROM from the board and reflashing something sane back to the chip to allow recovery. On an IC you can't just remove the EEPROM so unless there are last resort measures like a boot from JTAG, the chip is done.

 

[John Connor]

Hi,

Can software actually damage hardware?

Specifically, can malicious software e.g. viruses, worms, Trojan horses, etc. actually damage processors, ICs, gates, multiplexers, etc.?

Thanks.

SCADA hacking can destroy generators and such. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCADA

 

[alkemyst]

SCADA hacking can destroy generators and such. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCADA

This is one of the things that has not been well hardened in the past, these networks exist at most major water plants to control valves.

They take very simply commands and it would be easy to open or close valves which could cause a lot of damage.

One of the big deployments I was on in the past was going out and adding security to these networks and turning off any remote access that was not needed.