t40 no boot virus ????

[jcnj6]

I have had several thinkpads, t23, t30, t40, t41 . . just acquired a t60
Occasionally they will not boot (I have a dead t40 now).
Some of them seemed quite dead.
I have brought them to a local computer specialist working out of his home and he found that
some had dead motherboards but some supposedly had a virus which was keeping them from booting.
At $100 per repair I'm interested in knowing:
is this possible?
what kind of virus / worm / etc could cause this or similar problems?
what could be done to prevent them?
how can I repair them myself?
what usb/floppy hardware and software do I need?

Thanks for your thoughts
Rich

[rkawakami]

I suppose that a virus could be constructed which wipes out or alters the BIOS enough so that the system receives power but won't boot. If you are talking about "dead" motherboards which do not exhibit any indication of powering up (no LEDs light up, the fan doesn't spin, no beep codes, etc.), then I don't think that it's possible that a virus did that damage.

Assuming that I'm wrong on that point, then in order to prevent such a virus/worm/malware from destroying a computer, you should run a good antivirus program, keep the BIOS locked down with a password, don't visit sketchy web sites, don't partake in P2P file sharing and any other high-risk activities where you could receive/execute files.

[RealBlackStuff]

The ones with the supposed virus on it, could be 'repaired' cheaper by just replacing the hard disk.
Or rather: take the HD out, put in a USB enclosure, connect that to a PC with proper AV, and low-level format the HD if there's nothing important on it.
That should teach the virus!

[visionviper]

When you say that it doesn't boot do you mean that it can't get through the BIOS power on self test or that in cannot get into your operating system?

[jcnj6]

Sorry, don't mean to be vague, there have been so many variations I may confuse them
There are times that it obviously is a virus on the hard drive, as it goes through bios but hard drive access stops before windows fully loads
Other times lights come on, fan starts, then nothing

I may be wrong about the whole thing, but I run AVG anti virus, don't think I visit bad websites
I just thought someone may have experienced this and have insight

Is AVG not good enough?
I stopped using Norton as they hijack and disable your computer unless you pay
Are there other threats that anti-virus can't see or stop (worms?)

Thanks
Rich

[rkawakami]

From that description, you could also be having problems with a hard drive that is either going bad, or already has done so. For those systems which appear to have a booting problem, do they all have (or had) a hard drive connected to them? Best thing that I can suggest is to remove any hard drive and see if the system(s) reliably powers up and is able to access the BIOS. If it/they do, then re-install the drive and run something like the Fixed Disk diagnostic in PC Doctor for DOS (there's various versions which only run on certain Thinkpad systems).

ref: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... ATRIX.html (click on the system and then locate the PC Doctor DOS link(s))

[RealBlackStuff]

And yet another option: a Southbridge chip literally going south...