do viruses harm your system hardware ?

Question

i can reinstall the softwares if viruses affect them but do they really harm my hardware. i have a compaq pressario desktop..

512 MB ram, 3.06 GHz, P4,80GB sata

if they do or dont, then what are their harms and how to remedy them

Answer 1

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Viruses are mainly designed to affect the system software like replicating themselves again and again, installing unknown are unwanted softwares, etc. They could not harm the system hardware directly by anyway.

But they could play a minor role in affecting the system hardware. For eg. consider that your system is attacked by a virus, which formats your hard disk when ever it gets, activated. What would happen if the hard disk is formatted again and again? Surely it would create some bad sector or affect in some other way.

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Vasu M
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Answer 2

Most internet cafes I've been to don't have a virusscanner, which is a pitey since most of them have a pretty good internet connection. As a result, most PCs in these cafes are ridden with viruses and trojans. Some internet cafes automatically format all their computers at night time, to have a fresh start in the morning, this can be accomplished via RIS service on a Windows 2000/2003 server. That is a rather rigorous solution though. So do make sure you have a decent virusscanner on all PCs, it will prevent the computers becoming part of a botnet and clogging up your internet connection with attempts to spread more viruses, trojans and spam!

Answer 3

Normal viruses will not effect ur H/W. But even ur mother board and other H/W have some S/W(firmware) in them stored by the manufacturer which can be effected by an expert or some well programmed virus.
Leaving aside all the parts, Motherboards and printers can be easily get effected by virus, if they r programmed such that they can modify/damage the firmware.
If the firmware is modified/damaged ur computer or printer may not work properly or the worst that they may not work at all. This can also can be cleaned/rectified by taking them to the Service personnel or the manufacturer.

Hope I cleared ur doubts.

Answer 4

No viruses are software programs that are installed unintentionally by user or with out knowledge of the user. The viruses can not permantly damage the hardware or can not cause any malfunction in hardware. They can only disrupt the way software works or syndication bet hardware and software

ex- If virus attacks printing software then printing will not occur but that doesn't mean printer is out of order

Answer 5

No, they cant directly affect the hardware...but thats not relevant with viruses...You shouls be checking whether they affect the system itself or not...YES they do a very damaging effect on the system.

Answer 6

no they cant (but they can indirectly). but you should be more worried if a virus wipes or corrupts all your precious data than if it harms ur ram. but it might just damage the hdd indirectly,as it may randomly reboot ur computer which may lead to the creation of bad sectors

Answer 7

no they do not harm the hardware as they are not things that you can touch .they are also a program then how can they harm your computer.

Answer 8

no, they don't effect computer hardware.they only effect ur sytem's memory and softwares. some very harmful viruses can totaly damage ur computer's memory.

Answer 9

no they dont affect hardware

Answer 10

yes they do