4 ms·

bricking devices by Microsoft's friends Eh? What did I miss??

josteink 10y ago
Pretty much just people using the term "brick" to mean anything from a crashing process, to something fixed by a re-install. Example: "I just loaded a buggy web-page and bricked my Chrome. LOL!" You know. How the term "hacking" has come to mean just about anything these days. There are no PC-bricks, despite people trying to claim the contrary.
- wapz 10y ago
  Well there are PC bricks, just not software bricks. I'd argue pouring coffee on your motherboard can brick it pretty easily. I think once the term became more widespread on mobile people used it for everything.
  - y4mi 10y ago
    There was also that arch Linux debacle, where users with a certain motherboard mounted the uefi partition with write permission. Some motherboards were bricked that way.
    - vetinari 10y ago
      The problem was deletion of UEFI variables, a bug in Samsung UEFI implementation that should not allow that.
einr 10y ago
Most likely they are referring to this incident: http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/windows-7-patch-bricking-asus-pcs/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/windows-7-patch-brick...
jimmies 10y ago
Here. http://hackaday.com/2016/02/01/ftdi-drivers-break-fake-chips-again/ http://hackaday.com/2016/02/01/ftdi-drivers-break-fake-chips...
yrro 10y ago
My friend returned his Surface Pro 4 a few days after he got it when a mandatory Windows update bricked it, as in it turned off instead of restarting, and wouldn't turn back on.
- thenomad 10y ago
  I had a similar problem with a Surface, but some persistent going through the reboot options (of which there are about six, in increasing order of nuke-it-from-orbit-it's-the-only-way-to-be-sure) fixed it eventually. Other than that, though, they're great machines.
  - yrro 10y ago
    There were no reboot options. The damn thing wouldn't turn on. My friend now has an XPS13 (which he had for just over a year before an issue with the fan prompted him to return it to the retailer for repair; amusingly the retailer screwed that up and offered him a new one as a replacement).
vetinari 10y ago
Not exactly bricking, but a habit that Windows 10 developed is to force install drivers, even if they don't work. I.e. it will install something, it won't work, do a rollback. Then, a day or two later, it will do it again, with the same package that didn't work last time. And again. And again. Of course, meanwhile, your computer is unusable while it does the install/rollback dance and as a bonus, it does unnecessary wear and tear to your SSD.
- mdekkers 10y ago
  ah ok, yeah - so business as usual :) (...shuffles back to work...)

Pretty much just people using the term "brick" to mean anything from a crashing process, to something fixed by a re-install. Example: "I just loaded a buggy web-page and bricked my Chrome. LOL!" You know. How the term "hacking" has come to mean just about anything these days. There are no PC-bricks, despite people trying to claim the contrary.

wapz 10y ago
Well there are PC bricks, just not software bricks. I'd argue pouring coffee on your motherboard can brick it pretty easily. I think once the term became more widespread on mobile people used it for everything.
- y4mi 10y ago
  There was also that arch Linux debacle, where users with a certain motherboard mounted the uefi partition with write permission. Some motherboards were bricked that way.
  - vetinari 10y ago
    The problem was deletion of UEFI variables, a bug in Samsung UEFI implementation that should not allow that.

einr 10y ago

Most likely they are referring to this incident: http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/windows-7-patch-bricking-asus-pcs/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/windows-7-patch-brick...

jimmies 10y ago

Here. http://hackaday.com/2016/02/01/ftdi-drivers-break-fake-chips-again/ http://hackaday.com/2016/02/01/ftdi-drivers-break-fake-chips...

yrro 10y ago

My friend returned his Surface Pro 4 a few days after he got it when a mandatory Windows update bricked it, as in it turned off instead of restarting, and wouldn't turn back on.

thenomad 10y ago
I had a similar problem with a Surface, but some persistent going through the reboot options (of which there are about six, in increasing order of nuke-it-from-orbit-it's-the-only-way-to-be-sure) fixed it eventually. Other than that, though, they're great machines.
- yrro 10y ago
  There were no reboot options. The damn thing wouldn't turn on. My friend now has an XPS13 (which he had for just over a year before an issue with the fan prompted him to return it to the retailer for repair; amusingly the retailer screwed that up and offered him a new one as a replacement).

vetinari 10y ago

Not exactly bricking, but a habit that Windows 10 developed is to force install drivers, even if they don't work. I.e. it will install something, it won't work, do a rollback. Then, a day or two later, it will do it again, with the same package that didn't work last time. And again. And again. Of course, meanwhile, your computer is unusable while it does the install/rollback dance and as a bonus, it does unnecessary wear and tear to your SSD.

mdekkers 10y ago
ah ok, yeah - so business as usual :) (...shuffles back to work...)