1.0 killed my computer

[Lohan2008]

Squad: when the KSP 1.0 was installed, my Bios operating system died.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Lohan2008

[InterCity]

Squad, I do not know what malware was in the release but it killed my Bios operating system

Pretty sure it wasn't KSP if you have it from a legal source. For me, and I guess thousands of other people it works OK - actually, better than before. What is the computer doing if you turn it on anyway?

[Gunso]

a moment of silence for Lohan2008 dead GPU

[Leszek]

Actually, you don't know what killed your BIOS. The two events happened not that far apart and you guessed they were connected. People don't like coincidence and it is hard to explain it to them. Really hard.

It almost certainly wasn't KSP for the simple reason that many people updated today and didn't have issues.

Back when I did tech support I used to see this sort of thing all the time. They got a new printer, and their monitor died. Our printers fault. Sometimes it is so very obvious that the two aren't connected, a guy's 20 year old TV dies suddenly 2 months after they get <A US TV Provider>. Guess what, yep, it is the providers cable box that broke it. It took 45 minutes and two floor managers to explain it to him. Shockingly enough, the fact that the TV was 20 years old is the reason why the guy needed a reason for it to fail. After all after 20 years, why now?

It almost certainly wasn't malware either, the bios just went. Malware has a purpose now a days, it is big business. They want to make your computer part of a botnet, or they want to highjack your browser for advertisement reasons. The days of frying computers for fun were over 20 years ago.

[Whackjob]

BIOS is the "Basic Input Output System". The bios check basically means everything is there. CPU? Check. Memory? Check. LPT1 cable? Not recently!

Either something burned out, overheated, got jostled loose (check your cables!), or gave up the mystic blue smoke that all electronics depend on to live.

My suggestion? Throw on an ESD bracelet and pop the case. Unseat, clean, and reseat *everything*.

SOURCE: A guy that done troubleshooting for twenty odd years and remembers working Bluemail on a Banyan Vines token ring network.

[Lohan2008]

I understand that the 2 events may be unrelated, I will have to get back to you when my tech guys looks at it. It is too much of a coincidence that KSP runs fine for the last 3-4 yrs and computer dies as soon as KSP goes commercial. Fault: PC tries to turn on and shuts down before operating system "boots up".

Edited April 28, 2015 by Lohan2008

[Temeter]

Because we know coincidences only happen to other people.

[sedativechunk]

Squad, I do not know what malware was in the release but it killed my Bios operating system

Hello,

First and foremost, I have upmost confidence and would bet money on it that KSP did NOT harm your computer. I don't know why you would consider such a thing. Like others have said, if you have a legitimate copy of the game you got through their website or steam, chances are these two events are completely unrelated.

Number two - as a computer enthusiast with a water cooled computer who is also an IT professional maybe I can offer some help. Let's start with something very blatantly obvious. How old is your computer? Is this a desktop? If it's been several years, there is a chance that your CMOS battery on your motherboard. It is that round quartz battery that saves your BIOS settings and other basic start up settings of a computer. They do go dead after a while and need replaced. I would start there. Also have you cleaned the computer in a while? Dust and cobwebs can't do you any good for basic problems.

Also you noted the "CPU" tries to turn on. Maybe you should try replacing the thermal paste on your CPU and possibly getting a new CPU fan. Bad RAM (probably the LEAST like thing) could cause start up issues as well, especially with BIOS. Good luck.

[LN400]

I don't know what caused this but IF you are the only one so far, then coincidence is what one could expect from probabilities. In fact, it would be less probable that no computer among the thousands running KSP called it a day than one computer calling it a day, for reasons unrelated to KSP.

[Kurtvw]

-5 for bad troll style.

[eddiew]

I understand that the 2 events may be unrelated, I will have to get back to you when my tech guys looks at it. It is too much of a coincidence that KSP runs fine for the last 3-4 yrs and computer dies as soon as KSP goes commercial. Fault: cpu tries to turn on and shuts down before operating system "boots up".

No really, it is not too much coincidence, it's just that the human brain is a pattern matching engine; we love to see cause and effect chains, and when the actual effect is invisible, we believe it was the last thing we did with religious fervour. It kept us alive for millions of years (e.g. 'Ug's stomach hurts. Ug ate red mushrooms recently. Ug shall not eat red mushrooms again.') but isn't really applicable to modern technology.

I wouldn't blame my location on a road if my car engine kersploded one day when I put my foot down. The road didn't make it kersplode, the engine was just tired and on the brink of failure, and accelerating along any road would have produced the exact same results

[Jon144]

The computer simply couldnt withstand the hype of running the commercial version for the first time. It was unfortunately so hyped it had a heart attack before being able to run it.

[Leszek]

I understand that the 2 events may be unrelated, I will have to get back to you when my tech guys looks at it. It is too much of a coincidence that KSP runs fine for the last 3-4 yrs and computer dies as soon as KSP goes commercial. Fault: PC tries to turn on and shuts down before operating system "boots up".

No it is not. I have already pointed out there is a bias in human thinking against coincidences, we don't like them. Someone above already pointed out why that is. The hard part is not knowing there is a bias, it is having confidence that that is what is getting you.

I am a computer person, I went to school for programming, and I am a system building hobbyist. It is hard to wreck a system in the way you described. You can't do it accidentally. Think of all the amateur programmers out there. NONE of them have every fried their BIOS. It just doesn't happen. It is something you have to do deliberately.

So if KSP did do it, it wasn't accidental because that would be hundreds of times harder to believe than the coincidence.

Even deliberately is hard. Even if you are targeting just one kind of BIOS, say American Megatrends, that BIOS is still custom to the motherboard and manufacturer. They have protections on them. If I wanted to wreck a system, I would just write a bunch of 0's on the hard drive. Done, easy, simple, reliable.

But what if it wasn't your BIOS, what if it was something else and you were just too specific in your first post? That is hard to believe as well...

You see malware is a business. Malware isn't out to annoy you. The best malware is malware that is silent. It doesn't slow your computer down more than it has to. It doesn't annoy you. It doesn't want you to take it to an IT to get rid of it. It wants to use your computer to send spam for profit, or some other method of making money. Now we all know malware fails in this, it does slow your system down for example. But it isn't out to wreck your stuff for no point. Frying your system would be just that. Pointless and unprofitable.

Lets not forget you are the only victim.

In summery, it is nigh on unthinkable that KSP caused your issue accidentally. It makes no sense that it was done on purpose. The possibility that it was a coincidence is just about 99.999999999999% of the total causality space.

Let me finish with a parable. You might remember Star Force, it was a copy protection scheme that had some serious issues. Many people blamed it for wrecking their computer, or their disk drive. These accusations are false. It had real verifiable issues but hardware failure wasn't one of them. I once pointed out to someone that my drive failed within 1 week of getting Star Force installed. (It came with Silent Hunter III) They wondered how I could possibly rail against those that argue against Star Force when I myself had been a victim. I then revealed that my drive failed a week before I got the game and not after. Had it been the other way around, even knowing what I know about software, it would have been difficult even for me to dismiss the coincidence. Knowing the bias doesn't make it easy to ignore the bias, but it is still bias.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Leszek

[soulsource]

[NeoMorph]

No it is not. I have already pointed out there is a bias in human thinking against coincidences, we don't like them.

In this case it is a bios in computer thinking for coincidences. heh.

Actually I have had games kill my PC before now but those were ones that really pushed the graphics card and fried it. I have the worlds worst memory but I seem to remember one AAA game that killed my graphics card because of its silly requirements causing it to overheat and die... but anyone who gets malware on their computer usually are the ones who think a virus killer is enough. I run Malwarebytes anti-malware alongside Avast. Haven't had a virus get past them since I can remember... in fact I think my last one was in the 90's.

Just because your paranoid doesn't mean the virii are out to get you... oh wait... yes it does!

[Leszek]

In this case it is a bios in computer thinking for coincidences. heh.

Actually I have had games kill my PC before now but those were ones that really pushed the graphics card and fried it. I have the worlds worst memory but I seem to remember one AAA game that killed my graphics card because of its silly requirements causing it to overheat and die... but anyone who gets malware on their computer usually are the ones who think a virus killer is enough. I run Malwarebytes anti-malware alongside Avast. Haven't had a virus get past them since I can remember... in fact I think my last one was in the 90's.

Just because your paranoid doesn't mean the virii are out to get you... oh wait... yes it does!

I run bit defender. Sometimes, other times I run nothing. A virus killer is enough, actually it is overkill. It is not that I don't ever get a virus, it is just that it happens so far and few between that it isn't an issue. I had a really hard time understanding how people got a virus so easy in the past, it wasn't until I started fixing other peoples computes that I understood.

Me: You already have a virus, I fixed your computer yesterday!

Them: Yea it was wonky an hour after you left!

Me: Let me look....why did you get this smiley cursor again, and you have this dancing girl that shows up if you aren't active for a while. I already told you this stuff is trouble.

Them: Yea but she is cute, and it is free!

Me: This is the third....gah...from now on, it will cost $150 if you want me to fix your computer.

Them: But where friends!

Me: Not for computers we aren't.

[megatiger78]

I think it broke my Microsoft office.

[OrbitusII]

My two cents:

I recently took my computer home from college via car (a 5-hour drive) and had issues starting my computer similar to the issue OP is having. It turns out that the drive jostled the RAM, so removing and re-installing the chips solved the problem.

Since we don't know all the details we can't figure out exactly what happened, but I would recommend re-seating the RAM in your computer to see if that fixes it.

[Fel]

Me: You already have a virus, I fixed your computer yesterday!

Them: Yea it was wonky an hour after you left!

Me: Let me look....why did you get this smiley cursor again, and you have this dancing girl that shows up if you aren't active for a while. I already told you this stuff is trouble.

Them: Yea but she is cute, and it is free!

Me: This is the third....gah...from now on, it will cost $150 if you want me to fix your computer.

Them: But where friends!

Me: Not for computers we aren't.

This.

Back when Bonzai Buddy was a thing, my sister got infected... I told her that it was adware but she kept saying "but I think it's cute!"

People are far too quick to say "Windows = Viruses", it doesn't matter what OS you use, the default settings aren't enough to prevent the number one cause of getting computer viruses... the user downloads them and willingly runs them; even gives them root level permissions if they ask for it.

[vger]

Number two - as a computer enthusiast with a water cooled computer who is also an IT professional maybe I can offer some help. Let's start with something very blatantly obvious. How old is your computer? Is this a desktop? If it's been several years, there is a chance that your CMOS battery on your motherboard. It is that round quartz battery that saves your BIOS settings and other basic start up settings of a computer. They do go dead after a while and need replaced. I would start there. Also have you cleaned the computer in a while? Dust and cobwebs can't do you any good for basic problems.

I was able to still boot my PC with a dead CMOS battery. I just had to reconfigure my settings anytime I tried to do it.

What OP seems to be describing sounds like corrupted firmware.

[Camacha]

I understand that the 2 events may be unrelated, I will have to get back to you when my tech guys looks at it. It is too much of a coincidence that KSP runs fine for the last 3-4 yrs and computer dies as soon as KSP goes commercial. Fault: PC tries to turn on and shuts down before operating system "boots up".

If that would actually be a causal event it would be nothing short or miraculous. By a margin several light years wide the chance is much, much larger that some component just died or that some other common failure mode occurred. The descriptions of the problem suggest a basic grasp of computer technology, which makes these kinds of specific claims dangerous at best.

[Starwhip]

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/correlation.png

You are a genius, sir.

As for your PC... when I got 1.0 from the KSP store, Chrome identified it as "malware", and I assumed it was being overprotective. This seems to have been the case. (It wasn't malware, it was 1.0.) However, some antivirus program on your computer may have triggered something when you tried to open it.

More info would help.

[xXIndestructibleEVAXx]

Same here, had to disable the bug blocker. Works fine for me though.

[Slam_Jones]

Whenever I read something in the false correlation theme, I think of this site:

http://www.tylervigen.com/ (aka Spurious Correlations)

[LN400]

Whenever I read something in the false correlation theme, I think of this site:

http://www.tylervigen.com/ (aka Spurious Correlations)

That is pure gold.