A CD that can crash a computer when inserted?


Recommended Posts

I have a motherboard specific disk and when I inserted it into another computer as soon as it autorun it ejected and the computer locked on a black screen.

Is this possible? I can hold shift [to stop it auto-running] and can install programs and they'll work, but when it auto-runs it crashes [i'll have to try it on another computer now]. Can you build something into a program so it can crash an entire computer if it isn't run on the correct motherboard???

This just seems wrong because it SHOULDN'T be allowed for companies [Norton] to make disks that can crash your computer and if it's not deliberate then what the hell is going on?????

-mortensenj

There could actually be a number of differing reasons. 2 of which spring to mind

1) Missing .dll or other such file the autorun proggy is expecting?

2) The inability of the CD-ROM to complete the execution of the autorun proggy for whatever reason. (Dirty/scratched CD that the CD-ROM is unable to error correct)

I actually caused a similar senario with my on PC when creating VCD's with WinOnCD. When these rouge discs were inserted into my reader the auto execution of VCD_Play.exe caused my PC to lock solid. Very strange it was. Hope this helps.

If it is a "motherboard specific disk", then its quite possible the Autorun EXE is a program writen to check the MoBo and if it is incorrect cause the PC to freeze.

-

But I've never heard of that before, but it can be dun. And the fact that is freezes on a black screen seems to signify to me that a program as been executed, and is either purposly causing that crash or genuinely is incompatible with your system (software) configuration (missing or corupted system files).

Anyways hope that gives you some ideas?

-

Open up the Autorun.inf file in the Root of the CD, and check what program/command_line is being run.

-

-

Futile

I think it's amazing that it can crash a computer just like that though. Well, at least the CD was useful...

On the CD was Virtual Drive, Norton AnitVirus and royalty free clipart which is where I got my sig picture from. :) At least the programs install on other computers... LMAO.

PS - This is the first time I've had an anti-virus program installed in AGES. I intend to scan files I download in future. 3mb was the size of the update.... wow, that's a lot of new viruses.

-mortensenj

  Quote
Originally posted by me101  

Have you never heard of the CD Rom Drive Open/close music generator, uses the ability to remotely open and close your Cd drive to the tune of a variety of songs... :)

I want it!!!! Please tell me where to find it!

-mortensenj

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • People yearn for the good old days of IRC and truly open Internet, yet are dismissive of modern solutions like ActivityPub (which Mastodon pioneered) and Matrix. Make it make sense.
    • AI judges learn new tricks to fact-check and code better by Paul Hill Image via Pixabay AI researchers and developers are increasingly turning to large language models (LLMs) to evaluate the responses of other LLMs in a process known as “LLM-as-a-judge”. Unfortunately, the quality of these evaluations degrades on complex tasks like long-form factual checking, advanced coding, and math problems. Now, a new research paper published by researchers from the University of Cambridge and Apple outlines a new system that augments AI judges with external validation tools to improve their judgment quality. This system aims to overcome limitations found in both human and AI annotation. Humans face challenges and biases due to time limits, fatigue, and being influenced by writing style over factual accuracy while AI struggles with the aforementioned complex tasks. The Evaluation Agent that the researchers created is agentic so it can assess the response to determine if external tools are needed and utilizes the correct tools. For each evaluation, three main steps are passed through: initial domain assessment, tool usage, and a final decision. The fact-checking tool uses web search to verify atomic facts within a response; code execution leverages OpenAI’s code interpreter to run and verify code correctness; and math checker is a specialized version of the code execution tool for validating mathematical and arithmetic operations. If none of the tools are found to be useful for making judgments, the baseline LLM annotator is used to avoid unnecessary processing and potential performance regression on simple tasks. The system delivered notable improvements in long-form factual checking, with significant increases in agreement with ground-truth annotations across various baselines. In coding tasks, the agent-based approach significantly improved performance across all baselines. For challenging math tasks, the agents improved performance over some baselines, but not all, and overall agreement remained relatively low at around 56%. Notably, the researchers found that in long-form factual responses, the agent’s agreement with ground-truth was higher than that of human annotators. This framework is extensible, so in the future, other tools could be integrated to further improve LLM evaluation systems. The code for the framework will be made open source on Apple’s GitHub, but it isn’t up yet.
    • https://www.neowin.net/news/tags/mastodon/ In short: Federated Twitter (X)
    • Keep in mind it was purchased by an advertising company. I use SearxNG.
    • I am using Waterfox Private Search now that I started using the Waterfox browser on my PC and Android. Both work great* search waterfox net with full stops in between. * I have an issue where making comments on articles on various websites is difficult with Waterfox on Android as it randomly adds spaces and doubles up on text.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Collaborator
      fernan99 earned a badge
      Collaborator
    • Collaborator
      MikeK13 earned a badge
      Collaborator
    • One Month Later
      Alexander 001 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      Antonio Barboza earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Antonio Barboza earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      588
    2. 2
      ATLien_0
      221
    3. 3
      Michael Scrip
      171
    4. 4
      Xenon
      137
    5. 5
      +FloatingFatMan
      126
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!