Can Virus attack Bios?

[Holbrook]

While downloading a video clip from the internet my computer froze. Reset did not work. Turned it off then on again. No video - some disk whirring. A knowledgeable friend has told me I have a virus and that it has corrupted my Bios. Award - Mother board is Jet ALI Aladdin J542B. Can I reflash the Bios? I have been on J-Mark site and they have bios downloads but they assume that it is just an upgrade and instructions assume PC is working.

[Axel]

Yes - there are BIOS viruses out there, but they are extremely rare. You probably had a typical hardware failure of some sort.

Does the PC post anything upon boot-up at all? You mention it accesses the disk.

What are you seeing on your screen?

Have you tried accessing the BIOS and resetting everything to default?

Flashing the BIOS can't hurt if you can get to the CMOS set-up, then you can probably flash it, but again, I doubt that's the problem. I'm guessing there's a chance a virus may have corrupted your video driver, or you had a typical component failure.

[Holbrook]

Thanks for your help. Looks like it is the CPU.

[Red Rage]

Just wondering. Does it Beep at all?

Have you tried reseating the Ram? Or any other components such as Video/Processor?

I was working on a system just yesterday afternoon that was doing the same thing, and apparently what happenend is that when they moved the system to another room the Ram came loose. Took it out and put it back and it worked with out a problem.

I've been finding recently that if a person can't explain something right away the word virus mysticly appears. any one else notice this?

~Red

[Holbrook]

I tried removing everything then reinstalling first the video card etc. I did not try the RAM because i thought that I would at least get a message from POST saying there was a RAM failure. I have given up on it for now and taken the M/B and CPU back to the shop to be tested. Thanks for your help.