News Linux blamed for Samsung laptop deaths

[Bakes]

Originally Posted by Phil Rhodes

I thought it would come down to this.

You can kill all kinds of modern electronics by running bad code on them. It's certainly possible to brick most hard disks by sending them the right commands. Anything with firmware - which is effectively everything - can be destroyed in this way.

Much as the bug appears to be Samsung's, I just love the way the Linux people argue about how much they can be bothered to care. At some point in the Launchpad thread for this, someone called Kate Stewart apparently decides that it's "invalid" and of "undecided" importance.

Welcome to Linux! We will destroy your laptop, and then we'll claim it isn't really a problem after all, and we can't even work out whether we care or not.

It shouldn't be possible to damage hardware by simply writing to the wrong memory locations. Don't play the incompetent developers argument; it's a core principle of hardware design. Sometimes stuff throws out invalid data; sometimes that might end up going to a part of the operating system. At worst, this should end up with a system crash.

It's irritating that this seems to be both the fault of Samsung and the interfering Linux module.

[Corky42]

Its not like we are talking installing Linux, loading Linux from a thumb/CD drive bricks it.
What to say any of the many Linux based tools wouldn't do the same, I'm thinking drive imaging software like Acronis, Macrium, Etc.
Like others have said there should be some safe guards in place not to allow this to happen, you cant write a incompatible BIOS file to a ROM unless you go to a lot of trouble for example.

[r3loaded]

And this is what happens when manufacturers cut corners to save on costs - they miss on essential verification and validation testing of both hardware and software. I'm guessing they only performed tests with Windows.

I'm interested in knowing exactly how the laptops were bricked - did the flaw simply corrupt the chip storing the system board's UEFI code, or did it cause physical hardware damage? The former is easily fixable with a firmware update, the latter would point to a very serious hardware flaw that could potentially be exploited by malware.

[faugusztin]

My guess it changed something in the area where BIOS settings are stored and it messed up the values in a way the UEFI boot didn't expect, so it errored out durring the POST sequence - resulting in a unbootable laptop. Signs that it could be fixed by simple BIOS update (Samsung is working on it) suggest that.

[Cthippo]

Originally Posted by r3loaded

I'm interested in knowing exactly how the laptops were bricked - did the flaw simply corrupt the chip storing the system board's UEFI code, or did it cause physical hardware damage? The former is easily fixable with a firmware update, the latter would point to a very serious hardware flaw that could potentially be exploited by malware.

Article said that Samsung replaced the motherboard. I'm assuming if it just needed a BIOS reflash they would have done that instead, but no telling anymore. It may well be that a new motherboard costs less than a technician's time to actually diagnose the problem.

[Bakes]

Originally Posted by Cthippo

Article said that Samsung replaced the motherboard. I'm assuming if it just needed a BIOS reflash they would have done that instead, but no telling anymore. It may well be that a new motherboard costs less than a technician's time to actually diagnose the problem.

When they say they replaced the motherboard, it doesn't mean they threw the old one out.

For the end user, replacing the motherboard is the easiest option; for Samsung, they can take out the chips that work and use them to make a new motherboard, or since they know the problem (some of the flash memory onboard) they could just remove those chips and replace with new ones. It wouldn't be done in the same step, because that'd take ages, the motherboard would have to be returned to the factory and posted back, it would just be a logistical nightmare.

[asura]

Exactly keep the now flawed motherboard for testing and give the user a shiny new one.

[wbdog206]

Originally Posted by docodine

at first i thought that people were killed by samsung laptops and it was linux's fault

I thought the same at first.

[Gradius]

FATALITY!

Ok, couldn't resist.