Can UEFI settings brick new laptops?

See closed question - this is a less localised version of the same question.

Summary: changing CMS support in BIOS after attempting dual boot Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.10 bricked my laptop.

While looking into this today I came across this as well - that bug relates to Samsungs, but that model of Samsung has a very similar motherboard to my Asus, and similar problems were reported with Lenovo Ideapads.

There seems to be some way in which the interaction of OS installers with UEFI motherboards ends up bricking machines. Does anyone know why this might happen and how it can be avoided?

matchwood

Posted 2013-01-29T12:36:44.220

Reputation: 43

Answers

That is impossible to answer as it stands. UEFI is a very new "standard", traditionally BIOSes (and similar setups) have only been tested with the Windows du jour, and used to break with strictly conforming use by Linux (and often still does, Linux has either talked some sense into the BIOS writers or has learnt to kludge around the worst offenders by now). So it is certainly possible that a non-standard UEFI configuration bricks the machine, though unlikely.

Before any experiments, check it there is a clear path for unbricking (or untying knots it might get tied into), ask your pal Google for experiences from others with the same machine (or whatever UEFI version is in the box). Check the documentation for whatever shim you want to use carefully.

[Probably overly paranoid...]

vonbrand

Posted 2013-01-29T12:36:44.220

Reputation: 2 083

I think you did answer the headline question - basically yes! The question of how it can be avoided doesn't seem to have any solution so far. My original question was because I wanted to know whether it was something I did, or because the motherboard was faulty - it almost certainly was something I did. I did try Googling every variation I could think of that might be relevant, and nothing came up. The closest was the Samsung issue, for which no clear solution seems to be available. – matchwood – 2013-01-31T19:40:00.573

Looks like your original question should not have been closed, check this out:http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/not-good-samsung-uefi-laptops-can-brick-when-booting-ubuntu-20130130/

jtreser

Posted 2013-01-29T12:36:44.220

Reputation: 940

1Ha yeah I saw that, I think the problem was that my question referenced a particular model or something. – matchwood – 2013-01-31T19:37:48.770