Stupid question: Can a virus damage my 5870/core i7

so we all know that viruses can slow down your computer and stuff but...

What exactly can a virus affect and is it like...permanent.

My old PC from 2004 would run games like CSS very well but in 2007 the thing had like 1000 viruses and it couldnt even run D2 with more than 15 fps and it wouldn't let me install CS 1.6 even though I had a dual core 2.2ghz and 64mb GPU which was okay for its time I guess.

Can the same thing happen to a PC like the one I have now?

I'm not at all complaining about the performance of my HD 5870. I get 28 fps in Crysis 1920x1080p Very High 8 X AA (in other words maxed out) which is excellent and more than expected, and I run Metro 2033 maxed out playable FPS, and Just Cause 2, on same settings gives me like 100 fps. So nothing wrong at all... BUT....

When I record games with Fraps or Xfire my FPS goes down. WAAY more than expected. even a game like FEAR 2, which I'm sure I get 200fps in if I didnt v-sync it to 60 fps, when I record in that game i get 35-45 fps. Why?

I have an Intel core i7 870 @ 3.3ghz (and XFX HD 5870, but thats obviously not my problem)

4 gigs ram

7200RPM 1tb HDD

HDD problems?

AFAIK Fraps seriously effects your performance. And a virus cannot directly damage your hardware, but a virus can over-stress the hardware for a prolonged period which can damage it. But that'd be rather rare.gigatrainer

If someone wanted to they could write a remote overclocking virus to burn your stuff up or something to remotely flash your bios to some non removable write protected version that disabled every feature therein thus rendering the otherwise working components worthless.

I have no idea how hard it would be but i guarantee it would be hard enough that nobody good enough to do it would bother. They would rather hack CC databases and sell off personal info and whatnot.

Viruses can affect hardware, but that is very very rare and mostly a problem of yesteryear. Old viruses could sometimes remove the bios on a motherboard, but most motherboards manufactured in the last ten to twelve years have backup BIOS of some sort so it shouldn't be a concern. Your CPU and GPU should be safe. (I don't think a virus would even be capable of damaging them let alone infecting them)

Well its clearly not my GPUs fault.

And I guess obviously not a virus

And it simply cannot be my CPU.

I don't know why he can record so much better than I can :(

Viruses can affect hardware, but that is very very rare and mostly a problem of yesteryear. Old viruses could sometimes remove the bios on a motherboard, but most motherboards manufactured in the last ten to twelve years have backup BIOS of some sort so it shouldn't be a concern. Your CPU and GPU should be safe. (I don't think a virus would even be capable of damaging them let alone infecting them)

Toribor

maybe hes recording at a lower resolution

maybe hes recording at a lower resolution

onfire23