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A Site that Lists Systems w/o DRM?

Posted by Cliff on from the opting-out-of-rights-management dept.

timdaly asks: "I'm about to purchase new hardware. I understand that DRM has been added to the BIOS of some systems. Is anyone aware of a site that lists which systems are DRM-disabled? I don't want to purchase hardware that has any DRM. Like unique keys on CPUs the DRM technology seems to be more of a threat than a useful tool."

3 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. Re:For a while, about 6? 4? years ago, by nempo · · Score: 4, Informative

    Funny thing is that every cpu that has ever been produced has a serial that programs can read. The serials are only unique in the fab. that they are produced in though, meaning two cpu:s from two diffirent fabs. can have the same serial.
    These serials are used to track down bad areas on the waffers and other things in the manufacturing process.

    --
    --- No, english is not my mother tongue.
  2. Re:From the LinuxBios docs... by HoneyBunchesOfGoats · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is in fact quite harmless. In normal operation, the BIOS is loaded into memory right at the start, and then the chip isn't touched after that. If you have a borked BIOS, and a spare machine with the same type chip, you can pull the BIOS chip from the working machine while it's on, stick in the borked chip, program with the BIOS for the borked motherboard, then swap the chips out again. Has saved my ass a number of times, when BIOS flashes fail and whatnot. The chance of harming anything is next to nil, just make sure you don't put the chip in backwards.

  3. Now we do: www.DRMfree.com by techstar25 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I just registered it. Email me with links to add. drmfree@techstarweb.com