BIOS-Approved PCI Cards For Laptops

derek_farn writes "First there were printers that would would only work with vendor annointed ink cartridges; now we have laptops that will only boot with vendor annointed PCI cards. Keeping a list of approved PCI cards in the bios is one way of ensuring that customers renew their maintenance contracts. How else are they going to be able to plug in a PCI card released after the last BIOS update?" My HP laptop is several years old; can anyone confirm this?

Comments

Confirm?

[sczimme]

My HP laptop is several years old; can anyone confirm this?

How should we know? It's your laptop.

:-)

Re:Confirm?

[JavaPunk]

How do we know its his laptop?

Re:Confirm?

[Anonymous Coward]

How should we know? It's your laptop.

Yes, but he doesn't consider himself to be a 100% reliable source of information, so he's looking for independent confirmation.

That makes him quite a bit wiser than most Slashdotters, incidentally.

Confirmation

[fred911]

"My HP laptop is several years old; can anyone confirm this"

I'd need the serial number to confirm the age.. but we'll take your word for it.

You have now confirmed that your laptop is 7 years old.

Re:Yes, by all means

[spac3manspiff]

Well according to the article, all you have to do is:

1. Hack the Bios
2. ???
3. Profit!!!

Simple Solution

[bigtallmofo]

Capitalism provides a simple solution to this problem.

Track down the person that made such an non-upgradable notebook and kill them in their sleep.

Actually, maybe that's not the capitalistic way of solving it but it's likely more satisfying.

Re:IBM has been doing it for years!

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't get it my friend. Here,
Apple = GOD
Linux = GOD(der)
MS = M$ = Devil ^23

Don't say anything about Apple; too many fanboys around.

Get with the program

This has been going on for years.

[Exluddite]

I remember finding out after I bought my viewmaster that my stereoscope cards weren't compatible.

Bastards!

Re:Workaround

[HermDog]

# If it's worked, your card should now work. If it hasn't, your laptop is probably dead.

In this world of ambiguous gray areas, number fudging and touchy-feely subjectivism, I find comfort that I can still definitely know that I have royally screwed something up and void my warranty while doing so.

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction: it should be "Your misuse of apostrophe's is making my eye's bleed"

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[eric76]

I mu'st agree. The mi'su'se of apo'strophe's can be 'seriou'sly annoying.

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as we're going all out, let's do it right.

Not: "Your misuse of apostrophe's is making my eye's bleed"

But rather: "You're misuse of apostrophe's is making my eye's bleed"

confirmation of laptop age

[hymie3]

My HP laptop is several years old; can anyone confirm this?

Yeah, Timothy. I was there with you when you bought your laptop. It was around the same time that I got my iPod. It was a first generation, so, yeah, your laptop is definitely a few years old.

You're welcome. =)

The correct answer is....

[TiggertheMad]

Your laptop is downloading pr0n and warez from the internet, and is unresponsive when you try to get it to do something useful. I'd put it's age at about 14.

Re:The correct answer is....

[TiggertheMad]

Wow, judging from the fact that you disregarded a funny joke to nitpick a typo, I'd put your relationship status as 'single'.

If this was Apple we were talking about

[Anonymous Coward]

the tone here would be much different. Everyone would be saying what a genius Jobs is for controlling the hardware list to a set of known working parts.

So you want to black-list anyone who...

[Johnny Mozzarella]

supported white-lists? Isn't that reverse-racisim?

HEY! Don't call them chicks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitches hate that.