• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.
  • The forums have been upgraded with support for dark mode. By default it will follow the setting on your system/browser. You may override it by scrolling to the end of the page and clicking the gears icon.

Will it break the computer?

W

warzone

Joined
Apr 11, 2017
Messages
48 (0.02/day)
System Specs
Processor İNTEL İ3 9100 F
Motherboard ASUS B365M-K
Memory 8 GB DDR4
Video Card(s) MSI RX570 ARMOR 8GB
Storage WD 1 TB BLUE 7200 RPM
Display(s) FUJİTSU L20T-2
Software WİNDOWS 10 - 64 BİT
good forums

Is it dangerous to tamper with config files to change game settings? Is there a risk of breaking the computer? Like Windows or hardware damage? Even if I'm messing up the settings. I play around with some games.
 
If it's a game being changed, how is it going to break your computer? Is there any connection to the two? Does it make sense?

Obviously, no, nothing is going to break.
 
No. Changing a game config file wont break your computer, just like changing a lightbulb wont break the power station. Totally separate entities.

Worst that can happen is your game will crash due to a bad config and you'll need to reset the config files to default. No big deal.
 
Thank you. If I tamper with windows or hardware driver files. Is it possible to cause permanent damage to the system?
 
warzone said:
Thank you. If I tamper with windows or hardware driver files. Is it possible to cause permanent damage to the system?
Click to expand...
why would you want to?

it does depend on which files you are tempering with and what permissions you have.
 
warzone said:
Thank you. If I tamper with windows or hardware driver files. Is it possible to cause permanent damage to the system?
Click to expand...

It will heavily depend on what you mean by "tamper" and specifically which files you are changing.

You can make Regedit changes all day long and not "break" the OS. You can also make 1 change and cause the OS to be inaccessible. Many things can be reverted, and it's always recommended to make a System restore point before applying any new changes.

Specifically what are you trying to change or make different? Sometimes there are programs that make the registry changes for you (WPD, OOSU10) which take the guesswork out of some system changes.
 
warzone said:
Thank you. If I tamper with windows or hardware driver files. Is it possible to cause permanent damage to the system?
Click to expand...

That's a pretty vague question.

Updating a driver is good, shouldn't cause any problems. (Usually)
Messing with Firmware, Windows system files, or the registry has risks of software problems, conflicts and can harm hardware. (bricked GPU, Motherboard )

Its better to just ask what you want to do. Not many will give you a hard time
Edit your title to reflect what you really are trying to do
 
Last edited:
I'm asking out of curiosity. For example, if I manually tamper with the video card driver files. Do I have a problem if I make changes to the files in it. Likewise, this question applies to windows files. Is there a possibility that my problems will be permanent? Or will reinstalling windows save me completely? I am not talking about driver or bios update.

my english may not be good. sorry.
 
Sure a drive wipe and reinstall will fix it. Sounds like you want to break things just to break it but you do you.
 
warzone said:
I'm asking out of curiosity. For example, if I manually tamper with the video card driver files. Do I have a problem if I make changes to the files in it. Likewise, this question applies to windows files. Is there a possibility that my problems will be permanent? Or will reinstalling windows save me completely? I am not talking about driver or bios update.

my english may not be good. sorry.
Click to expand...

Blanket statements don't generally do well in the binary world. Change a 1 to a 0 and your entire assumption will fall apart.

Computers work with rules, and you can break the rules but then don't expect a computer to work correctly. Permanent damage is very hard to do, but possible, and even likely if you just go around with a sledgehammer (which means: not knowing what you're changing).

If you're looking for a free pass to change anything you see... you have it. We'll look forward to the first troubleshooting topic you make :) Experimentation is a fantastic way to learn, but always try to get an understanding of what actually happened.

Software changes for example... you said game settings and video settings. All fine. Do whatever and see the results... but if you then stumble upon updating your videocard BIOS and do it wrong, you can definitely kill hardware.
 
I think his English isn't so good, and something is lost in this translation. @OP, if your changing video drivers files your good. People stated above what you can and can't mess with, so it seems your not reading them or asking specifically what you want or need to do.@ everyone else, make a post on the specific files that are OK and the Windows files that are not OK for him to mess with. Also @OP make a BACK UP OF THE ORIGINALS!!!!
It makes fixing stuff so much easier!!!!
 
If you tamper with the driver files of the gpu that could be overclocked, then yes you can harm. But I really don't think it would be an easy job.
 
mclaren85 said:
If you tamper with the driver files of the gpu that could be overclocked, then yes you can harm. But I really don't think it would be an easy job.
Click to expand...
Did you read the OP, hes worried about windows. GPU divers will not affect Windows, many people change drivers files............
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top