Brick ( electronics ) - Wikipedia Brick ( electronics ) Not to be confused with early `` brick '' style mobile phones such as the Motorola DynaTAC, or the Canadian retailer The Brick which sells, among other things, electronics. This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. ( Learn how and when to remove these template messages ) This article 's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out - of - date information. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. ( October 2016 ) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( November 2008 ) Look up brick in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. The word `` brick '', when used in reference to consumer electronics, describes an electronic device such as a smartphone, game console, router, or tablet computer that, due to a serious misconfiguration, corrupted firmware, or a hardware problem, can no longer function, hence, is as technologically useful as a brick. The term derives from the vaguely cuboid shape of many electronic devices ( and their detachable power supplies ) and the suggestion that the device can function only as a lifeless, square object, paperweight or doorstop. This term is commonly used as a verb. For example, `` I bricked my MP3 player when I tried to modify its firmware. '' It can also be used as a noun, for example, `` If it 's corrupted and you apply using fastboot, your device is a brick. '' In the common usage of the term, `` bricking '' suggests that the damage is so serious as to have rendered the device permanently unusable. Contents 1 Cause and prevention 2 Types 2.1 Hard brick 2.2 Soft brick 3 Unbricking 4 Systems 5 Online and mobile services 6 References Cause and prevention Bricking a device is usually a result of interrupting an attempt to update the device. Many devices have an update procedure that must not be interrupted before completion ; if interrupted by a power failure, user intervention, or any other reason, the existing firmware may be partially overwritten and unusable. The risk of corruption can be minimized by taking all possible precautions against interruption. Installing firmware with errors or for a different revision of the hardware, or installing firmware incompetently patched such as DVD firmware that only plays DVDs sold in a particular region, can also cause bricking. Devices can also be bricked by malware ( malicious software ) and sometimes by running software not intentionally harmful but with errors that cause damage. Some devices include two copies of firmware, one active and the other stored in fixed ROM or writable non-volatile memory and not normally accessible to processes that could corrupt it, as well as a way to copy the stored firmware over the active version, even if corrupt, so that if the active firmware is damaged, it can be replaced by the copy and the device will not be bricked. Other devices have minimal `` bootloader '' firmware, enabled usually by operating a switch or jumper, which does not enable the device to work normally but can reload the main firmware. A personal computer can be bricked by a loss of power during a Windows Update process, or by installing a faulty device driver. Types Bricking is classified into two types, namely hard and soft, depending on the device 's ability to function. Hard brick Hard bricked devices generally show little to no signs of life. A hard bricked device does n't power on or show any vendor logo, in essence, the screen remains turned off. Some of the major reasons for hard bricking are installing firmware not made for the device, interrupted flashing procedure or following a flashing procedure incorrectly. Some other reasons include flashing a root file for a different file or using wrong commands. Some kernel bugs have been known that affect the / data partition in the eMMC chip, which gets corrupted during certain operations such as wiping and flashing. Recovering from a hard brick is generally considered difficult and requires the use of a more direct programming interface to the controller ; such an interface exists as there must be a way to program the initial firmware on an unprogrammed device. However, additional tools or connections may be needed. Apart from that, there are different stages of a bricked device. There are different steps to resolve this issue and this includes : Analyzing the problem, also needs some changes on your PC, analyzing the process, and at which stage your hard brick device is. Soft brick A `` soft bricked '' device may show signs of life, but boots unsuccessfully or may display an error screen. Soft bricked devices can usually be fixed ; for example, a soft bricked iOS device may display a screen instructing the user to plug it into a computer to perform an operating system recovery using iTunes software. Unbricking Some devices that become `` bricked '' because the contents of their nonvolatile memory are incorrect can be `` unbricked '' using separate hardware ( a debug board ) that accesses this memory directly. This is similar to the procedure for loading firmware into a new device when the memory is still empty. This kind of `` bricking '' and `` unbricking '' occasionally happens during firmware testing and development. In other cases software and hardware procedures, often complex, have been developed that have a good chance of unbricking the device. There is no general method ; each device is different. There are also user - created modifier programs to use on bricked or partially bricked devices to make them functional. Examples include the Wiibrew program BootMii used to fix semi-bricked Nintendo Wiis, the Odin program used to flash firmware on Samsung android devices, or the fastboot Android protocol which is capable of reflashing a device with no software installed. A soft bricked rooted Kindle Fire can be unbricked by using unrooting tools. A personal computer may be unbricked by using System restore or backup. Systems In principle any device with rewritable firmware, or certain crucial settings stored into flash or EEPROM memory, can be bricked. Many, but not all, devices with user - updatable firmware have protection against bricking ; devices intended to be updated only by official service personnel generally do not. Amongst devices known to have bricking issues are : older PCs ( more recent models often have dual BIOSes or some other form of protection ), many mobile phones, handheld game consoles like the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS, video game consoles like the Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, many SCSI devices and some lines of hard disk drives and routers. At least some older consumer market router models can become unresponsive when the user tries to define a subnet mask that does not contain one contiguous run of 1s and then 0s. If even a single bit is set so that it breaks one of the runs, the router may become bricked, unresponsive to any standard troubleshooting or resolving procedures listed in the manual. Unbricking the router may require opening the case, shorting some jumper pins on the board, then connecting the router by the USB cable to an old PC with USB 1.1 hardware, running a special DOS level program supplied by the manufacturer, and powering the router up. This procedure will flash the router to factory settings and original firmware. Electric cars such as the Tesla Roadster can brick if the battery is completely discharged. Sometimes an interrupted flash upgrade of a PC motherboard will brick the board, for example, due to a power outage ( or user impatience ) during the upgrade process. It is sometimes possible to unbrick such a motherboard, by scavenging a similar but otherwise broken board for a BIOS chip in the hopes that the BIOS will work even halfway, far enough to boot from floppy. Then it will be possible to retry the flash process. Sometimes it is possible to boot from a floppy, then swap the old presumably dead BIOS chip in and reflash it. On some Gigabyte boards, it can also be possible to reflash the bricked main BIOS using a backup BIOS. Online and mobile services Many newer systems capable of accessing online services ( such as the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and iPhone ) have internal hardware - based unique identifiers, allowing individual systems to be tracked over a network and banned from accessing certain online services. Banned systems usually continue to operate for purposes unrelated to the online service, but they are often considered `` bricked '' by users of the online service. Mobile telephones have a fixed identification code, the IMEI ; a telephone reported stolen can have its IMEI blocked by networks -- effectively bricked -- although anyone with the necessary expertise and equipment can usually change the IMEI. In 2011, US Senator Chuck Schumer ( D - NY ) proposed that phones be `` bricked '' when reported stolen. Some local police chiefs agreed. However, in 2013, this was rejected by mobile carriers because `` If created, this capability would be in every handset and the ' kill ' message would be known to every operator and therefore could not be kept secret. '' Which could be an issue if it fell into the hands of someone with malicious intent. References ^ Jump up to : `` The Big Android Dictionary : A Glossary of Terms You Should Know ''. WonderHowTo. Retrieved 2017 - 05 - 06. Jump up ^ CATB.ORG Jargon File Jump up ^ `` Is it possible to recover a bricked computer ? ''. superuser.com. Retrieved 2017 - 05 - 06. Jump up ^ `` Hard Brick Bug on Galaxy S II and Note Leaked ICS Kernels ''. xda - developers. 2012 - 05 - 18. Retrieved 2017 - 05 - 06. Jump up ^ `` Unbricking a Hard Bricked Android Device ''. Dot Android. Jump up ^ `` If you ca n't update or restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch ''. Apple Support. Retrieved 2017 - 05 - 06. Jump up ^ Neo1973 Debug Board v2 / Unbricking - Openmoko ^ Jump up to : Unbrick Android phones and tablets Jump up ^ Tesla Motors ' Devastating Design Problem Jump up ^ `` ( motherboard ) Bricked motherboard after bios update - Computer Hardware Help DSLReports Forums ''. DSL Reports. Retrieved 2017 - 05 - 06. Jump up ^ `` -- GIGABYTE -- DUAL BIOS WEB ''. www.gigabyte.com. Retrieved 2017 - 05 - 06. Jump up ^ `` Thieves can now change IMEI number ''. Jump up ^ Helmbreck, Valerie ( 2011 - 08 - 23 ). Senator wants stolen cellphones `` bricked ''. Finance Tech News, 23 August 2011. Retrieved from http://www.financetechnews.com/senator-wants-stolen-cellphones-bricked/. Jump up ^ Segraves, Mark ( 2012 - 02 - 10 ). MPD fights robbery surge, seeks new FCC rule to ' brick ' stolen smart phones. WJLA - TV News, 10 February 2012. Retrieved from http://www.wjla.com/articles/2012/02/mpd-fights-robbery-surge-seeks-new-fcc-rule-72491.html. Jump up ^ `` Mobile carriers pull the plug on anti-theft ' kill switch ' for smartphones ''. IT Pro Portal. Retrieved 2017 - 05 - 06. Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brick_(electronics)&oldid=800797165 '' Categories : Computer jargon Hidden categories : Articles with obsolete information from October 2016 All Wikipedia articles in need of updating Articles needing additional references from November 2008 All articles needing additional references All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from September 2010 Articles with unsourced statements from April 2012 Articles with unsourced statements from February 2013 Talk Contents About Wikipedia Čeština Deutsch Esperanto Français Italiano עברית 日本 語 Türkçe 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 15 September 2017, at 18 : 43. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. 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Question: what does it mean to have a bricked phone
Answer: due to a serious misconfiguration, corrupted firmware, or a hardware problem, can no longer function