Building a new PC for Elite: Dangerous Odyssey (hardware discussion)

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

I'll watch that later. You know my views on Armoury Crate tho ... it practically bricked my new PC and I strongly advised PC Specialist to stop installing it when I finally tracked down all my problems to that software. Funnily enough, when I recently spilled water on the PC and had to send it back, when it was returned guess what software was back on it again! That was the fastest software uninstall I've ever done.

You'd think Asus/ROG would do something about Armoury Crate - whenever I read something about it, it's always in the negative. I don't like it myself and what really bakes my noodle is that there's a setting in my BIOS to auto-activate/download it. In the BIOS! Sheesh.

Of curse, it's now dead and off my PC

 

[Alec Turner]

You'd think Asus/ROG would do something about Armoury Crate - whenever I read something about it, it's always in the negative. I don't like it myself and what really bakes my noodle is that there's a setting in my BIOS to auto-activate/download it. In the BIOS! Sheesh.

Of curse, it's now dead and off my PC

Yeah, I didn't know about that bios setting ... I'm going to have to go and look for that now so I can turn it off.

 

[Neilski]

Yeah, I didn't know about that bios setting ... I'm going to have to go and look for that now so I can turn it off.

It's beyond surreal that such a thing even exists as a firmware-level option. The most moronic bit of malware-feature that I've seen for ages.
Also: beware BIOS updates, because GN warn that each update will reactivate the accursed thing.

Edit to add: I've been dead against Asus for years now, but am in the market for a new motherboard and was starting to think that I might risk an Asus board (for the features) until I very fortunately tripped over that GN video a few days ago.

 

[Morbad]

Never use any first-party motherboard software if it can be at all avoided. Armoury Crate is bad, but none of them are good.

Relevant/necessary firmware updates are about all you should get from the motherboard manufacturer's site. Get drivers from the actual chip OEMs and if you need any tools beyond that, use well regarded third-pary/generic/FoSS alternatives.

You'd think Asus/ROG would do something about Armoury Crate - whenever I read something about it, it's always in the negative. I don't like it myself and what really bakes my noodle is that there's a setting in my BIOS to auto-activate/download it. In the BIOS! Sheesh.

Of curse, it's now dead and off my PC

Yeah, I didn't know about that bios setting ... I'm going to have to go and look for that now so I can turn it off.

It's beyond surreal that such a thing even exists as a firmware-level option. The most moronic bit of malware-feature that I've seen for ages.
Also: beware BIOS updates, because GN warn that each update will reactivate the accursed thing.

Edit to add: I've been dead against Asus for years now, but am in the market for a new motherboard and was starting to think that I might risk an Asus board (for the features) until I very fortunately tripped over that GN video a few days ago.

GitHub - Jamesits/dropWPBT: Disables the Windows Platform Binary Table (WPBT) in your UEFI firmware.

Disables the Windows Platform Binary Table (WPBT) in your UEFI firmware. - Jamesits/dropWPBT

github.com

The registry entry listed there will keep Windows from processing the binary blobs associated with the setting mentioned. I recommend applying it so if and when you forget to disable the setting you don't have extra nag/malware being installed.