Brick (electronics) - Cause and Prevention

Cause and Prevention

Bricking a device is usually an unwanted consequence of an attempt to update the device. Many devices have an update procedure that must not be interrupted; 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 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, and 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.