Lenovo Yoga 13 + Comodo Firewall ≠ <3

Until today, I did not believe that software, especially not obviously malicious, could somehow critically affect hardware, in the worst case, waiting for the operating system to crash. But it happens: you install a firewall, and your laptop stops working. To my joy, this time it is a story with a happy ending.

Briefly about the main thing

This problem is found on other laptops Lenovo, HP and possibly other manufacturers. At the same time, you should not discard Comodo Firewall Free and Internet Security (both programs work on the same core) as obviously objectionable: just check in advance if there are any problems on your particular laptop model. Unfortunately, I was not able to appreciate the merits of these products, as much as I would like.
')

Lyrical digression

I have already come across something similar during experiments with hackintosh on a PC: individual cakes (English kext - ke rnel ext ension) changed the CMOS parameters so that when restarting the computer it was recommended to restore these values, otherwise the BIOS did not boot. Similar failures can frighten, however, protection against the fool in this case works smoothly (as a rule).

Problem

In principle, Windows 8.1 has a good built-in firewall, but at some point I thought that it would be nice to monitor and monitor all traffic whenever possible and see which applications are breaking into the network. I decided to start my searches with the first link to a free firewall from third-party developers: I know about Comodo not for the first day, so I did not expect any problems. However, after installing and rebooting the ultrabook, everything went wrong: the blue screen with the error "DPC Watchdog Violation", and after rebooting - an idle keyboard and Windows endless loading (both the installed system and the recovery partition). By connecting an external keyboard and looking in the BIOS, I saw instead of the normal value of the EC version (the embedded controller, usually the BIOS version) characters similar to the Latin y. My worst fears were confirmed: the installed program did something very unacceptable. Roughly speaking, I got in the wrong place. A quick search on the firewall developer forums showed that the problem is not so rarely encountered and is indirectly related to UEFI (without going into details). In this situation, it is strange that the developers do not take responsibility for themselves, despite the large number of complaints.

Possible Solution

Comodo forum messages were not encouraging - in most cases only contacting the service center helped. But it was clear that you need to somehow restore the EC firmware, if the matter is really in it. At that moment I was already running to an important meeting with completely upset feelings, but I didn’t let go of the smartphone. My persistence was rewarded: I found a solution: in short, to reset the EC, it is enough either to discharge the ultrabook battery "to zero", or to disassemble it and disconnect the battery connector for a few seconds. The first option is good for everyone, but wait for a full discharge for a long time.

Disassembly

If you are not interested in the process of disassembling the ultrabook, you can safely skip this section.
A detailed disassembly manual, from which I took the pictures, is here .
WARNING: If you are not sure of your abilities to work with disassembled equipment, you should contact the service center.

I confess that it is a pleasure to disassemble “yoga”: only the cogs under the star torx screwdriver are a little upsetting. First of all, you can unscrew all torx-screws located at the bottom of the base of the laptop, but do not remove the back cover. Next, turn the laptop to its normal position and remove the keyboard: it keeps on snaps and double-sided tape, the first disconnection should be done carefully:



Then disconnect the keyboard cable and set it aside:



Turn off the specified screws:



It remains to disconnect two more cables - to the left is connected to the power button, and to the right of the touchpad (the most capricious of all the cables, in my opinion - be careful with it):



The case is left for small: the lid, like the keyboard, keeps on snaps, carefully remove it.



Now the most crucial step remains: disconnecting the battery connector. It is necessary to do this very carefully, my nails and a regular plastic card helped me. In no case do not need to pull the wire.



Voila! We connect the connector back, and connect the power button cable. I prudently paused the further assembly, and used external mice and keyboard as input devices.

Deletion

After the operations done, everything fell into place, but the cause of the trouble did not go away - it still needs to be somehow removed. The logical and expected action is to remove the program by loading in safe mode. But it's not so simple: the installation and uninstallation wizard of Comodo Firewall is happy to announce that it is not working in safe mode. So I had to delete the folder with the firewall in the Program Files directory, and run the uninstaller in normal mode. It helped: the laptop works now as if nothing had happened.

findings

The conclusions suggest themselves: when installing programs that take root deeply into the OS (firewalls, antiviruses, tweakers), you need to be careful and look for cases of the most severe incompatibility with this particular laptop / hardware model of your PC.

UPD. Links to the relevant topic on the Comodo forum:
1. Compatibility problems between CIS and Windows 8?
2. CIS / Antivirus corrupts Windows 8
3. I cannot boot after installing Comodo Security Suite