The IT lass has just been around and for some reason we got onto the subject of Spying on the staff, She says that everytime the cover is removed from the tower that it is logged on the hard drive.

Personally i think this is pish, but maybe one of you IT people could tell me different. I have put a few PC's together but thats as far as my knowledge goes :P

Rubbish. For starters the HD would need to be on for it to log anything, secondly you'd need either software or very clever hardware to write to the HD. SOftware is the easiest way to do it but you'd still need a switch that had a "memory" the know the cover was removed with the PC turned off.

The only thing I could see it logging is a change in the hardware configuration - more memory different graphics card etc.

EDIT TO ADD:

By this I mean the system identifies something different once it's restarted. In theory if you plugged in a new USB device it could create the same type of log. However I've never heard of this info being sent to a server before.

I think the IT lass has been told a porkie and she's swallowed it whole.

...............and she's swallowed it whole.

...ooer missus, phnar phnar!:P

I think the IT lass has been told a porkie and she's swallowed it whole.

We're got some machines at work (Dell's I think) that tell you on boot if the cover has been removed, so it may not be entirely without substance.

I know its true with dell machines and HP/Compaq

they have a utility partition on the hdd and keep a log in the bios.. of hardware changes, cover removal etc. can be read via openmanage...

These are Dells too , i thought it was kinda strange sounding but you never know.

Not that i regularly take the cover off my work PC but i nearly did a couple of months ago when something I installed went as$ over elbow and my machine wouldnt reboot, The scenario went through my head that they would fix the kernal problem and see i had been fiddling so my plan was to take the HDD out last thing take it home that night, wipe it clean , plug it in the next morning and plead ignorance. But they came and collected my PC early so didnt get to.....Telephone call the next day told me "I'm afraid a pin has broken in your HDD and all data has been lost" Cue large sigh of relief as all my data is on the Network bar the previous installation

Dell's and Compaq's do this for sure.

I'm going back a few years now, but you could log on remotely using Compaq Insite (Insight?) Manager for instance and this would tell you if the cover has been removed recently.

With the Compaq Small Form Factor PC's the Admins can also remotely operate a solenoid inside the machine that locks the case.

We had to do this years ago at a place I worked, as people were nicking the RAM and CPU's! It made a very satisfying noise when 1700 PC's all went "Click" at the same time!