Can you prevent a PC from showing POST info?
 

As in the title, is there any way to stop a PC showing POST info?

Almost always - you do it from the BIOS. Press DEL or F2 before the beep.

Yes, I know I could use the mobo manufacturers post screen but anyone could change that back easily. I suppose I could do this and password protect the bios. I'm looking to make the PC as tamper proof and inconspicuous looking as possible from a 'kids mucking about' point of view.

The kids have access to the machine and have been finding it a 'right laugh' to muck up all the bios settings. The actual bios battery was removed once.

The machine is in a youth centre and while the team dont think the kids will nick the thing they just want it as tamper proof as possible. They also dont want anyone to know it's using a top spec processor (X24000) etc which shows up in the BIOS.

what make pc / bios.

Hmm, I get the same probalems in an Internet cafe that I support.

The pc case needs to be physically locked, also password protect the BIOS. Next you could consider a program called Deep Freeze (http://www.faronics.com/index.asp), which resets the computer back to your default settings on each boot. Depending on their ages, you may want to consider Net Nanny (http://www.netnanny.com/) which could save you some legal issues.

Thanks for the replies everyone. David, It's an award bios I think, A7N8X mobo, generic PC.

Regarding windows security, after I lock down the bios, and as it's running XP, should I risk using the GPO? Or does anyone think the new MS Shared Computer Toolkit is any good?