Microsoft officially shares an old story: a song crashes a Windows XP PC computer

CTOnews.com, August 18, Microsoft recently revealed a crazy story about a song that crashed a Windows XP laptop. The song involved is "Rhythm Nation" by American pop singer Janet Jackson.

The reason for the computer crash is that the song contains one of the natural resonance frequencies of the 5400 RPM hard disk drive (HDD) model, which is common in laptops even today. In fact, even laptops that don't play the song nearby will crash. However, Microsoft did not disclose the specific frequency, and it is difficult to determine which HDD vibration frequency is between 0 and 5000 Hz, although there are some peaks at 12.5Hz, 87.5Hz, 1100Hz, 1450Hz, 1700Hz, 1850Hz.

CTOnews.com learned that to solve this problem, device manufacturers must add a filter to specific frequencies to prevent computers from crashing, which detects and removes troublesome frequencies during audio playback.

If you are already using new computer devices such as Windows 10 and Windows 11, listening to this song will not cause PC to crash, but you cannot rule out the possibility that some PC computers running Windows XP will also crash.

Of course, any story about natural resonance frequencies is inseparable from the collapse of the Tacoma Strait Bridge in 1940 (mild to moderate winds can cause the bridge to sway back and forth, with a greater swing in the center. Eventually causing the snake resonance to collapse).

In addition, Larry Osterman (Larry Osterman) had a similar experience in a particular game that caused the prototype PC to crash.