Mr Whippy
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 09:21 AM |
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Why do they do that???
So why do computers crash?
What has happened, anyone know? I can only guess but would be interested to hear what is going on. Sometimes it seems it’s just a program that freezes
other times the whole machine locks up, very odd, I would have thought by now manufactures would have solved this but it actually seems to happen more
and more these days.
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Jubal
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 09:25 AM |
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They're not supposed to but badly written programs can do funky things and there's nothing the OS can do about it. Even the OS itself has
millions of lines of code and will have loads of mistakes.
Wherever people are involved then human error can be relied upon....
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smart51
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 09:26 AM |
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Lots of reasons. Often it is because you have windows installed. A company I used to work for used an OS called QNX. It was small enough to fit on
a floppy disc, or 2 if you wanted the GUI. It was fast and above all reliable. We used it on machines that were too slow for windows and they ran
like lightning.
Common faults are:
Memory leakage - the computer allocates memory for something and then forgets to free it. Do it lots and you use up all your memory. The cure?
Fully power down your PC regularly.
Null pointers - The computer sets a pointer to memory but forgets to point it somewhere. You then write over the wrong bit of memory, screwing up
what was there before. Often a bit that was important.
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iank
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 09:37 AM |
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Computers crash for a lot of reasons, some high level titles.
Marginal/broken hardware
Shoddily written code - amazing amount out there.
Too much complexity for a human brain to deal with.
Poor Operating System architecture.
Don't care attitude from managers/sales&marketing.
Everything has to be shipped out yesterday and has to cost nothing.
NASA/ESA do it right and still lose the occasional expensive bit of hardware due to an unforeseen set of circumstances.
--
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
Anonymous
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MikeR
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 09:42 AM |
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those are the big two, another one is DLL versioning.
In an ideal world all the support routines the computer uses would be defined once and thats it. Except people think of new things, find better ways
of doing things or fix the bugs in the originals.
Life is a LOT better than it used to be, but sometimes stuff doesn't work as you expect. Perhaps because in test you had the right version.
Worst thing is when you have two programs that are incompatible in a very tiny way, you can spend ages trying to find the problem. Users who load
their own software drive me potty - an analogy might be, you own a car, fit a new stereo yourself and discover the battery now goes flat once a week
yet blame ford when its you who's installed the stereo that was made by bodge-it-and-scarper.
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Mr Whippy
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 09:42 AM |
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Well going by that then it seems that they will become increasingly bad for it as programs get larger 
I do find it amazing that window needs to be so big and greedy for seeming to do so little.
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MikeR
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 09:44 AM |
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let me put it this way, the first cars in 1900 - where they reliable?
Are modern cars?
Well computers have been around since the mid to late 70's (pre that consider computers to be the equivalent of a stream engine). We've
got a fair few years of evolution to go before we get to car level of reliability........ what ever that means 
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MikeR
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 09:48 AM |
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LITTLE .... LITTLE ...... do you have any idea what windows does? It does HUGE amounts, its doing stuff you won't even know about in 5 years
time. The complexity in Windows is scary.
Its far more complex than a moon lander, probably more complex than the system used to control our nuclear power stations (complexity defined by lines
of code and different operations it does, not by reliability).
thats like saying .... errm, can't think of an example!
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RazMan
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 09:50 AM |
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There is a saying in IT for occasions like this.....
99% of all computer problems originate from between the keyboard and the chair 
Cheers,
Raz
When thinking outside the box doesn't work any more, it's time to build a new box
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Mr Whippy
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 09:52 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by MikeR
LITTLE .... LITTLE ...... do you have any idea what windows does? It does HUGE amounts, its doing stuff you won't even know about in 5 years
time. The complexity in Windows is scary.
Its far more complex than a moon lander, probably more complex than the system used to control our nuclear power stations (complexity defined by lines
of code and different operations it does, not by reliability).
thats like saying .... errm, can't think of an example!
so what is it doing?
I can think of -
the mouse pointer
the file management
the desk top screen
? managing printers
I don't think it deals with the programming code since windows is just a program itself (or a collection of programs?)
When I look at the CPU usage even now its at 1% so I can only assume that not much is happening, even in the backgound.
Use to be well into my computers and programming them, until they got over complicated that is
[Edited on 30/5/08 by Mr Whippy]
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stevec
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 10:49 AM |
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Bad drivers
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Peteff
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 10:52 AM |
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Originally a crash was when the read head came into contact physically with the disk platen surface. I think a lot of crashes now originate from
separate programs trying to access the same section of memory. I used to have Windows 98 and found it crashed on a weekly basis. When I went onto 2000
it was a different ball game and didn't have many problems, probably every few months something would go wrong. This computer has Vista premium
and since I built it and installed the OS it has only failed once in 7 months and it searched for and found its' own solution.
yours, Pete
I went into the RSPCA office the other day. It was so small you could hardly swing a cat in there.
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Mr Whippy
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 11:01 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by Peteff
the OS it has only failed once in 7 months and it searched for and found its' own solution.
cleaver stuff
I think I was told a 'General protection error' was two programs trying to use the same bit off memory, win 98 does seem to do this quite
a lot.
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trikerneil
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 11:52 AM |
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One I heard the other day was PICNIC.
Problem In Chair Not In Computer.
Made me smile
Neil
ACE Cafe - Just say No.
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phoenix70
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 12:00 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by Mr Whippy
[I don't think it deals with the programming code since windows is just a program itself (or a collection of programs?)
The last time you could say windows was just a program, is going back to Windows 3.1 (although 95 and 98 were the transitions). Windows is now an
operating system with a lot of programs in it. It's main job is to tell the hardware what you want it to do.
Here is an experiment for you, try removing Windows and then tell me how useful you computers is (Windows in one of many available OS's)
P.S. I don't mean remove it and put linux, unix, mac os on it.
Without an OS like Windows, your computer is just an expensive door stop
Cheers
Scott
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DaveFJ
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 12:07 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by RazMan
There is a saying in IT for occasions like this.....
99% of all computer problems originate from between the keyboard and the chair
we have an phrase we use on our call resolution system at work... SKIE... stands for Seat to Keyboard Interface Error
the truth behind why windows crashes so much these days is mostly down to poor programming. The tools developers use these days are so complex that
they take away the need to even understand the underlying processes and you end up with a load of trained chimps recycling chunks of other people code
via copy and paste.....
Dave
"In Support of Help the Heroes" - Always
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iank
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 12:14 PM |
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PEBCAK = Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard
ID-10T Error
--
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
Anonymous
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Mr Whippy
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 12:43 PM |
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well to be honest 99.999% of the times the computer goes down it seems for no reason at all, as I'm simply using the programs as normal doing
what I'm normally doing which worked fine the last thousand times and then POW! its broken...WTF!
We never muck around with the hardware at work so can't see how its always the users fault the computers nackered.
[Edited on 30/5/08 by Mr Whippy]
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iank
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 12:56 PM |
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Possibly a duff memory stick they cause random crashes like that.
Or maybe a virus, less likely.
Typically a crash that just stops an app working in a problem in application side code, one that locks the machine is in kernel (i.e. real
'os' code). That's why a dodgy driver for a Taiwanese no-name bit of £1 hardware can cause such havoc, it's running kernel
side.
--
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
Anonymous
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martyn_16v
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| posted on 30/5/08 at 08:13 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by Mr Whippy
well to be honest 99.999% of the times the computer goes down it seems for no reason at all,
Cosmic ray events. Greatest excuse i've
ever never had the balls to try on a customer
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