Talk:Crash (computing)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Hardware damage

Article says "On earlier personal computers, it was acutally possible to cause hardware damage through trying to write to hardware addresses outside of the system's main memory."

This sounds like urban legend. What sources are there for this? -R. S. Shaw 08:06, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if it's actually true, but it is certainly possible in theory. Many small systems take shortcuts with the memory address decoding, and this often involves ignoring addresses outside the planned range. Settin gup such addresses could in theory result in bus contention which in theory could cause physical damage to the CPU or other components. As I say, whether this really did occur on a real machine is open to question. Graham 10:44, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
I see. For this to happen, it seems like one must have an extra (incompatible) card installed on the bus, which will respond simultaneously with the normal (shortcut) system component which also responds (due to the non-full address decoding). In a way, that sounds more like a physical hardware misconfiguration than a software crash. -R. S. Shaw 20:17, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
I've heard this from others too. I think the most known example of this happening was the earliest versions of the commodore PET which had no sanity checking on what was sent to the CRT. This meant that if you POKEd (wrote a value to a location in memory) physical damage could be done to the circuitry. This is the Killer poke Wilsonsamm (talk) 00:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Confusing line

However, until 1993, with the release of Windows NT 3.1, this hasn't been the case for the average PC. Eh? Sum0 19:23, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. Linguofreak 00:41, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rubbernecking

McAfee have released a video which shows an example of Spyware attacking and a computer crash, and have called the act of watching this happen "Rubbernecking" (as in watching a car wreck). Here's where I found the video: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/video/spyware, but I can't find the actual source. I don't know where the term "Rubbernecking" came from- is it new or widely used? Should it merit a section of this article? Leemorrison 21:46, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

'Rubbernecking' is American slang for people craning their heads as they pass to see an unusual sight. It is used when cars slow and the passengers look over the results of an auto accident (crash), and is only rarely used in other contexts. The usage for computer-crash viewing is essentially a joke, non-notable, and shouldn't be included. -R. S. Shaw 19:09, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] UNIX crashes less often

I removed an assertion under the OS crashes section that UNIX-based operating systems crash less often than those from any other source. Although it is widely known [citation needed] that UNIX is more stable than old MS-Windows systems, which crashed frequently, it is not true that UNIX is entirely immune from crashes, as the statement implies. An "operating system" which simply boots and displays "Hello World" will virtually never crash.

Removing the statement eliminates little or no factual information.

Pcu123456789 20:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] When a Server Crashes..

After the server crashes, is the server still good? Or is there damage to it or the information? Can a user just restart it and search for the bug to fix, or is it a more costly problem? iwanturCAT 03:09, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

It depends. If a process crashed while writing to a file, then the file may be corrupt. Wilsonsamm (talk) 00:47, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] OS crashes

I cropped back this section. It added nothing, and didn't explain anything. It also seemed focused on MS Windows, which seems wrong in this context. Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 12:53, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, thats basically why I put the tag on the page. What is there now looks good, so if nobody objects, I'll remove the tag. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 19:09, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Okay, this freaks me out a bit- that paragraph was added June 18th, 2006, and appears to have stayed there the entire time. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 19:15, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
If the problems seans solved then I removed the POV tag. - Nabla 14:15, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Windows 98 setup error.jpg

Image:Windows 98 setup error.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 20:05, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confusing Tag

I understand this article but I have to think rather hard about some parts to understand where the author is coming from. When I get a chance I will make some clarifications but in the mean time maybe someone will beat me to it. Rsduhamel (talk) 07:52, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edited page

I removed the sentence 'In an ideal world, well-written operating systems would always remain stable even when individual applications crash.' because it is somewhat off-topic, and does not belong in Wikipedia. Armiris (talk) 17:54, 8 June 2008 (UTC)