So, like, there was this crazy thing that happened like a decade ago where people’s laptops would crash if they played Janet Jackson’s song, “Rhythm Nation.” Can you even imagine that being a thing? Well, apparently it was a real issue, not just some made-up story.
According to a Microsoft employee and blogger named Raymond Chen, who did some digging into this whole situation, it turns out that the sound frequencies in the song were causing laptops to crash. It wasn’t viruses or hacking that were the problem back then, but a pop song from the ’80s. Wild, right?
The story goes like this: someone on the Windows XP team discovered that playing “Rhythm Nation” on a laptop would make it crash. And not just one laptop, but nearby ones too. Microsoft tried to figure out what was going on, and they found out that the song was hitting the resonant frequencies of the hard drives in the laptops, causing them to vibrate and crash the OS. Physics, man.
Turns out, the issue was so serious that Microsoft had to engineer a fix for it. They added a filter to eliminate that pesky frequency band so that people could listen to Janet Jackson without fear of their laptops crashing. That filter stayed in place from Windows XP to Windows 7, which is pretty impressive if you ask me.
But here’s the kicker: even though most laptops nowadays use SSDs instead of hard drives, the filter remained in place because one PC vendor was still paranoid about the whole situation. They were worried that disabling the filter could cause physical damage to the laptops. So, the filter stayed put, just in case.
It’s kind of funny to think about how a song could have that much power over technology, right? Not really sure why this matters, but it’s definitely an interesting story to tell at a party. Who knew that Janet Jackson had that kind of influence over laptops?
In the end, it’s a good thing that most laptops now use SSDs, which are less susceptible to vibration issues. But hey, maybe we missed out on some potential chaos if a different song had caused laptops to fail. Can you imagine if “Baby Shark” was the culprit instead? Scary thought, right?
Mark, a tech writer with years of experience, shared this fascinating story with us. He’s covered everything from microprocessors to Microsoft Windows, so you know he’s seen some wild stuff in his time. The fact that a song could crash laptops is just another crazy tech tale to add to the list. It just goes to show you that sometimes the most unexpected things can cause the biggest problems.
