Microsoft Representative shared on the company blog with a story that his acquaintance from the technical support of the Windows XP operating system encountered. A laptop manufacturer found that when playing the song Rhythm Nation by popular American singer Janet Jackson, certain mobile PC models failed.
Image Source: Neowin
During the investigation of this case, it was also found that not only the laptops on which this song was launched, but even those laptops that at that moment were simply next to the laptop on which it was played, failed.
Ultimately, it was determined that the audio frequencies contained in the song’s melody were the cause of the failures. They resonated with some models of hard drives running at 5400 rpm. Unfortunately, a Microsoft spokesperson did not say exactly what frequencies we are talking regarding. Typically, hard drives vibrate between 0 and 5000 Hz, although there are occasional peaks at 12.5, 87.5, 1100, 1450, 1700, and 1850 Hz.
The laptop manufacturer in question solved this problem by using a filter in the audio codec that detected and filtered out unwanted frequencies during audio playback.
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