Janet Jackson song disassembled Windows XP notebooks – COMPUTER BILD

Wondering what Janet Jackson has to do with old Windows XP laptops from 2005? Windows developer Raymond Chen provides the explanation in his Blog. He tells the quirky story of how a Janet Jackson song killed Notebooks. A large computer manufacturer noticed this with their own devices and those of the competition. It wasn’t just the laptops the song was running on that were affected, however: the song “Rhythm Nation” also dismantled devices that were in close proximity. The reason for this: a frequency in the piece of music.

what went wrong

Nobody would have liked to be in the skin of the developers. But following certainly long research, the manufacturer found that the crashes had something to do with the built-in hard drives. More precisely: The problem affects storage media that run at 5,400 revolutions per minute. “Rhythm Nation” contains a lethal frequency for those very hard drives. The developers had only one solution: they built an audio filter into the laptops. It should recognize and filter out the interfering frequency. That solved the problem and Janet Jackson fans might breathe a sigh of relief.

Below the article you will find the music video for the song “Rhythm Nation” by Janet Jackson. A tip: If you’re still using a Windows XP laptop from 2005 and the built-in hard drive spins at 5,400 rpm, you’d better think twice regarding playing it.