More useless error messages



  • ...but with a twist!

    Computer Randomly Plays Classical Music

    Notice:

    This article applies to Windows 2000.

    Summary

    During normal operation or in Safe mode, your computer may play "Fur Elise" or "It's a Small, Small World" seemingly at random. This is an indication sent to the PC speaker from the computer's BIOS that the CPU fan is failing or has failed, or that the power supply voltages have drifted out of tolerance. This is a design feature of a detection circuit and system BIOSes developed by Award/Unicore from 1997 on.

    Windows: providing you with useless, uninformative, and confusing error messages since forever.

    Linky.


  • I loled. I wouldn't call it uninformative or confusing though, I clearly understand what the that particular symptom means.



  • TRWTF is that anyone thinks "It's a Small, Small World" is classical music.



  •  @mikeTheLiar said:

    During normal operation or in Safe mode, your computer may play "Fur Elise" or "It's a Small, Small World" seemingly at random. This is an indication sent to the PC speaker [b]from the computer's BIOS [/b] that the CPU fan is failing or has failed, or that the power supply voltages have drifted out of tolerance. This is a design feature of a [b]detection circuit and system BIOSes[/b] developed by Award/Unicore from 1997 on.

    Windows: providing you with useless, uninformative, and confusing error messages since forever.

     

    I Don't understand what this has to do with Windows Error messages. It's a Knowledge Base article, not an Error Message, and the actual issue is a design feature.

     



  • @BC_Programmer said:

    I Don't understand what this has to do with Windows Error messages. It's a Knowledge Base article, not an Error Message, and the actual issue is a design feature.
    Remember, Windows is the computer to most people, so when the computer starts singing songs, it's Windows' fault.



  • @BC_Programmer said:

     @mikeTheLiar said:

    During normal operation or in Safe mode, your computer may play "Fur Elise" or "It's a Small, Small World" seemingly at random. This is an indication sent to the PC speaker from the computer's BIOS that the CPU fan is failing or has failed, or that the power supply voltages have drifted out of tolerance. This is a design feature of a detection circuit and system BIOSes developed by Award/Unicore from 1997 on.

    Windows: providing you with useless, uninformative, and confusing error messages since forever.

    I Don't understand what this has to do with Windows Error messages. It's a Knowledge Base article, not an Error Message, and the actual issue is a design feature.

    Exactly.  It is a Hardware feature.  This would apply to any OS running on that mainboard, from my understanding.



  •  OMG i have to tell my friend, he loves linux and would lol at this:

    http://forums.overclockersclub.com/index.php?showtopic=139072



  • @DrBen said:

    TRWTF is that anyone thinks "It's a Small, Small World" is classical music.

    Classical music is music written by dead people.  "Für Elise" qualifies.

    So does "Rehab".

    Richard Sherman is still living, so "It's a Small World" is only semi-classical.

     



  • I had a motherboard that would say, when booting, in a lovely female voice: "System completed power on self test. Computer now booting from operating system." Thank god it could be disabled.



  • @da Doctah said:

    Classical Zombie music is music written by dead people.

    FTFY



  • @RTapeLoadingError said:

    @da Doctah said:
    Classical Zombie music is music written by dead people.

    FTFY

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8KTLFPzD9A

    http://www.amazon.com/Music-Zombie-Apocalypse-Various-artists/dp/B005TLXZC0



  • @mikeTheLiar said:

    This is a design feature of a detection circuit and system BIOSes developed by Award/Unicore from 1997 on.

    Windows: providing you with useless, uninformative, and confusing error messages since forever.

    users: blaming everything on windows even when the manufacturer is clearly stated and clearly different, since forever.



  • @RTapeLoadingError said:

    @da Doctah said:
    Classical Zombie music is music written by undead people.
    FTFY
    FTFTFYFY



  • your computer may play "Fur Elise" or "It's a Small, Small World"
    This is an indication (...) that the CPU fan is failing or has failed
    This is a design feature

    What. The. Fuck.



  • @mikeTheLiar said:

    "Fur Elise"
    Sounds like a cat or dog with all that fur. I guess they mean "Für Elise". ;-)



  • @spezialpfusch said:

    Sounds like a cat or dog with all that fur.
     

    Given that the music plays only when power or heat is outside of tolerance, it probably does sound like a furry cat or dog.

    TRWTF: If the music is being played by BIOS, why does the problem apply to Windows 95/98/2000/NT4 but not other versions of Windows?

     




  • Youtube videos or it didn't happen. This is the first time I've heard anything like this. The usual symptoms displayed for these two causes (fan and voltage) is that the computer doesn't start. Period.



  • @spezialpfusch said:

    @mikeTheLiar said:
    "Fur Elise"
    Sounds like a cat or dog with all that fur.
    Cats: putting the "Fur" in "Furniture" since ancient Egypt.

     



  • @spezialpfusch said:

    @mikeTheLiar said:

    "Fur Elise"
    Sounds like a cat or dog with all that fur. I guess they mean "Für Elise". ;-)



  • @dhromed said:

    Youtube videos or it didn't happen. This is the first time I've heard anything like this. The usual symptoms displayed for these two causes (fan and voltage) is that the computer doesn't start. Period.

    Agreed, it does sound a bit suspect. Could this be an April fools KB article that has somehow lingered on?



  • @dhromed said:

    Youtube videos or it didn't happen. This is the first time I've heard anything like this. The usual symptoms displayed for these two causes (fan and voltage) is that the computer doesn't start. Period.
    Nah, if the fan doesn't rotate, the computer will still start (depending on CPU, it might run slowly, or even fry the CPU eventually, but it will run for a while). Even if voltage is outside recommended tolerances, the computer will usually still work, it simply won't be stable (might work just fine until you try to run something processor-intensive).


    While I haven't seen motherboards that'd play a tune when the parameters are outside recommended tolerance levels, I've seen motherboards that would emit long beeps when the CPU fan stopped - even when the fan stopped because the BIOS was set to do so, because the CPU temperature was low enough that it wasn't needed.



  • @dhromed said:

    Youtube videos or it didn't happen. This is the first time I've heard anything like this. The usual symptoms displayed for these two causes (fan and voltage) is that the computer doesn't start. Period.

    OR it tells you to safely pull over.


    $90,000 worth of pure macho power burning in Seattle.
    As everyone can see the other cars in the pack are scared to get closer to this fallen Alpha car.



  •  @ender said:

    Even if voltage is outside recommended tolerances, the computer will usually still work, it simply won't be stable (might work just fine until you try to run something processor-intensive).

    This might depend on how far out of tolerances the voltage is.

    zappp fizzle pop



  • @Ronald said:

    burning in Seattle.
     

    I thought fire could not work in Seattle.



  • @dhromed said:

    This might depend on how far out of tolerances the voltage is.
    Enough that the alarm is tripped, but not enough to@dhromed said:
    zappp fizzle pop



  • @dhromed said:

    @Ronald said:

    burning in Seattle.
     

    I thought fire could not work in Seattle.

    It's not raining today... yet.

     



  • @anonymous234 said:

    I had a motherboard that would say, when booting, in a lovely female voice: "System completed power on self test. Computer now booting from operating system." Thank god it could be disabled.

    That sounds awesome. Which MB?



  • @Paddles said:

    @spezialpfusch said:

    Sounds like a cat or dog with all that fur.
     

    Given that the music plays only when power or heat is outside of tolerance, it probably does sound like a furry cat or dog.

    TRWTF: If the music is being played by BIOS, why does the problem apply to Windows 95/98/2000/NT4 but not other versions of Windows?

     

    Probably because the magnificent BIOS developers implemented that feature by the Win95/NT4 time, and discovered that it was a bad idea during the Win2k lifetime. Since computers can't run versions of Windows newer than themselves, and rarely somebody downgrades them (except for ME/Vista/8), and since nobdy ever likes to acknowledge the existence of WinME, only those versions were affected.

     



  • @dhromed said:

    @Ronald said:

    burning in Seattle.
     

    I thought fire could not work in Seattle.

    Lithium gets on fire even under water.

     


  • BINNED

    @da Doctah said:

    Classical music is music written by dead people.  "Für Elise" qualifies.


    Classical music is also written by people who are alive, but no one listens to it unless they go to a classical concert, where it is scheduled between pieces that people actually want to listen to.



  • @da Doctah said:

    @DrBen said:

    TRWTF is that anyone thinks "It's a Small, Small World" is classical music.

    Classical music is music written by dead people.  "Für Elise" qualifies.

    So does "Rehab".

    Richard Sherman is still living, so "It's a Small World" is only semi-classical.

     

    Is that a necessary and sufficient condition? Because, you know, everybody's gonna die eventually, and this already creates problems.



  • @PedanticCurmudgeon said:

    Classical music is also written by people who are alive, but no one listens to it unless they go to a classical concert, where it is scheduled between pieces that people actually want to listen to.


    Bullshit. Everyone listens to classical music written by live people. I mean, what else would you call a John Williams score, and plenty of people listen to those.

     



  • @Mcoder said:

    Since computers can't run versions of Windows newer than themselves [ . . . ]

    frystare.jpg

     


  • BINNED

    @Snooder said:

    Everyone listens to classical music written by live people. I mean, what else would you call a John Williams score

    Most people who care about classical music would call that pops.



  • @DaveK said:

    @Mcoder said:

    Since computers can't run versions of Windows newer than themselves [ . . . ]

    frystare.jpg

     

    Let's prove this by contradiction.

    1. We assume that computers CAN run versions of Windows newer than themselves.
    2. Therefore, there does not exist a computer that is incompatible with a version of Windows newer than itself.
    3. Windows 8.1 requires PAE, NX, and SSE2
    4. I used to have an old processor.
    5. Because the Pentium 4 existed, we can assume a Pentium III also existed.
    6. Pentium IIIs did not support NX or SSE2.
    7. Therefore, our assumption must have been incorrect.


  • "Can computers run versions of Windows newer than themselves?"

    The correct answer is "it depends". For example: @Ben L. said:

    Windows 8.1 requires PAE, NX, and SSE2
    Intel Pentiun D released in 2005, 8 years before Windows 8.1, supports PAE, NX and SSE2.

     

     

     



  • @Ben L. said:

    @DaveK said:

    @Mcoder said:

    Since computers can't run versions of Windows newer than themselves [ . . . ]

    frystare.jpg

     

    Let's prove this by contradiction.

    1. We assume that computers CAN run versions of Windows newer than themselves.
    2. Therefore, there does not exist a computer that is incompatible with a version of Windows newer than itself.
    3. Windows 8.1 requires PAE, NX, and SSE2
    4. I used to have an old processor.
    5. Because the Pentium 4 existed, we can assume a Pentium III also existed.
    6. Pentium IIIs did not support NX or SSE2.
    7. Therefore, our assumption must have been incorrect.

    1a. We assume that all computers CAN run all versions of Windows newer than themselves.

    1b. We assume that some computers CAN run some versions of Windows newer than themselves.

    You have disproved 1a, but not 1b. However, frystare.jpg is justified even if only 1b is true and "some" is sufficiently large.

     



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    @da Doctah said:
    Classical music is music written by dead people.

    Is that a necessary and sufficient condition? Because, you know, everybody's gonna die eventually, and this already creates problems.
    As some comedian pointed out way back in the 1970s, some day there will be antique beanbag chairs.

     



  • @PedanticCurmudgeon said:

    @Snooder said:

    Everyone listens to classical music written by live people. I mean, what else would you call a John Williams score

    Most people who care about classical music would call that pops.
    I care deeply about classical music, and I'd say that's a very fuzzy line, if there is a line there at all. Certainly his music, and that of other film composers, is played regularly on classical music radio stations.

     



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    @PedanticCurmudgeon said:
    @Snooder said:
    Everyone listens to classical music written by live people. I mean, what else would you call a John Williams score

    Most people who care about classical music would call that pops.
    I care deeply about classical music, and I'd say that's a very fuzzy line, if there is a line there at all. Certainly his music, and that of other film composers, is played regularly on classical music radio stations.

     

    The music of John Williams and a few other bears a resemblance to classical music and it may even be played on "classical music" radio stations but the term "classical music" normally refers works from the period of the late 1600s to early 1800s. Admittedly there's a fine line that's hard to define without getting too pedantic.

     



  • @da Doctah said:

    @Maciejasjmj said:
    @da Doctah said:
    Classical music is music written by dead people.

    Is that a necessary and sufficient condition? Because, you know, everybody's gonna die eventually, and this already creates problems.
    As some comedian pointed out way back in the 1970s, some day there will be antique beanbag chairs.

     

    Crap, regardless of age, isn't called antique, it's just called old.

    There's an interview on Youtiube with Rick Nielsen, guitarist from the band Cheap Trick and they're asking him about his large collection of guitars. At one point he says "We never used to call them vintage guitars. We just called them used".

     



  •  @El_Heffe said:

    The music of John Williams and a few other bears a resemblance to classical music and it may even be played on "classical music" radio stations but the term "classical music" normally refers works from the period of the late 1600s to early 1800s. Admittedly there's a fine line that's hard to define without getting too pedantic.
    Well, if you really want to be pedantic about it, "classical" refers to the period from abut 1750 to 1820; prior to that is baroque, renaisance and medieval, and following it is romantic, modern and contemporary. That always-reliable source, Wikipedia, describes "classical music," as opposed to the "classical period" of Western music, as "encompass[ing] a broad period from roughly the 11th century to the present day."[1] @Wikipedia said:
    Given the extremely broad variety of forms, styles, genres, and historical periods generally perceived as being described by the term "classical music," it is difficult to list characteristics that can be attributed to all works of that type.
    They then go on to fail miserably (IMHO) in attempting to describe what differentiates "classical" music of the present day from "popular" music, but by just about any of the vague and incomplete criteria they give, the music of John Williams fits comfortably within their rather broad definition.

     


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @HardwareGeek said:

    They then go on to fail miserably (IMHO) in attempting to describe what differentiates "classical" music of the present day from "popular" music, but by just about any of the vague and incomplete criteria they give, the music of John Williams fits comfortably within their rather broad definition.

    I think that a normal-person-definition-of-classical-music would be something along the lines of...Some sort of violin like instruments are involved and the performers wear suits with tails when performing live. Bugs Bunny may be involved as conductor.



  • @boomzilla said:

    I think that a normal-person-definition-of-classical-music would be something along the lines of...Some sort of violin like instruments are involved and the performers wear suits with tails when performing live. Bugs Bunny may be involved as conductor.
     

    like


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @HardwareGeek said:

    I care deeply about classical music, and I'd say that's a very fuzzy line, if there is a line there at all. Certainly his music, and that of other film composers, is played regularly on classical music radio stations.
     

    I leave the house radio on all day so the dog has some white noise. I picked the classical station, since it'd be the most inoffensive to doggie ears. So I get to listen to it a bit before leaving for the day, and coming back home.

    They play an inordinate amount of modern music. Specifically, the Harry Potter score. I guess so the 70 year old+ humans who actually listen to the station can feel they're with-and-hip with what their cool grandkids like-- in between being assaulted by commercials for funeral homes, reverse mortgages, and miscellaneous product scams.

    Then they'll throw on string covers of "modern" music (usually Beatles and the ilk), plus plenty of modern performers-- like those guys who sing pop opera, or some student from YorkU's piano CD to fulfill their CanCon quota.

    Trying to define the genre based on a radio station's playlist is a futile task, anyways. Try listening to a "classic" rock station. 50% of the playlist is either brand new songs from classic rockers (the new Rolling Stones track, eg)-- or it's 90s grunge.  No, I'm not joking. Nirvana. Smells like Teen Spirit. THE song that drew the most clear, incontrovertible line that divided classic with "modern/alt/grunge" rock.  There was classic rock (Beatles going to Hendrix etc), which peaked and sputtered with hair metal. And then there was much floundering and wondering of what was going to happen with Rock. Then Nirvana happened, and they were completely and totally NOT classic rock.

    Which is why, as I said-- radio station playlists are bullshit for defining what belongs in a genre. Talking Heads? Okay, they were 80s, I can buy it. 80s and 90s hair metal bands like Journey and such? They fit in with the spirit and feel for classic rock, ok. Throw in some "safe" metal-- AC/DC, Guns'N'Roses, Metallica-- beauty, sure, fine, take them. But grunge? No.


  • BINNED

    @HardwareGeek said:

    @Wikipedia said:
    Given the extremely broad variety of forms, styles, genres, and
    historical periods generally perceived as being described by the term
    "classical music," it is difficult to list characteristics that can be
    attributed to all works of that type.
    They then go on to fail miserably (IMHO) in attempting to describe what differentiates "classical" music of the present day from "popular" music, but by just about any of the vague and incomplete criteria they give, the music of John Williams fits comfortably within their rather broad definition.
    There's actually a clear distinction. Present-day "classical" music is generally atonal, while present-day "popular" music (and I am including what classical enthusiasts refer to as "pops" here) uses one or more keys. There are exceptions in both directions.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @boomzilla said:

    Bugs Bunny may be involved as conductor.
    Or maybe you'll have Tom and Jerry performing a duet on the piano.



  • @PedanticCurmudgeon said:

    There's actually a clear distinction. Present-day "classical" music is generally atonal, while present-day "popular" music (and I am including what classical enthusiasts refer to as "pops" here) uses one or more keys. There are exceptions in both directions.
    Interesting. So by that criterion, Philip Glass, e.g., would be "classical" while, John Williams would be "pops," despite the undeniable fact that Williams's music is much more in the classical tradition, while Glass's is... different. Well, it certainly fits the statement that contemporary "classical" music must be "scheduled between pieces that people actually want to listen to." You're defining "classical" in such a way that, by definition, includes only "different" music and excludes anything traditional, accessible or popular (with unspecified exceptions). Therefore, assuming people don't generally want to listen to atonal music, which is mostly true, contemporary "pieces that people actually want to listen to" are, by definition, not "classical" (with exceptions).

    I don't agree with your definition. If I were forced, for some inexplicable reason, to decide whether Williams's or Glass's music was "classical," and I could only choose one, I would definitely choose Williams's. It has much more in common with unequivocally classical composers such as Beethoven or Mahler than does Glass's. Glass's music is definitely not "pops," but putting it into the same category as Mozart's requires defining that category much more broadly than is required to include Williams's, and doing so defines it broadly enough that Williams's fits, also, easily.



  • @boomzilla said:

    I think that a normal-person-definition-of-classical-music would be something along the lines of...Some sort of violin like instruments are involved and the performers wear suits with tails when performing live. Bugs Bunny may be involved as conductor ().
    My personal definition is more like: If it involves musicians sight reading music then it is likely to be classical. But if it involves "bangin' on the bongoes like a chimpanzee", then it is likely to be pop.

    Have you ever noticed that Bugs is more likely to dress up in women's clothing than put on a tux?



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    I leave the house radio on all day so the dog has some white noise. I picked the classical station, ... They play an inordinate amount of modern music. Specifically, the Harry Potter score... Then they'll throw on string covers of "modern" music (usually Beatles and the ilk),
    Ugh. You have a crap classical station. Today my local station played (or will play) 105 pieces by 79 composers. They played 7 pieces of film/TV sound track music and one arrangement of a piece by U2 in the middle of the night. Other than those, they played Mozart (7), Bach (5), Haydn (4), Mendelssohn, Ravel, Schubert, Boccherini (3 ea.), Scarlatti, Einaudi, Brahms, Beethoven (2 ea.), and a bunch of others, all of whom would seem to fit within any reasonable definition of "classical."

    As for your analysis of "classic" versus non-"classic" rock, whoosh. In the words of Billy Joel, "It's all rock and roll to me."

     

     


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