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(Microsoft)   If your PC's CPU fan is failing or the power supply is going bad, it will alert you -- by playing "Fur Elise" or "It's a Small World" at random. Well, that's helpful   (support.microsoft.com) divider line
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    More: Stupid  
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2375 clicks; posted to Fandom » on 27 Nov 2007 at 3:34 PM (15 years ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



31 Comments     (+0 »)
 
pyrion
2007-11-27 2:40:27 PM  
March 27th is awfully close to April 1st.

I have an Award BIOS. I'm almost inclined to try this, but I don't want to fry my CPU or board to pull it off.
 
Asa Phelps
2007-11-27 2:48:41 PM  
In 1997 the asshole i worked for had a computer with that feature - and his cpu was always running hot. So it was always playing fur elise.

I thought it was hilarious, because i hated him with every fiber of my being.
 
IXI Jim IXI
2007-11-27 3:38:31 PM  
Your power supply failing is bad enough. It driving you to kill yourself, that's just icing on the cake.
 
FuturePastNow
2007-11-27 3:39:17 PM  
I'd be willing to unplug my CPU fan to test this, but I don't have a PC speaker to plug into the mobo. They don't put speakers in cases anymore.
 
Thrag
2007-11-27 3:43:32 PM  
Hilarious. My mother in law has been complaining that her machine suddenly shuts off and when it does it starts playing musicoontil now I was convinced that she was just going crazy.
 
Bob Down
2007-11-27 3:44:52 PM  
This has been needed for ever, except the bit about playing "Fur Elise" or "It's a Small World" at random
 
baggeryking
2007-11-27 3:49:05 PM  
It also starts playing sir mixalot when your fat arse surfs Fark for too long and drops dorito crumbs into the keyboard....
 
Sensei Can You See [TotalFark]
2007-11-27 3:58:39 PM  
Thrag: musicoontil

Filter pwned!
 
Alacritous
2007-11-27 4:06:53 PM  
I don't know about now.. but Soyo motherboards used to have voice warnings for all the mobo errors. "your floppy cable is not connected properly" etc..

it had a jumper so you could have it speak in English or Chinese..

When I was building them, I'd send them out with the jumper set to Chinese.
 
OtherLittleGuy [BareFark]
2007-11-27 4:08:20 PM  
Unavailable for comment

[image from snoopy.com too old to be available]

/it's Beethoven Christmas music!
 
ABQGOD
2007-11-27 4:11:43 PM  
Obligatory (new window)
 
Pastor of Muppets
2007-11-27 4:12:59 PM  
I get a CPU CHIP FAN FAIL msg with every boot-up. It sure as hell isn't Fur Elise or Small World. It sounds exactly like the series of beeps that occur when someone chooses a Daily Double on Jeopardy.

/my CPU fan works fine
//don't know why the system thinks there's a problem
///third slashy just 'cause
 
DECMATH
2007-11-27 4:18:28 PM  
Kudos to Microsoft for taking the trouble to point out someone else's problem. Too bad the link is stale; The wayback machine seems to work though. (new window)

Or you could just use the current Link. (new window)
 
KickahaOta
2007-11-27 4:19:17 PM  
At the time, this made a lot of sense. The only way the motherboard had of communicating problems was through audio, and they weren't quite ready for voice yet. And the average customer won't notice the difference between "two long beeps, one short beep, pause..." and "three long beeps, pause..." But they'll remember the difference between "Fur Elise" and "It's a Small World".
 
Rubedo
2007-11-27 4:19:37 PM  
Can't they just tell you what the error is???

/Fatal Error
//My favorite one to get
 
wildcardjack
2007-11-27 4:21:14 PM  
Way back in the day of SCSI based scanners, the HP 5p could be made to play Fur Elise by setting the SCSI ID to 0.

Damn, that job was almost a decade ago now. I need to drink more so I can forget the details of that period.
 
WALMART.saves
2007-11-27 4:22:28 PM  
wildcardjack: Way back in the day of SCSI based scanners, the HP 5p could be made to play Fur Elise by setting the SCSI ID to 0.

Damn, that job was almost a decade ago now. I need to drink more so I can forget the details of that period.

Hm. I always thought it was a custom hack.
I think I still have one those laying around somewhere. I'll have to try it out.
 
undflickertail
2007-11-27 4:36:44 PM  
Well, my old eMachines minitower power supply failed last year and took the motherboard with it. I did not hear any music when it went.
 
cfreak [TotalFark]
2007-11-27 4:50:49 PM  
Rubedo Can't they just tell you what the error is???
/Fatal Error

I'm a developer, kick, replies, etc. Believe it or not, its because often we don't even know what went wrong, there are literally millions of possibilities, so we put real messages for errors that are known and the user can do something about, everything else is just 'fatal error' or something similar.

To give you an example, say I'm writing some info to a file and the hard-drive blows up. I already created the file and checked that it was okay to write to ... but now suddenly I can't. The functions that write to the file aren't going to know why they can't, and they don't tell the rest of my program. They just stop working and create a fatal error condition.

And just to comment on the article: its at least 10 years old, I don't think most newer machines do that anymore. The very definition of "not news"
 
Mighty Tighty Whitey
2007-11-27 5:38:31 PM  
Link (new window)

Why oh why wasn't this included
 
WALMART.saves
2007-11-27 6:24:43 PM  
cfreak: Rubedo Can't they just tell you what the error is???
/Fatal Error

I'm a developer, kick, replies, etc. Believe it or not, its because often we don't even know what went wrong, there are literally millions of possibilities, so we put real messages for errors that are known and the user can do something about, everything else is just 'fatal error' or something similar.

To give you an example, say I'm writing some info to a file and the hard-drive blows up. I already created the file and checked that it was okay to write to ... but now suddenly I can't. The functions that write to the file aren't going to know why they can't, and they don't tell the rest of my program. They just stop working and create a fatal error condition.

And just to comment on the article: its at least 10 years old, I don't think most newer machines do that anymore. The very definition of "not news"

Yeah, but then you also get lazy programmers who just have a generic error message no matter what gets thrown. Or sometimes they really piss you off and catch an exception, not really handle it, then continue on with the rest of their method calls.

Me: "Umm, yeah... can your change your APIs to include transactional support for these DB calls, and maybe a throw an exception instead of returning a collection of 'error' strings that I have to manually check each time to see if an error actually occurred?"

Other programmer: "Why would you want to do that?"

Me: "....So I can roll-back a transaction and prevent code bloat? (!)"

Other programmer: "??"

/bangs head on wall
//so glad I don't work there anymore
 
Get Lost
2007-11-27 7:00:48 PM  
Me mums system has the message popup about the hard drive failing every time it gets rebooted..No music for that..But then again my Vista system has an icon in the tray wanting me to safely uninstall the hard drive..
 
Mighty Tighty Whitey
2007-11-27 7:17:13 PM  
Get Lost: Me mums system has the message popup about the hard drive failing every time it gets rebooted..No music for that..But then again my Vista system has an icon in the tray wanting me to safely uninstall the hard drive..

Whatever you're doing - You're doing it wrong..
 
No_47
2007-11-27 7:25:24 PM  
The 1812 would be so much more appropriate
 
WizardofToast
2007-11-27 7:32:33 PM  
This reminds me of this old computer I had when I was 8. Whenever there was an error, instead of getting a fast "BEEP BEEP!" that everybody gets, I get a Canadian guy who says "HELLO?!" and knocks on wood.

Drove me insane at how it seems like it's greeting you when you're computer's in trouble.

But I never got music.
 
macdaddy357
2007-11-27 8:05:55 PM  
If your computer was playing "It's a small world after all", you probably lost you mind and smashed it to bits, so taking it in for repair won't do you any good.
 
cycotica
2007-11-27 8:40:31 PM  
So what does it mean when my computer starts playing "The Well-Tempered Clavier"?
 
mason4300
2007-11-27 9:34:58 PM  
this would only be awesome if it kept playing "It's a Small World" even after it was shut off and unplugged, in annoyingly high on off-pitch beeps, using a special backup battery specifically for this purpose that is hidden inside the power supply.
 
bub2000
2007-11-27 9:56:12 PM  
APPLIES TO
•Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
•Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition
•Microsoft Windows 95
•Microsoft Windows 98 Standard Edition
•Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition
•Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition


So it also means it's time to upgrade
 
syrtis
2007-11-28 6:41:46 AM  
mason4300: this would only be awesome if it kept playing "It's a Small World" even after it was shut off and unplugged, in annoyingly high on off-pitch beeps, using a special backup battery specifically for this purpose that is hidden inside the power supply.

My computer is currently playing "The Marrow Song", which means "needs a new keyboard", you sick, magnificent bastard
 
Highstand
2007-11-28 8:54:15 AM  
I had a system in the late 90s that would play Happy Birthday on boot-up every November 13. I thought it was some kind of virus. It wasn't until years later that i found out it was a little eastenaibun some BIOSs manufactured at that time. To get it to boot on that day I had to change the date.
 
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