Did You Know That Janet Jackson's 'Rhythm Nation' Has Power to Crash Some Laptops?

Human eardrums may withstand our music tastes, but devices suffer in silence without us knowing it. Actually, some laptops had their drives crash when playing songs in them.

Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" is one of those songs some of us love to listen to that can crash the drives of laptops, The Verge reports.

Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" Power to Crash Laptops

Raymond Chen, the principal software engineer at Microsoft, shared a story of laptops, especially the Windows XP-era, that could not endure the music video for Jackson's Rhythm Nation.

In his blog, The Old New Thing, Chen said the music video has a particular sound that crashes the laptops' hard drives.

One big computer manufacturer, whom Chen did not name, found out that playing the music video for Rhythm Nation had a harmful impact on some laptops.

Investigating the phenomenon in a laboratory, it was discovered that it actually could crash not only some laptops where it was played but also that of their competitors.

Things became weirder for the investigators. Another discovery was playing the music video will cause a laptop nearby to crash.

The same issue has also cropped up on the laptops of other companies, Chen wrote in his blog.

Windows Dev Docs tweeted on Aug. 12 asking Chen to explain the "mystery."

How Did Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" Crash some old Laptops' Hard Drives?

Surprisingly, the music has nothing to do with the crashing. Chen said it was the song itself.

"It turns out that the song contained one of the natural resonant frequencies for the model of 5400 rpm laptop hard drives that they and other manufacturers used," Chen's explanation on Gizmodo. Apparently, "Rhythm Nation" contains a frequency that causes laptop hard drives to vibrate to the point of failure.

Vibration

Further investigation into the so-called mystery, Chen said, the computer manufacturer had found out that the music video had a specific sound that could resonate with some laptop models' hard drives.

The computer's speakers generated sound waves while the song was playing. Without noticing, it caused the hard drive to vibrate. As the song played on, the vibration could eventually destroy the laptop, Chen said.

Chen said the manufacturer had figured out a simple solution to the crashing of computer drives.

The computer manufacturer found a way so that their computers would not play the identified frequency.

The Microsoft software engineer did not identify which hard drives or laptops would crash. While the story was somewhat weird, it is a fact that hard drives are susceptible to all types of vibrations.

Scream Disrupts Hard Drives

Chen shared links to a video from 2008 showing that we can disrupt the hard drives by simply screaming at them.

The video showed a demonstration by Alfredo Ortega, a security researcher, where hard drives would crash because of the frequencies they could resonate with. Resonance frequencies, according to the investigators, can be destructive in the wrong circumstances. This type of frequency may cause the collapse of a bridge.

The problem was not with the Rhythm Nation music video. Any songs have the power to destroy hard drives if the sound waves generated by the music will resonate with that of the computer.

If a scream can break glass, there is no single reason it cannot destroy the hard drives of laptops. The story shared by Chen showed us the science behind the crashing of hard drives when Rhythm Nation is played.