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I kid you not: What to do when your computer randomly plays Fur Elise

support.microsoft.com — [Microsoft Support Page]

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  • Dokument, on 11/27/2007, -148/+79*calls computer tech* "hello, my computer just started playing its a small small world" *tech* "TURN OFF THE COMPUTER BEFORE IT EXPLODES"

    • fluidfoundation, on 11/27/2007, -22/+165fail
      • imikedaman, on 11/27/2007, -2/+65Yeah, we all know the tech would actually respond by saying "yes, hello... *long pause* ...okay, hello? Yes, please make ensure that computer is the plugged into wall outlet" in what could vaguely be described as English. Then even as you scream in frantic horror about how the plastic casing of your computer is starting to melt, the guy refuses to budge from the scripted dialog tree he's attempting to read.
        • Kyrgizion, on 11/27/2007, -8/+27Hahah, we have those scripts where I work. I usually just ignore them.
        • j4200, on 11/27/2007, -14/+5Dugg down for working in such a place
    • FredFredrickson, on 11/27/2007, -21/+4"...before it melts" is more like it.
    • thesonofdarwin, on 11/27/2007, -2/+67"... Close the program. Unplug your router and modem for 20 seconds and plug them back in. Restart your computer. Have a nice day. *click*" is more like it.
      • MikeOSX, on 11/27/2007, -1/+20Have you spoken to at&t recently as well?
      • j4200, on 11/27/2007, -1/+14Pretty much any consumer end tech support has turned into that these days. I make a note to tell them everything I've done before they even get a word in. A typical call starts as such.
        "Hi. I've hard booted everything, reset to defaults, tried different wires and it all still doesn't work"
        "Have you tried turning it on and off again sir?"
        -smh-
    • sjl127, on 11/27/2007, -11/+17It should play Rammstein, instead.
    • prototypeangel, on 11/27/2007, -4/+18I wonder if there'd be classical music aficionados who'd rather listen to the music rather than turn it off.

      Or worse, break their cpu fan for kicks & classical music.
    • Veni_Vidi_Vici, on 11/27/2007, -8/+1I'll get dugg down for this, but I don't see why you guys dugg him down. That is actually what tech support would tell you if the fan were broken. Granted it wouldn't explode, but it may catch fire.
      • Gullop, on 11/27/2007, -2/+3I know why, because he thought he was funny....and he wasn't.

        Case closed.
      • asskicker32, on 11/28/2007, -0/+7your computer wont catch on fire if a fan fails.
  • viper565, on 11/27/2007, -12/+485This is ridiculous. But so awesome.
    • crawf061, on 11/27/2007, -2/+30FTA -- "This is a design feature..."

      Awesome indeed.
    • allywilson, on 11/27/2007, -0/+31How many people on digg do you think are now going to keep an eye out for 10 year old Award BIOS' then disconnect the fan? I know I am...I have a lot of old PCs at work that use Award :-)

      Gather round childen...
      • astrotrain, on 11/27/2007, -2/+10.... and lets all sing pop goes the overheated cpu.....** pop goes the weasel tune begins to play on pc speaker **
        • s1mph0ny, on 11/28/2007, -0/+4Cpus from 1997 are only valuable for the gold pins anyway. You're not likely to melt them before the bios shuts off the system.
      • greenwald, on 11/28/2007, -1/+4Hey, In some older Macs like my Centris 610 the BIOS on the system would chirp out Beethoven's funeral march or whatever that classic dirge you here in cartoons is called. Anyhow it would occur when there was a problem with the defective or missing RAM. It was very loud and disturbing.
    • changyang1230, on 11/27/2007, -3/+29Would have been more awesome if it's this:

      "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do
      I'm half crazy all for the love of you
      It won't be a stylish marriage
      I can't afford a carriage
      But you'll look sweet upon the seat
      Of a bicycle built for two"
    • lukas88, on 11/28/2007, -3/+1Yeah, awesome!!! Right up until your power supply goes kaput. A swan song perhaps?
    • sotopheavy, on 11/28/2007, -0/+6Did anyone else catch that this article was changed/reviewed just days before April fools day 2007?
  • ani625, on 11/27/2007, -93/+8RESTART always works.
  • rabidmonkey1, on 11/27/2007, -37/+757That's nothing! My computer started talking in strange voices to me once. When blood started to pour out of the CD tray, we decided to exorcise it.
    • fluidfoundation, on 11/27/2007, -33/+10yeah, its only when it starts drinking its own blood through the floppy that you really even need to worry.
      • iashraf, on 11/27/2007, -3/+73You still have a floppy drive?
      • RickyBennett, on 11/27/2007, -12/+3i have them in my computers thay come in handy when you have to in stall windows 98 on an old computer
        • MikeOSX, on 11/27/2007, -1/+21...and why the hell would you want to do that?
          • RickyBennett, on 11/27/2007, -16/+1i have a pc that had win 98 installed on it and to other that had me but 1 has xp pro on it and 1 has win 2000 and im going to put win 2000 on there last one my 2 new computers have Windows XP Pro Full Student Release on them

            http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3751328/Microsoft.Wind ...

          • ggofthejungle, on 11/28/2007, -1/+1because You can't play games like Fifa 2000 on every windows after NT, you need win. 98 for that.
        • LavosPhoenix, on 11/27/2007, -12/+4Ugh, install something useful like Ubuntu or even xubuntu. Why do you keep supporting the use of a fundamentally broken OS?
        • nerdherder, on 11/28/2007, -1/+4Or setting up a raid array.
    • jerrylin, on 11/27/2007, -6/+146I've been looking for a MS Certified exorcist. Maybe you can refer me to yours?
      • adidos, on 11/27/2007, -22/+12I found a good exorcist @ ubuntu.com :)
      • sselbor, on 11/28/2007, -1/+9"Are you sure you want to exorcise? Are you sure you're sure you want to exorcise? Sorry, you don't have the proper exorcist drivers installed."
      • endersadvocate, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3an MSCE
      • aaabatteries, on 11/28/2007, -1/+1Linux!
    • SideshowAlex, on 11/27/2007, -1/+83Laugh all you want, but I was in Laos a few years back and I got to talking to an owner of an internet cafe. He told me that one day one of the power supplies on one computer went up in smoke, and all of the staff walked out. They were worried about ghosts. Hehad to get in a monk in to bless the cafe before they would return.
      • IllBeBack, on 11/27/2007, -33/+7I guess that proves that most of the world is filled with stupid people.
        • ShawnHunt, on 11/27/2007, -0/+44Or there are people out there who live in cultures other than your own without the benefits of the same education and experiences.
          • Smills, on 11/27/2007, -3/+9The problem is that I know many people with identical education to me and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them did that either...
          • tech42er, on 11/27/2007, -4/+1Smills,
            Identical education in computers?
        • cajupot, on 11/27/2007, -5/+3No, your comment proves just that
        • LavosPhoenix, on 11/27/2007, -10/+7No, he's correct in his statement. Superstition and Religion are both grounds for breeding stupidity and ignorance. It doesn't matter what culture you are from.
      • svivian, on 11/28/2007, -2/+16"Laugh all you want"
        Thank you, I believe I shall.
    • trogdor282, on 11/27/2007, -9/+50What, no "Macs never need an exorcism" comment yet? Where are teh fanboys!!
      • Nerfdude, on 11/27/2007, -2/+14it's a BIOS feature, not a windows feature.
        • ahwang, on 11/27/2007, -1/+2It doesn't matter. I started looking at the comments expecting mac fans to say something about "even religion hates windows" or something. New commercial idea?
      • ClunkClunk, on 11/27/2007, -0/+4Actually, some older Macs have a "screeching car crash" sound when they're booted with incompatible or no RAM. I believe there also is a series of "down" tones when some other bad hardware situation occurs, but it's been a long time since I've used a "beige" Mac.
    • SpazAholic, on 11/27/2007, -10/+2holy crap, wittiest comment ever.

      damn son, I think i might weld a cross onto my hard drive because of you.. of course that would present more problems..
    • BoBbOrAzE, on 11/27/2007, -6/+18pics or it didn't happen.
    • stoanhart, on 11/28/2007, -1/+11That must have been a last resort, because geeks don't like to exorcise...
    • vladimirptn, on 11/28/2007, -4/+0You could have just uninstalled Vista, but....
    • kinkykingkal, on 11/28/2007, -1/+1They still have the Satanic possession bug? Last I heard it was a "feature".
    • thirty6chambers, on 11/28/2007, -1/+3holy ***** 666 diggs. DON'T ***** IT UP!
    • plax3, on 11/28/2007, -1/+5i would dig you up but youre at +666
  • fluidfoundation, on 11/27/2007, -12/+363Finally, I have been told what I can do. No longer do I need to randomly break into a waltz!
    Freedom!
  • nfollmer, on 11/27/2007, -3/+464Could you imagine if they made your computer play a different song for every issue it had? It would be more informative than "beep counting".
    • Dragular, on 11/27/2007, -4/+284Oh God I can see the Digg comments now. "Yeah, I'd love to play Crysis, but my computer is playing a Midi version of 'pour some sugar on me' so until I get that vid card fixed I'm screwed."
    • dynacrylic, on 11/27/2007, -7/+406So like when the mouse is not detected it plays Three Blind Mice.
      • Dragular, on 11/27/2007, -5/+116BSOD? "I'm blue da ba dee da ba daaaa da ba deeee"

        ... officially making Windows even MORE annoying.
        • astrotrain, on 11/27/2007, -3/+20Microsoft Programmers = the original "Blue Man Group"
    • leerayIG88, on 11/27/2007, -1/+63It's the FINAL COUNTDOWN!!! lalalala...
      • pw378, on 11/27/2007, -0/+6for when the power supply is failing???
        • xkorbin, on 11/27/2007, -1/+8For when you get infected with MSBlast, and your DCOM crashes.
    • futureb, on 11/27/2007, -0/+37*searches google patents*
    • sotopheavy, on 11/28/2007, -2/+6R kelly - "I want to piss on you" = blue screen of death
    • s1mph0ny, on 11/28/2007, -0/+5My Asus A8N uses a female robot voice to say "no video" and the like. This is actually over the on board sound, which makes me wonder how much money they wasted on it.
  • bightchee, on 11/27/2007, -9/+1055When will the RIAA get off our backs about DRM and let us play the songs WE WANT when our motherboard is telling us our CPU fan has failed?
    • xkorbin, on 11/27/2007, -36/+4To tickle everyones' fancy:

      When Ron Paul attempts to take DRMed music off of his iPhone, and cannot, and makes an issue about it in congress. Kevin Rose will then recognize the issue, and make a DRM busting utility for his loyal digg users that also does HD-DVDs.
      • asskicker32, on 11/28/2007, -8/+2Mac users dont believe in Ron Paul
        • rarson, on 11/28/2007, -1/+7Who said anything about a Mac? iPods work with Windows, too.
          • s1mph0ny, on 11/28/2007, -4/+1But windows users aren't gay enough to be iPod compatible.
        • str1fe, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2so do iPhones
      • bluesdealer, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2Double Fail.
    • sotopheavy, on 11/28/2007, -12/+1Unfortunately God himself could not make music play on a computer whose cpu has failed... but with some extra hardware intel could.
  • bightchee, on 11/27/2007, -26/+126Fur Elise.... otherwise known as "the claw-game music" from the arcades.
    http://www.ladykree.com/music/furelise.mid
    • strictnein, on 11/27/2007, -13/+11You're getting buried for some strange reason, yet your post is helpful.
    • potterboy, on 11/27/2007, -1/+152Also known as a piece of classical piano music written by Beethoven.
    • fuzzynyanko, on 11/27/2007, -0/+8My PC just made this weird siren sound and I had no clue what it meant until I checked my CPU's temperatures. The classical music would have been even weirder
    • yohnstoppable, on 11/27/2007, -0/+7I always referred to it as the music from "It"
    • drizzlelicious, on 11/27/2007, -1/+11I refer to it as the music that makes me punch myself. Most overplayed classical piece in the entire world.
      • Neiby, on 11/28/2007, -0/+10No, it's the second most overplayed. Pachelbel's Canon in D is the first.
        • BoneheadFarker, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1DAMMIT! Now I have to look that one up too...
    • flarn2006, on 11/27/2007, -1/+20I clicked the link and it made my CPU fan fail!
    • karlhouser, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2Hey! My keyboard's demo song!
      Hey! My 1990's nokia ringtone!
      Hey! That song Bugs Bunny kept playing wrong when Yosemiti Sam wired dynomite to one of the keys!
  • dynacrylic, on 11/27/2007, -12/+50At least make the songs at least mean something.

    Small World After All for safe mode makes about as much sense as Tool's Third Eye for when there is no ram detected; it just doesn't.

    At least a pick a song that would make sense- like King Crimson's I'm a Dinosaur would mean your PC is too old so you should think about buying a newer one...
    • teh_techie, on 11/27/2007, -10/+6Before a song can be picked that makes sense, your posts should make sense!
      • dynacrylic, on 11/27/2007, -8/+5"Well sir, while I may not agree with what you say I'll defend to the death your right to say it" - Peter Griffin (Family Guy, 2001)
        • teh_techie, on 11/27/2007, -4/+2A copy and pasted quote: a great way for your posts to make sense!
        • crh3f, on 11/27/2007, -1/+6nice...use a quote that has large implications for what our society is based upon, and attribute it to a cartoon character.

          (actually Beatrice Hall, in Friends of Voltaire, often misattributed to Voltair himself)
          • FKnight, on 11/27/2007, -3/+4An ***** cartoon character that should be hit by a truck no less.
          • jefferygomer, on 11/27/2007, -0/+5Maybe I'm the only one, but I find that hilarious that you wish a cartoon character would die or be seriously hurt. I mean, that's like wishing water torture to Elmer Fudd because he's one that wishes harm to nature or wanting to skin Garfield the Cat "alive" because he thinks snide comments.
          • tech42er, on 11/27/2007, -0/+1Wow. I always attributed it to Rousseau.
    • Bishop256, on 11/27/2007, -0/+7It should be the music the band played when the Titanic went down.
    • dignation, on 11/27/2007, -0/+7I'm going out on a limb here, but using spoken words might logical. I don't want my computer to serenade to me about the latency of my ram or that my cpu is desentigrating.
      • MagicCake, on 11/28/2007, -0/+4If it's playing through the internal speaker, you likely wouldn't be able to understand any words coming out of it...
      • ogsy, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Yeah, wrong limb mate, what language would you make it speak in?
        I actually used a computer that piped a voice through the internal speaker when it booted, and while I'm fairly sure it was speaking English, as MagicCake suggested it was impossible to hear.
        • dignation, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1At least with english a lot of people would understand it. Not too many people have beein informed on what to do if their motherboard starts playing fur elise. Also, I have an asus mobo right here that uses the external speakers for that.
    • Laterali, on 11/27/2007, -0/+7I think I love you for mentioning Tool and King Crimson in the same comment.
    • mattmoto, on 11/27/2007, -0/+5I logged in just to Digg you up, Tool or King Crimson in a comment means instant-digg from me.
    • Shrubber, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1How about the Safety Dance? *Cue Crazy '80s Guy from Futurama*
      • bigchiefmunkey, on 11/28/2007, -0/+7You know, that dance wasn't as safe as they said it was.
    • Libb, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2If my computer played Third Eye when there was no RAM installed, I would never put my RAM back in, because that would be plain AWESOME.
  • leprix, on 11/27/2007, -27/+27pssh.
    I hardly consider "It's a Small World" classical music.
    inaccurate.
    • hmac, on 11/27/2007, -0/+13Agreed.

      Even though Fur Elise is pushing it; it's on the bleeding edge of the Classical Period, right after Beethoven dropped the Romantic Period bomb, a la his 3rd Symphony.
      • astrotrain, on 11/27/2007, -0/+5While Amadeus Ro-Ro-Rocked Me.....
    • ManufactrsDfect, on 11/27/2007, -0/+6ok ...
  • FeartheKnighted, on 11/27/2007, -84/+1http://www.grisoft.com/
    • jonmlm, on 11/27/2007, -6/+15cool. um. what does that have to do with the article?
  • alex77, on 11/27/2007, -0/+247My computer occasionally plays what sounds like a Russian classical music radio station late at night. This was a bit creepy and I thought I was going mad until I realized my speakers were poorly shielded were acting like a radio receiver. It took a long time for me to realize this....
    • alperea, on 11/27/2007, -2/+57Hahah. I remember some lady telling me that her computer kept showing weird colors constantly changing. Even when the computer was off. I thought she was on acid. I realized that her speakers were next to her monitor, and the magnet was making that rainbow effect to the crt. Put a magnet up to the tv, you will see that effect.
      • pyrome, on 11/27/2007, -1/+78Uh...you might not want to put a magnet up to any sort of screen. It can screw the screen up.
      • strwrsteve, on 11/27/2007, -0/+29How many stupid people are actually going to try and put a magnet next to their monitor let alone a tv. at least with the monitor you can degaus it. :/
        • chedabob, on 11/27/2007, -1/+6The degauss button does sod all if the magnet actually touched the glass. I had a big black mark on my screen for about 4 months where a magna-dart hit it.
          • Dax420, on 11/27/2007, -0/+5You can fix that with another magnet. You have to "work" it over to the edge of the monitor and it will go away.
        • xkorbin, on 11/27/2007, -0/+10Degauss button is fun to watch. Too bad I ditched my CRT.
          • s1mph0ny, on 11/28/2007, -0/+7Don't forget the THX-like sound. BZZZZONGG!
        • rarson, on 11/28/2007, -0/+8I'm sure half of them will probably be puzzled when they don't see anything on their flat-panel LCDs.
        • TRENT310, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Well, on any colo(u)r CRT, if you don't have a degauss function or it doesn't work as well, you can always hold up a soldering gun backwards and rotate it in circles starting from the middle. I guess it would work with a normal AC transformer too.
      • tcpip4lyfe, on 11/27/2007, -4/+7No one has a CRT TV anymore. :)
        • Syvl, on 11/27/2007, -0/+27I do. =(
          • sekhui, on 11/27/2007, -0/+22turn that frown upside down young man. tons of resolutions, true black, more vivid and accurate colors, etc.
          • rarson, on 11/28/2007, -0/+6Biggest thing I hate about my CRT TV is the weight. That's about it though.
        • oneoverzero, on 11/27/2007, -0/+1They have higher refresh rates.
        • rarson, on 11/28/2007, -0/+4TV, yes. Monitor, no.
        • KungFuJesus, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2I do
        • george@CASE, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2I have one.
    • mlvassallo, on 11/27/2007, -0/+130I had to trouble shoot some grandmother who kept hearing conversations coming from her Grape iMac. I went to her house and realized its built in speakers were receiving the telephone signals from her upstairs neighbor. When she realized what it was I asked her if she wanted me to fix that and she said no... she liked listening to their conversations.
      • george@CASE, on 11/28/2007, -1/+4hmm, are you sure? smells fishy to me.
      • chadillak, on 11/28/2007, -0/+7Last time I had to troubleshoot a grandma, it turned out she just needed her diapers changed.
      • jazzboyrules, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3I first read: I had trouble shooting some grandmother...
    • lostarchitect, on 11/27/2007, -0/+7I had a guitar amp that did that a long time ago. I would pick up radio in various languages, creepilly distorted. I sold it.
      • Nikkou, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Same here, but I still have mine. The radio only comes in when I have my distortion pedal on.
        • kevyn, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1maybe thats where the sounds at the start or radioheads national anthem come from :-p
    • yunus, on 11/28/2007, -0/+19I used to live next to the most powerful radio tower in North Pole, AK and it was a Christian station. At night when everything was really quiet my cheap computer speakers would speak the gospel to me and tell me Christian stories. It really had me freaked out until I figured out what the problem was.
    • Yankees368, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3I had the same issue with my speakers. They would pick up the local NPR station that played jazz at night
    • crazybrit, on 11/28/2007, -7/+2Yeah, you're all ***** liars.
  • Zuggy, on 11/27/2007, -3/+127"It's all about the Pentiums Baby" by Weird Al would be Epic
    • MikeOSX, on 11/27/2007, -13/+2Pentiums are so 2005.
      • prophetpimp, on 11/27/2007, -3/+3and once again they are so 2007 because Intel got them back to replace Celeron. An over clocked Pentium Dual Core is freaking awesome even with stock coolers.
        • chedabob, on 11/27/2007, -1/+5Don't criticise other people when you clearly know jack about computers...
          • Smills, on 11/27/2007, -0/+2He is wrong about them replacing Celerons, but they are very good value if you overclock them. A Pentium Dual Core is just a very low clocked Core 2 Duo with less cache (still equal to that of an AMD Athlon X2 6400+). So if you overclock it, even on stock cooling you can easily achieve a 600+mhz overclock.
    • potterboy, on 11/27/2007, -3/+17Pentiums are so 1995
      • disgruntled, on 11/27/2007, -5/+3yeah now its all about the core 2 duos -which is 2 pentium 3 CPUs on 1 die
        everything still runs on a Pentium they just changed the name
  • egonSchiele, on 11/27/2007, -13/+1better that than beethoven's fifth.
    • chewbacca77, on 11/27/2007, -2/+3Well, it may be more relaxing, but its less intellectual.
    • tech42er, on 11/27/2007, -0/+1Actually, most polyphonic ringtones (which, I assume, is similar t what this sound would be) of Beethoven's 5th is a in a major key and has a faster tempo. It actually sounds pretty good.
  • xb00t, on 11/27/2007, -9/+75I can thing a few more appropriate.
    Europe - "The final countdown"
    Door - "The End"
    P.O.D. - "Boom"

    How many can you think of?
    • meez, on 11/27/2007, -3/+20I would go for something more emotional, I mean... a failed CPU fan? That's just downright saddening.
      To Zanarkand - Final Fantasy X
      • chad78, on 11/27/2007, -0/+1damn it, the one song that makes me feel like a punk emo kid!

        it was all a dream..........
    • mykool, on 11/27/2007, -0/+5John Lennon's "cold turkey" lyric- "temperature s rising"
    • rocket97, on 11/27/2007, -1/+56Nelly - "Hot in Herrreeerreeeerreee"
    • dontaskagain, on 11/27/2007, -0/+32Queen -Another One Bites The Dust
    • Dragular, on 11/27/2007, -4/+14Burning down the house by whatever one hit wonder did that song

      Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash

      This Fire by Franz Ferdinand

      ... and it keeps going and going and going....
      • Feasoron, on 11/27/2007, -0/+16Well, Burning Down the House was done by The Talking Heads, and would be appropriate, so dugg up.
        However, I'm not sure that they count as a one hit wonder, since they had multiple songs on the charts and are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
      • leadingzero, on 11/27/2007, -0/+11"Burning down the house by whatever one hit wonder did that song"

        LOL. With that statement AND your username I think I know enough to go ahead and start judging your music tastes.
      • tech42er, on 11/27/2007, -0/+4One hit wonder? That was Talking Heads!
      • Dragular, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3Oh *****. I wasn't even thinking about the right song. I had the title "Burning down the house," but the song "Our House" by Madness was playing in my head.

        And... leadingzero... my name is not based on Rob Zombie. Don't do that to me. It's got me banned from enough MUDs over the years even though I've been using it since '94.
    • ryan83189, on 11/27/2007, -0/+23Taps
      • dspirito, on 12/07/2007, -0/+1that's so bad, but f'ing hilarious.
    • slimasian, on 11/27/2007, -2/+21"This Is Why I'm Hot" :-P
      • Alucard66, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1dis is why, dis is why, dis is why I'm hot
    • trentasaurus, on 11/27/2007, -1/+38I think you mean "The Doors", not "Door." Sorry, I couldn't let that go unnoticed.
    • CeeJayDK, on 11/27/2007, -1/+3Prodigy - Firestarter
      Bee Gees - Tragedy
      Stewart Copeland - Theme from Dead Like Me.
    • astrotrain, on 11/27/2007, -0/+6"Hot Hot Hot" - The Cure
      "Burn to Flames" - Roky Erikson
      "Burning Down The House" - Talking Heads (at this time you better call the fire department)
      "Burning For You" - The Blue Oyster Cult
      "Fire" - Bruce Springsteen (male owned PCs) | "Fire" by the Pointer Sisters (female owned PCs)
      "Everything is Broken" - Bob Dylan
      "Disco Inferno" - The Tramps (kinda goes hand and hand with the Intel Clown Suit craze years back)
      "Welcome to my Nightmare" - Alice Cooper (proper for people who do not backup their data...tsk tsk)
      "Hotter Then Hell" - Kiss
      "The Lonely Man Piano" - Joe Harnell (aka Incredible Hulk TV ending Theme) (when you just want to walk away from it...)
    • xfirei, on 11/27/2007, -1/+11"We didn't start the fire"-Billy Joel
    • someone173406, on 11/27/2007, -8/+1High Voltage- Linkin park
      Technologic- Daft Punk
    • someone173406, on 11/27/2007, -0/+0Just remembered one more- The war of 1812- Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie
    • pw378, on 11/27/2007, -0/+16Don't Fear the Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult (but with a little more cowbell)
    • BenElMagnifico, on 11/27/2007, -1/+1"Dust Died in Your Arms Tonight"- Foreigner
      "Breakdown"- Tom Petty
      And for a little irony:
      "Fun, Fun, Fun" by the Beach Boys
      • completerobot, on 11/27/2007, -0/+4"Just Died In Your Arms Tonight" - Cutting Crew
    • Brad324, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1how about "Man in the box" ... then you'd be like holy *****, Alice in Chains is in my computer!
    • Antart, on 11/28/2007, -0/+0"You've got me burning" - Terminator
    • chadillak, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Any song by Hot Chip - http://youtube.com/watch?v=YAZIupX58h8
    • Alucard66, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2dumb - Nirvana
      Don't leave me now - Pink Floyd
      Dead - Pixies
      Give it away - Red Hott Chili Peppers
      All Apologies - Nirvana
      and
      dragostea din tei - O-zone because you would always be able to recognize it, despite distortion
    • sevenhelmets, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Bloodhound Gang - "The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire....we don't need no water let the (expletive) burn, burn......"
    • k3nt, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Requiem for a Dream.
    • gr0ss, on 11/29/2007, -0/+3Trogodor the Burninator.
  • dcbebop, on 11/27/2007, -56/+3"This is an indication sent to the PC speaker from the computer's BIOS that the CPU fan is failing or has failed"
    Because when I hear classical music, this is the first thing that pops into my head. What's wrong with a dialog box saying "CPU fan fail(ing|ed)".
    Way to go MS. Good job on software usability. I'd say this one is right up there: http://david.wragg.org/blog/images/20061206/unknow ...
    • heavyd14, on 11/27/2007, -3/+55Its a BIOS feature. It would play independent of OS.
      • NSMike, on 11/27/2007, -5/+23Dude, don't bother, he's been using Macs since they were those little boxes with 6-inch monochrome screens, he has no idea what the BIOS is.
        • gyrfalcon, on 11/28/2007, -1/+2Macs have BIOS too, just proprietary, closed, and generally unavailable to the user.
          • HerrSchnuff, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1more like an Open Firmware...

            just boot with Command-Option-o-f
      • dcbebop, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3Actually not true, new to macs within the last 6 years.
        I apologize, i read the portion of the "running in safe mode" and missed the BIOS portion.
        *puts down bottle of jack daniels and goes to sleep*
    • Double-Z, on 11/27/2007, -1/+27I'm fairly sure this is due to the motherboard and bios design, not anything to do with MS.
    • strictnein, on 11/27/2007, -1/+29Holy f'en noob. Shut down your computer and donate it to your local school.
    • brad77, on 11/27/2007, -0/+6It was just a matter of time. Please take your ball and go home. Now. Let the adults handle this.
    • MagicCake, on 11/28/2007, -1/+2I know people on the intarwebs have trouble reading, but Jesus Christ. strictnein is right, just shut it off.
  • Haohmaru, on 11/27/2007, -5/+209I don't want to hear Fur Elise when my CPU fan is failing! I want to hear the 1812 Overture!
    • Kyrgizion, on 11/27/2007, -1/+6Beethoven's 5th!
      • niviq, on 11/27/2007, -0/+23beep beep beep beeeeeeeep
        beep beep beep beeeeeeeep
        No, I don't think so..
        • tech42er, on 11/27/2007, -0/+5beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beeep beep beep
          beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beeep beep beep
    • RoboDonut, on 11/27/2007, -0/+82"Wait! Here comes the crescendo!" *CPU explodes*
      • fuzzmeister, on 11/27/2007, -0/+34I'd be perfectly fine with replacing my CPU when it fried, as long as it played the 1812 Overture and exploded first.
        • jefferygomer, on 11/27/2007, -0/+8/signed
          Email sent to Intel - I mean, it works in their favor. People knowingly and willingly purchase a CPU that is designed to explode so they need to buy a new one? Business owner's dream!
      • GalacticXenu, on 11/27/2007, -0/+6I'd prefer all the capacitors on the motherboard blow up first.
        • s1mph0ny, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1That is funny, all the working motherboards from that era are super pricey too, thanks to the huge lack of supply.
    • naldwell, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2I want to hear 'Daisy, daisy, I'm half crazy...'
  • Terrk, on 11/27/2007, -54/+4Microsoft never ceases to amaze me with there *****...
    • carcass350, on 11/27/2007, -3/+37This is not a MS issue. MSDN is simply providing a support article.
      FTA "This is a design feature of a detection circuit and system BIOSes developed by Award/Unicore from 1997 on"
    • asspants, on 11/27/2007, -2/+19dude are you retarded this has nothing really to do with microsoft; it's a BIOS error message designed by the motherboard manufacturer!
      did you even ***** read the article?
    • FredFredrickson, on 11/27/2007, -1/+15Reading your use of "there," I can't help but get the feeling that you are amazed by simple things.
    • FKnight, on 11/27/2007, -0/+3I think it's you guys that are retards for assuming people on Digg read the articles when they can just as easily bash Microsoft without having to do all that reading work.

      I saw the anti-Microsoft comment coming just less than 12 parsecs away.
    • ManufactrsDfect, on 11/27/2007, -0/+2their*
    • brad77, on 11/27/2007, -1/+1Niiiice!
    • Bishop256, on 11/27/2007, -0/+1even IF it was a microsoft created, how is that *****?
    • MagicCake, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3See, how can you win when people are this dumb? Microsoft could solve every ***** problem in the entire universe and there would still be these dumb ***** sitting here saying "lol m$ sux".
    • epiffffany, on 11/28/2007, -0/+0How dumb can you be? This has nothing to do with Microsoft.
    • psylent, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1And which OS are you running at the moment, genius?
  • Double-Z, on 11/27/2007, -1/+229Lol, those crazy motherboard and bios designers.

    I had a PC at work. It had a bios that spoke the error through the PC speaker. The volume for the voice was turned nearly off in the bios, and the motherboard's battery failed. The PC was whispering to me. I'd never heard of a motherboard that did this, and it freaked me out for a while before I figured out what it was!
    • Kyrgizion, on 11/27/2007, -1/+29I once had a sound-enabled ad on in a tabbed page I wasn't viewing at the time. I had no idea about it, so I freaked out when a voice started talking to me. Felt quite idiotic after discovering it was just an ad though.
      • chugger1992, on 11/27/2007, -0/+34-congratulations, you have been selected to recieve a free iPod nano.
        -WTF?
        • renegadeafk, on 11/28/2007, -1/+3-congratulations, you have been selected to recieve a free iPod nano.
          -Steve Jobs?
      • aussieNickuss, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3Those smily ads that yell "Alright...OK!!" when you mouseover have scared the ***** outta me a couple of times. Especially at night when everybody else is asleep and the volume is turned up.
    • tymme, on 11/27/2007, -0/+82"Kill your bossss.... Kill your bossssss...."
    • rome747, on 11/27/2007, -4/+3Microsoft: The real horror story
    • Haohmaru, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1I had a scanner that during a self test would play "Ode to Joy" simply by moving the bar up and down across the platen.
  • doubleblack, on 11/27/2007, -20/+3Oh come on people, this is older than my Mom!
    • deviationer, on 11/27/2007, -1/+29so your mom was born in 1997?
    • FredFredrickson, on 11/27/2007, -2/+30Teenage pregnancy FTW
      • prophetpimp, on 11/27/2007, -1/+10Teenage? Thats Toddler pregnancy.
    • strictnein, on 11/27/2007, -4/+11Your mom was born in 1997?
    • pathfinder, on 11/27/2007, -0/+8This is being dug like your mom on a Saturday night.
    • astrotrain, on 11/27/2007, -1/+1MILF... Does the male good!
  • NeoCortex, on 11/27/2007, -3/+16I would think a funeral dirge would be more appropriate.
  • paulinsf, on 11/27/2007, -12/+7Wouldn't the 1812 Overture be more fitting?
    • astrotrain, on 11/27/2007, -2/+5And I take when the cannons blast, your PC starts firing pieces of itself at ya... OH DUCK!... ** head goes down as 5.25" Bigfoot Hdisk Flies out **
      • s1mph0ny, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Dugg for the quantum reference. Those drives did suck pretty bad though.
  • Eisim, on 11/27/2007, -5/+14"seemingly at random" - there's no randomness in your computer starting playing Fur Elise, is it??? it's a feature! free music!
    • Xplorer, on 11/27/2007, -1/+50Its just a matter of time till we are billed $0.99 every time this "feature" is activated.....
    • PintSki, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1free as in free beer ?
      • DeadElephant, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Beer is good. Beer is good. Beer is good... And stuff.
  • Hindermore, on 11/27/2007, -24/+4This is kind of like how Windows will throw an error when everything is working properly:
    http://www.mujerestic.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/ ...
  • Hindermore, on 11/27/2007, -20/+7http://www.mujerestic.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/ ...
    • sphigel, on 11/27/2007, -4/+2Uh, no it's not. This is a BIOS warning.
  • seanhive, on 11/27/2007, -1/+17Man, here I was thinking all the guys at Award/Unicore were emotionless geeks.

    If there's any way to burn out, it's on an epic and confusing Beethoven trip. Dudes got class.
  • devilsavocado, on 11/27/2007, -1/+17Used to have an old laptop that played Fur Elise when the battery was just about to die. You had about three minutes to save your *****.
    This was a lappy running DOS and Windows 3.11 though, therefore a few years before '97. So I guess they (whatever brand it was) were trendsetters..?
  • r2builder, on 11/27/2007, -2/+73You think the CPU fan has failed in this scanner? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHcV8vZ96OM
    • dspirito, on 12/04/2007, -0/+0this is must see after reading this article! cried laughing.
  • CrackyJSquirrel, on 11/27/2007, -7/+104Ha, top that MAC!!!!!
    • tendonut, on 11/27/2007, -10/+4They have no reason for silly hardware failure music when hardware just doesn't fail.

      I kid, I kid....
      • prophetpimp, on 11/27/2007, -5/+6the hardware doesn't fail because you are forced to get a new one every 2 years. No upgradability FTL.
        • xtc46, on 11/27/2007, -0/+3see thats where the problem is. people think just because their are newer computers they have to upgrade. The hardware in modern computers has an obscene amount of power, a vast majority of which will go wasted on the average user. you don't need a 3 Ghz Quad core processor with 4 GB of ram to run a web browser and word processor.
          • s1mph0ny, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1But the mac users need to keep up with all those 5 year old games being released.
          • aaabatteries, on 11/28/2007, -0/+0Yes you do.

            http://www.ninjapirate.com/newcomputer.html
          • tendonut, on 11/28/2007, -0/+0There is a light of truth there. Macs don't age as quickly as PCs do. You can still do plenty on a 6 year old Mac that you just couldn't on a 6-year-old PC. My 4-year-old iBook can still do everything I want it to do, but my brothers 4-year-old Thinkpad can't do the same tasks like it used to. (No, this does not include gaming at all)
        • DeadElephant, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1X-TREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEME MS-WURD 08'!!!!111 NOW WITH PORN REWARDS FOR SPELLING WORDS RIGHT!
    • morcheeba, on 11/27/2007, -2/+26Did you say "Top That"?! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYoaqVbJoR8
    • stalefries, on 11/27/2007, -0/+3While not the same thing, the story behind "sosumi" is interesting.
    • Haydio, on 11/27/2007, -8/+2assuming your talking about macs, its mac not MAC
      • s1mph0ny, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2So would your source be the bumper sticker on your golf cart, or your pillowcase?
    • merreborn, on 11/27/2007, -0/+3Macs play really creepy music when they die, too... or at least they used to. It's entirely possible that the BIOS programmers responsible for this actually aped the idea from apple; my dad's old powerbook croaked in the mid nineties and started playing eerie music when you tried to boot it.
      • rioduran, on 11/28/2007, -0/+0Did you ever get the "trainwreck" noise on a Mac? I got it, once. ONCE. Bad news!
  • QuasiSparklz, on 11/27/2007, -13/+5Anyone else notice the typo on the page? "For aditional related information..."
  • mikeleeuk, on 11/27/2007, -7/+2I've had "happy birthday to you" before - is that the same thing?
  • Brassbud, on 11/27/2007, -0/+186The dreaded Fur Elise of Death (FEoD)
  • allenm, on 11/27/2007, -2/+176My ASUS mobo spoke to me once. It was a female voice that told me one of my RAM chips was dead. It actually turned out to be the motherboard itself. See...never listen to women.
    • tendonut, on 11/27/2007, -1/+9My old Asus board spoke all the time. "System Complete Power On Self-Test, now booting to operating system.."

      "CPU Fan Failure"
      "Video Failure"
      etc.
    • stoanhart, on 11/28/2007, -0/+4I can't figure out if you guys are joking or not... did some Asus motherboards really have a voice feature?
      • KaneElson, on 11/28/2007, -0/+4Yes I still have machine with the Asus A7N8X Deluxe and it has the female voice when it is booting. I am sure other boards had it aswell.
        It really freaks you out when you have your speakers up loud. :
    • Syphon8, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2...Mine beeps.
  • MarcelLionheart, on 11/27/2007, -2/+135"What do I do if my computer becomes self-aware?"
    • yotomote, on 11/27/2007, -1/+28You welcome your new overlords of course
    • ryan83189, on 11/27/2007, -2/+1Destroy it.
    • gsadamb, on 11/27/2007, -0/+30Anything it tells you to.
    • dignation, on 11/27/2007, -0/+2Easy, destroy the sun.
    • thomashauk, on 11/27/2007, -2/+1Persuade it to do your work for you.
    • xkorbin, on 11/27/2007, -0/+19Head out to Nevada, after taking your girlfriend's military dad's access codes to a bunker there.
    • Veni_Vidi_Vici, on 11/27/2007, -0/+12"Once day in a small office building somewhere, a calculator suddenly became self-aware. In eight seconds it plotted the extinction of mankind. Then the battery died. Two weeks later it was thrown away."

      What is the moral of the story? Crime doesn't pay unless you get away with it.
    • changyang1230, on 11/27/2007, -1/+2Tell it to open the pod bay door.
    • DefaultGen, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Make the CPU fan fail. Then you get music and rid yourself of pesky sentient AI.
  • honus, on 11/27/2007, -13/+9Is anyone else half tempted to stop his/her CPU fan just to see if his/her board has this?
    I don't know why I'm being so precise. There are no women on Digg.
    • RickyBennett, on 11/27/2007, -0/+1i was thanking about that like 10 20 min ago
    • chugger1992, on 11/27/2007, -0/+1doesn't work with mine :(
  • uptwolait, on 11/27/2007, -3/+10I still want to know what it means when I hear those voices in my head.
    • Nerfdude, on 11/27/2007, -0/+14do you always speak in hot topic t shirt quotes?
      • MagicCake, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2I dunno, that depends: If I threw a stick, would you go away?
        • Nerfdude, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1you laugh becuase i'm different. i laugh because you're the SAME

          /profound
    • ManufactrsDfect, on 11/27/2007, -0/+2it means YOU need a new CPU ...
    • Aticper, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2It means your motherboards fried.
  • KingBunny, on 11/27/2007, -6/+1I bet Macs play that Monty Python chase music.
    *do dooo .. doot-doot-doot-doot doo doo doo* (etc)
    • astrotrain, on 11/27/2007, -0/+4Monty Python Chase??....

      Thats Benny Hill..... ** ding ** Next Argument Please!
    • dignation, on 11/27/2007, -0/+2no, you're think about that song that goes "do doot dee doo doo doot-doot-dee doot da"
  • teh_techie, on 11/27/2007, -5/+2What about the GSM cellphone pulses you can hear in poorly shielded speakers?
    • ben162005, on 11/27/2007, -0/+1yep, we always know when my gf phone is about to ring if were in her room. The tv speakers make a clicking noise about 2 seconds before the phone rings.
      • xtc46, on 11/27/2007, -0/+8hehe I used to leave my phone on silent and sitting on my desk because it would make my monitor flicker when it was about to ring. Way better than a ring tone.
    • shadowblade989, on 11/27/2007, -0/+1Not only GSM.
      • thescorpion420, on 11/27/2007, -0/+1Indeed all my CDMA phones do the same thing.
  • super_duper, on 11/27/2007, -10/+1I'm kinda digging Microsoft's favicon. Very nice. : )
  • gertin, on 11/27/2007, -5/+6Too bad it's a hardware "feature", and not a Microsoft one. Makes it less fun.
  • tymme, on 11/27/2007, -4/+8Only for NT/9x/2000... so, we're screwed if we're using XP/Vista? (Wait, I already know the answer to that....)
  • TheNico, on 11/27/2007, -9/+4this is such ridiculously old news... I found this out on an old Pentium-90 system YEEEARS ago...

    • spritom, on 11/27/2007, -1/+1it's a funny one, but yeah, quite old.
      Maybe the next big Digg to hit the front page will be about forwarding an email so that you can get $245 and Bill Gates will buy a kid in the hospital a copy of Windows 95.
    • screwattackthis, on 11/27/2007, -0/+4You get +20 cool points.
  • dofkex, on 11/27/2007, -10/+1FAIL
  • james.mattson, on 11/27/2007, -1/+15Has anyone seen this actually happen??? this is just insane. why??? I have a friend who HATES Fur Elise. What do i need to do to drain voltage and get this to play. hah.
  • paidhima, on 11/27/2007, -4/+4Something like that happened to my friend's father when he was using the family computer, except instead of music the BIOS started talking to him (as another poster has mentioned, I see). He looked kind of like the second panel in this strip:

    http://www.rebelz.net/gallery/v/fun/computers/back ...
  • rootishome, on 11/27/2007, -1/+10I'd like to see a video or hear an actual recording of a PC speaker doing this.
  • woxidu, on 11/27/2007, -4/+2How about "Burn Baby Burn" ?
  • scbajmr, on 11/27/2007, -3/+8My computer just asked "Would you like to play a game, professor?"
  • GuacamoleSan, on 11/27/2007, -2/+6Everyone seems to miss that it can also play "It's a Small, Small World"...that would be really creepy. The video for that song is really creepy.....
  • Zippo, on 11/27/2007, -3/+54I can just imagine the development process...
    "Well, we COULD have the computer display an error telling the user what's happening, and how to prevent their expensive hardware from being irreparably damaged... But let's just have it play a random piece of music instead. That'll be real descriptive and helpful to the user."
    • merreborn, on 11/27/2007, -0/+26This is at the BIOS level. There's really not a mechanism available to the BIOS to display an error once you've booted into windows -- or linux, or dos, or beOS, or OS/2, or OSX86, or whatever you're running on your box -- the BIOS knows nothing of how to interact with the OS.

      The PC speaker is the only output device the BIOS has direct access to, once you've booted into an OS. And on a low end motherboard, playing MIDI music is possible via that avenue, but synthesized speech is not. They could beep something out in morse code, but users on average are probably better at identifying classical music.

      So, all things considered, it's actually hard to come up with something that's both better *and* technically feasible.
      • perseon, on 11/28/2007, -0/+11Once in a while somebody posts a comment that very informative and helpful without being condescending, and I'm not sure how to feel about that.
      • sinrtb, on 11/28/2007, -4/+1Well instead of a random song it could just have the computer say "...the CPU fan is failing or has failed, or ... the power supply voltages have drifted out of tolerance...."
        • lewikee, on 11/28/2007, -0/+4In the old days, PC speakers couldn't actually transmit voice messages.
        • bluesdealer, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2Do you really think a BIOS could send recorded audio to the PC speaker? The PC speaker is only capable of playing pure digital tones (transmitted by MIDI, I believe, but an earlier standard might have been used).
      • Zippo, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1True. That does make sense. From the article, though, I was given the impression it was playing a file on the harddrive through Windows, not a little MIDI file embedded in the hardware and playing directly to the speakers. You know, Windows used to come with music samples like that - probably still does.
        In that case, it might have been feasable for (on next boot), the BIOS to delay booting into the OS and displaying a message like "Hardware problem detected: CPU fan has failed or is failing/Power Supply Voltages have drifted outside of tolerance. Press F1 to continue."

        I guess the developers just had a funny sense of humor.
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