Causes of Computer Crashes
System crashes are one of the sad realities of modern life, and it is a rare individual who never experiences one. Your computer may lock up and cease responding to input, flash up a colored screen with an error message, or simply lose power and die. It can leave you feeling totally helpless if you have no idea what caused it.
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Equipment Failure
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Computer components do go bad sometimes, and when they do, a crash can result. Semiconductors can short out or simply break down. Individual sectors on a hard disk can fail, causing software to load improperly. Any part that fails without completely shutting the computer down can cause it to crash.
“Garbage”
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For all their amazing abilities, semiconductors are little more than massive numbers of on/off switches. Sometimes a brief power fluctuation will cause some of these switches to be “flipped” the wrong way. When this happens, the computer has "picked up some garbage," possibly resulting in a crash.
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Malware
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Malware is a catch-all term that covers several programs specifically designed to interfere with a computer system.
A virus is one such program designed to spread itself from one file to another on an individual computer, until the computer can no longer run. A worm spreads itself from one computer to another, with the intention of infecting as many computers as possible. Worms and viruses are generally designed for the express purpose of crashing computers and networks.
Spyware (also called a Trojan horse) typically installs itself on your system along with another program, for the purpose of giving someone else information about you and your system. Adware is a program designed to run advertisements on your system. Spyware and adware are generally not intended to crash your computer, as the creator profits most when the software runs properly. However, some of these programs are not adequately tested, and these may end up crashing your computer, especially if several of them are running at once.
Buggy Software
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With the complexity of modern software, manufacturers are often pushed to meet deadlines. In their rush to get a new piece of software out on time, they may not do sufficient testing to uncover all the problems. At other times, manufacturers may not have adequately anticipated all the uses their customers will find for the software or what other programs customers may be using at the same time. These problems are called bugs, and it is a rare piece of new software that escapes without at least some of them crawling around. Manufacturers are in the habit of searching for bugs after a software release and issuing fixes for them then.
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