Crash

A computer term

All computers operate by following instructions, otherwise known as software. Sometimes the computer fails to continue running its current instructions and stops dead - sometimes the screen just freezes and the mouse and keyboard do not respond. This is a 'crash' and usually the only way out of it is to reset the computer.

In Windows you may get a blue screen showing a load of technical details.

Crashes happen because of hardware failure such as memory chips failing or more often some software fails and corrupts memory or the operating system itself.

Research carried out by Microsoft found that 70% of crashes happen because of device driver problems. This is not that surprising since device drivers are very low level code with direct access to the hardware.

If your computer keeps crashing, one solution may be to use the 'System Restore' feature in Windows which takes the system back to an earlier state.

Challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you

Click on this link: Computer Crash

2020-10

back to glossaryback to glossary