Hello everyone. I've seen computers crash a few times in my time :p . From what I've read it seems that when a computer "freezes" or stops responding it may be down to the following causes:
1. The operating system kernel has detected a serious problem and has sent the CPU a HALT instruction, which has shut it down.
2. An exception has occured at CPU level for which there is no corresponding exception handler installed, causing the CPU to halt automatically.
However, sometimes an x86 system crashes to a system reset. Is this an automatic response of the CPU to an exception, or does the OS trigger it? Also, does an unhandled exception have to occur on ring 0 to crash an x86 or can exceptions at lower priviledge levels do this? Any answers would be appriciated. Thanks.
Steven.