Crash! Burn! What happened?
By Charles Miller

Disasters follow a familiar sequence. After every plane crash, investigators ask, “Why did that happen?” After every car wreck, someone will ask, “Who was at fault?” And it seems that after every computer crash, the user always asks, “What caused that to happen?”

That is certainly a valid question, because it implies that somebody understands there was a problem and they want to avoid repeating the same mistake.

In the case of an airline crash, governments and aircraft manufacturers spend millions on investigations to determine causation. Of course, the goal is to save lives. If the investigation can turn up information that can be used to keep other crashes from occurring, then the money was well spent.

Automobile accidents are almost invariably the target of investigation in order to establish liability.


When it comes to computers, sometimes the process of fixing a problem will reveal the cause of that problem, but often it does not. When working on computers, it is almost always true that you are going to see the way to fix a problem before you discover what it was that caused the problem.

When something goes wrong with their computers, clients will ask, “Why did that happen?” Sometimes a good computer technician will know the answer, but not always and not consistently enough to satisfy the customer. All too often the question goes unanswered because when the customer realizes the costs involved in investigating the cause of a failure, the question quickly becomes rhetorical and the answer unimportant.

To put it another way, nobody in their right mind is going to pay US$200 for a technician’s time to determine why a $10 part wore out; you just buy another $10 part and go on with your life hoping that the part you just bought lasts longer than the last one.

A good computer technician is always going to seek out and follow the shortest, and least expensive, route to fixing a problem. Finding the cause of the problem is secondary.

In investigating the cause of computer problems, a common impediment is the user not knowing or not remembering what occurred. Users often do not understand the significance of events and are thus unable to provide the essential clues that might have pointed their technician in the direction of the right answer.

In some circumstances, the only way to determine a cause of failure is through what is called a “destructive test.” An old doctor joke goes something like this: A patient who had been hospitalized and treated for a variety of symptoms was finally responding to treatment and was on the way back from death’s door. The irate patient demanded of the doctor, “You people have been poking and prodding, treating me for this and that. I demand to know what was wrong with me!” The physician responded “We don’t know specifically what was wrong with you. Your case has every doctor in the hospital stumped.” The recovering patient was clearly dissatisfied with that explanation, to which the physician calmly replied, “The other doctors and I want to know the answers just as much as you do, but the improvement in your condition stopped us from proceeding to the autopsy.”

So, sometimes the answers we want are not worth the cost of learning them.

Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant, a frequent visitor to San Miguel since 1981 and now practically a full-time resident. He may be contacted at 044-415-101-8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.