'Blue Screen of Death' on Oil Rig's Computer ( Deepwater Horizon Oilspill )

HardOCP ^ | Saturday July 24, 2010 | Al

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Testifying at a federal hearing on Friday, the chief electronics technician told of numerous instances of a "Blue Screen of Death" on the computer system responsible for monitoring and controlling drilling. The largest oil spill in American history may be due to a simple computer glitch.

The machine had been locking up for months, Williams said, producing what he and others on the crew called a "blue screen of death." "It would just turn blue. You'd have no data coming through," Williams said today, according to the New York Times' story. With the computer frozen, the driller would not have access to crucial data about what was going on in the well.

[central_va]

Paging Bill Gates, Please pick up the blue courtesy phone. Bill Gates, paging Bill Gates.....

[central_va]

[Repeal 16-17]

Don’t these geniuses have an IT department?

[ConservativeMind]

LOL!

You can’t rely on Windows as a true real-time operating system. Same is true for the Apple OSes.

They need QNX or the like. Maybe then they would have saved billions of dollars.

[Mariner]

I guess this means they’ll have to hold Microsoft, all the engineers who participated in Windows development, the integrator and the software developer all CRIMINALLY and FINANCIALLY liable.

[TheBattman]

While I am no MS fan, is Windows the only OS that throws a blue screen when things go wrong?

[P8riot]

Should’ve used Unix or Linux.

[NormsRevenge]

ouch.

SAFE Mode.

ouch

running OS2 or NT5.0

[central_va]

Unix OS’s don’t crash like that. The software the UNIX OS is currently running might crash, but usually the OS stays up.

[thecodont]

Someone didn’t understand the term “mission critical” when out shopping for software.

[central_va]

I guess this means they’ll have to hold Microsoft, all the engineers who participated in Windows development, the integrator and the software developer all CRIMINALLY and FINANCIALLY liable.

I felt this way about MS way before this ever happened.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

This gives some detail on a host of problems....on the Trans-ocean Rig:

From The Times-Picayune:

Oil spill hearings: Bypassed general alarm doomed workers in drilling area, technician testifies

****************************************EXCERPT**********************************************

About five weeks before the accident, Williams was called to check on a computer system in the drill shack that was constantly on the fritz. Williams said the software was chronically bad, leaving a "blue screen of death" on the driller's interface and often causing the driller to lose crucial data about what was going on in the well. Once, when the Deepwater Horizon was drilling a different well, the computer froze up and the rig took a kick of natural gas while the driller was looking at "erroneous data," Williams said.

*****************************************************

Discussion on Today's TOD says the computer was running a Windows NT system...which is very much out of date .

Not aware whether Windows still supplies any kind of maintenance for it.

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

Crap. They still have meters and gages, and a guy watching the flow in the mud pit. It may not be as modern but tens of thousands of wells were drilled without computers. First drilling engineer I ever saw on a rig was using a slide rule.

It took a bunch of people not doing the job for this to happen.

[norraad]

..well, you can blame it on the blue of death, or you can blame it on the Lee Harvey Oswald, but the real problem originates w/the greasy geezers on the grassy knoll......

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Fairly un-humorous as a “blue screen of death” actually caused several deaths.

[Not gonna take it anymore]

They should have used a MAC.

[Lazamataz]

Testifying at a federal hearing on Friday, the chief electronics technician told of numerous instances of a "Blue Screen of Death" on the computer system responsible for monitoring and controlling drilling. The largest oil spill in American history may be due to a simple computer glitch. The machine had been locking up for months, Williams said, producing what he and others on the crew called a "blue screen of death." "It would just turn blue. You'd have no data coming through," Williams said today, according to the New York Times' story. With the computer frozen, the driller would not have access to crucial data about what was going on in the well.

No where in here does it talk about this being related to the oil spill.

But Obama will use this as an excuse to nationalize the software industry.

Effing socialist.

[tacticalogic]

Anybody know what that operating environment is like?

If it's a high-vibration environment, that can wreck havoc on hard drives and connectors.

[norraad]

Bingo, thanks for pointing that out, these animals are a cancer that only lives to kill.