Example of real world software error condition that results in an infinite loop, gobbling up every CPU cycle in can get -- indefinitely

Sometimes its hard to describe to users just how frequent software errors that result in infinite 'CPU eating' loops are. Today I saw an example, so figured I'd take a screenshot and elaborate.

Yesterday I used my HP F335 All-in-one printer to scan a couple documents. Wouldn't you know, keeping with the tradition of poorly crafted printer drivers and applications, today I see the HPZ12 service has a thread stuck in an infinite loop and eating away 25% of my CPU cycles on this [very low-end] quad core machine. Now, 25% simply means that its a single thread that is stuck in an infinite loop, eating every CPU cycle it can get. Since it can only use 1 CPU at a time, it is limitated to 1/4 of 100% of total available CPU time. However, the impact on overall system performance and energy use is still significant. Had this been a dual core machine, the total CPU usage would continuously be 50%. Likewise, a single CPU machine would have 100% CPU use and possibly be hung at this point (unless Process Lasso's ProBalance was there to save the day).

What is the HP printer service doing? Well, its hard to say without more investigation. Perhaps its stuck in some sort of polling loop, waiting for a condition to change that isn't ever going to change. In theory, programmers should avoid polling at all costs. However, in practice it is sometimes unavoidable. A good programmer would at least insert a sleep between polls, or some maximum iteration count, to avoid total CPU monopolization. Perhaps it is some other type of error condition though, who knows.

The bottom line is that this kind of thing happens all the time. Your computer might get sluggish and/or have performance problems. Rebooting your PC would fix the issue, as I'm sure many users do often due to software error conditions. With Process Lasso's ProBalance, this error condition is mitigated. When you start using your PC enough to trigger ProBalance, the HPZ12 service would be one of the processes targeted for deprioritization.

--

As a side note, is it just me, or does it seem it is impossible to find well crafted printer drivers and applications? Is there ANY company out there that is actually putting time into ensuring their printer software is done right? If so, I've not run into them...