At first I thought someone was joking when they told me this web link can crash your PC using simple HTML code and Internet Explorer. I suspected it might crash just the browser at worst and was simply a joke related site at best. However, after trying it I can confirm it can crash your PC. But it does so through an apparent bug in some video card drivers.On my test machine I received a BSOD in nv4_disp (the nVidia display driver). The driver version on my test machine is the nVidia ForceWare v77.77 WHQL Certified driver. I would have suspected this to happen with BETA or custom drivers but it does so with WHQL Certified ones. This was very surprising. The code attempts to load an extremely large image that causes the video driver to go into an infinite loop and Windows Crashes.
HTML Crash Code
Alternate Browsers, Operating Systems
This appears isolated to using Internet Explorer and Windows but either Internet Explorer or Windows does not cause it. Internet Explorer is exposing a video card driver bug. Opera does not cause the error and I have been unsuccessful with Firefox but others have claimed everything from system hangs to increased memory usage. If you choose to test this please use Internet Explorer and Windows then reply with your findings.
Posting Results
Please post your results how I have done below. You are welcome to provide alternate browser results so long as you first include results using Internet Explorer and Windows. I am interested in isolating exactly which video cards and drivers are affected. If you system reboots, this usually means you are receiving a BSOD but Windows is set to automatically restart when encountering these errors. You can disable this by going to the "Control Panel", "System Icon", "Advanced Tab", "Startup and Recovery" "Settings" and uncheck "Automatically Restart". Then reboot your computer before trying again. You should now receive the proper error code.
Windows XP SP2
Internet Explorer v6.0.2900.2180
nVidia GeForce 4 4600 Video Card
nVidia ForceWare v77.77 WHQL certified drivers
Result: BSOD in nv4_disp
Warning
The following link may cause your system to crash, hang or reboot. This is not a Virus or Malware and no damage will be done to your PC. It will simply expose a bug in your video drivers if it exists. However, proceed at your own risk.
Crash Link
Update, August 25, 2005:
If you are using Internet Explorer and are not having any problems make sure this is enabled: Enable Automatic Image Resizing. Look under the Tools menu, Internet Options, Advanced Tab, Multimedia section.