I cannot help but think of what's called a "race" condition in computer hardware, where one device behaves badly either through software or hardware failure, and then screws up the rest of the system by rapid and inappropriate communication over a data bus to the other components - ie: sending gibberish.
These conditions can be caused by minute timing problems (in terms of number of clock cycles, delays etc.) that are very difficult to detect because they only occur when certain things synchronise.
But what would I know?