This article was created to give the most accurate support possible for the typical blue screen problem (also called BSOD errors which stands for Blue Screen of Death ) that occurs in every version of Windows, from XP to Windows 7, 8 and Windows 10. The blue screen error is the most serious error of a Windows system because it causes the complete block of the system and the appearance of a message of details and description which for most people, even computer experts, remains difficult to understand if not completely incomprehensible.
When the PC freezes with a blue screen, there is nothing left to do but restart and resume work, hoping that it was just a case and will not happen again.
However, if the BSOD were to repeat itself again with a blocking error, it becomes important to understand what it is, try to read what is written and do a search to be able to read instructions about it.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If the blue screen never appears after a crash or is too fast before a sudden restart, it must be ensured that it can be stopped.
Then go to Control Panel, to the System> Advanced system settings section, then to the Advanced tab press the Settings button under Startup and recovery .
To stop the display of the blue screen in the event of a crash and view the type of error that has occurred, you must remove the " restart automatically " option.
Generally, in the blue screen, you can read, in small, the " Stop Code " which is the identification code of the type of error that has occurred.
The most common types of blue screen errors have these codes :
- DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, generally caused by an incorrect device driver, that is, by an external device connected to the PC that is not working or by a driver to be updated.
This is the most common type of error for the blue screen.
- PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA is another type of error related to the presence of a recently added hardware device internal to the computer or external via USB.
You should therefore try to redo the connection and reinstall the piece or device.
This type of error can also be caused by a defect in the RAM memory.
- NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM is a very serious error that indicates a problem on the disk.
You will then have to take care of running the scandisk program to check disk errors and save important data before it is too late.
The only solution, if the error occurs often, is to replace the disk.
- DATA_BUS_ERROR is an error certainly caused by RAM which can be defective, poorly placed or incompatible with the motherboard.
RAM memory is the main cause of Windows crashes with a blue screen and changing it would probably solve the problem.
But before proceeding with the replacement, you must check that the RAM is damaged.
- MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION indicates a serious problem on the CPU or power supply.
- INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE says that Windows cannot access the boot disk, which can depend on a degraded hard disk or even a virus.
- HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED is an error caused by hardware or driver problems.
The details of the error can be found, by restarting the PC, in the dump file that is saved in C: \ Windows \ Minidump or C: \ Windows \ MEMORY.DMP .
To open these files, the best way is to use the small precious Nirsoft BlueScreenView program.
BlueScreenView explores and reads all the minidump files created during the pc blue death screen that you see when it freezes and displays information about all crashes in a table.
For each incident, BlueScreenView displays the name of the minidump file, the date and time of the crash, the information displayed on the blue screen and the details of the person responsible for the error or the module that possibly caused the crash (the name of the file, product name, file description, and file version).
For each serious error displayed in the upper panel, you can view the details of the device driver loaded during the crash in the lower panel.
This program is portable, requires no installation and the executable can be launched directly from a USB stick and there is no need for Microsoft debugging tools installed to use this tool.
BlueScreenView works with 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8.1.
Another program to analyze DMP files created by Windows crashes is Microsoft 's Debug Diagnostic Tool, available for free and certainly more reliable and richer in information.
If there is no DUMP file, it must be activated.
To activate the blue screen error log in order to record system crashes, open the Control Panel> System> Advanced system settings> Advanced and then press the Settings button under the Startup and Recovery section.
Under system error, activate the option "write the event in the event log".
The " Write debug information " option allows you to set the level of detail of the technical information after a crash (leave Dump reduced) and then, at the bottom, the location to save the Minidump file which, by default, is % SystemRoot% \ minidump
Solving a blue screen error usually requires a hardware check of your computer, RAM memory, drivers and connected devices.
From my experience, most of the blue screens are caused by the conflict of the hardware drivers or by the fact that they are faulty or still have a problem RAM memory .
Sometimes you can fix any system error by installing all updates from Windows Update and then proceeding to update the drivers.
In the event log (see other article how to correct errors using the event viewer) there is certainly a trace of the error and it may already be possible to trace the cause.
Even better is to use the reliability monitoring tool to find out what is not working on the PC
On Microsoft's "Blue Screen" Troubleshooting site, there is the official tool to understand if the error occurred after an update and find the cause.
Keep in mind that in Windows 10 the blue screen also contains a QR code that can be scanned with the smartphone so as to be immediately directed to an error search.
See here how to scan QR codes.
Another BlueScreenView-like blue screen error analysis program is WhoCrashed which immediately shows which drivers caused your computer to crash or freeze.
Whocrashed analyzes the crash dump file and presents the cause of the problem in a more understandable way.
The first time you click on the Analyze button, the program asks you to select the path for the Microsoft Windows Debugging Tools (usually in C: \ Program Files \ Debugging Tools for Windows) or offers the possibility to download the installation by pressing the " Download the required file from Microsoft site now " button.
WhoCrashed Home Edition is free, works on Windows 7 9 and 10 (there is also a Pro version for business use) and is developed by the same house that produces Antifreeze, the program to unlock the pc that we talked about in the article "If the pc doesn't move and doesn't respond, like unlocking it without restarting Windows ".
In another article, however, two Nirsoft tools are reported to analyze errors and crashes of programs that close and block themselves.
Before posting questions, I recommend reading the answers to some common questions on the blue screen and the sudden shutdown of the computer .
FINAL NOTE: in a Windows 10 PC it is possible to manually generate a blue screen error, which can be used to make tests or checks.
To do this, you must first add two registry keys.
Then open the registry key editor (from the Start menu search and run regedit ) and go to the following path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ kbdhid \ Parameters
Selecting Parameters, right click on the empty space on the right and then do New> DWORD Value (32-bit) giving it the name CrashOnCtrlScrol and the value 1.
Then go to the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ i8042prt \ Parameters
As before, right click to the right to select New> DWORD (32-bit) value with CrashOnCtrlScrol name and value 1.
At this point, after adding these keys and after restarting the computer, you can crash the Windows PC by holding down the CTRL key and then pressing Scroll Lock (or Scroll Lock ) twice.
READ ALSO: Stop the Windows 10 automatic recovery loop
