Blue Screen of Death Problem?

Question

So I was having major issues with my one year old dell laptop. Lots of the system files were corrupted and I couldn't figure out how to fix them so I just did a clean reinstall of windows 7. Took me about a day and a half but I finally got my laptop back to where I originally had it. I reinstalled all the drivers too. Now the only dumb thing is I occasionally get blue screens. I noticed it usually happens when i am installing something. I have gotten it about half a dozen times in the last 2 days. I would normally copy down whatever the error was and type it in google to do some research but for some reason when the blue screen shows up it it says that it is doing a memory dump and then restarts the computer so I can only get a quick glimpse of it. I was wondering if there was any way I could look up what the error was after the fact so that I could try and get it fixed? Or do I have to keep my camera phone ready at all times and just be ready to snap a picture of it.

Answer 1

The Blue Screen of Death (also known as BSoD or Blue Screen), known officially as a Stop Error [1] or a bug check, is the error screen displayed by the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems upon encountering a critical error, of a non-recoverable nature, that causes the system to crash. The term is named after the color of the screen generated by the error. In Unix-based operating systems, a similar term is kernel panic.



Stop errors are hardware or driver related, causing the computer to stop responding in order to prevent damage to the hardware or data. In the later versions of Windows (Windows NT and later) the screen presents information for diagnostic purposes that was collected as the operating system performed a bug check.





The NT-style BSOD displays error codes that explain what just happened inside the kernel. The STOP error displays five error codes in the following general form:



STOP: 0x#### (0x####, 0x####, 0x####, 0x####) Error Name



For example:



STOP: 0x00000019 (0x00000000, 0xC00E0FF0, 0xFFFFEFD4, 0xC0000000) BAD_POOL_HEADER



The first code represents a specific error, while the others are additional data whose meaning depends on the error code.



In Windows NT-based operating systems, the Stop error occurs when the kernel, or a driver running in kernel mode, encounters any error from which it cannot recover. This is usually caused by an illegal operation being performed, where the only safe action the operating system can take is to restart the computer. As a result data may be lost, since the user is not given an opportunity to save any unsaved data to disk.



The text on the error screen contains an error code along with four other codes, whose meanings depend on the error code itself, and an error name. Depending on the error code, it may display the memory address at which the problem occurred, together with identifying details of the driver file loaded at that address. Under Windows NT and 2000, the second and third sections of the screen may list all the currently-loaded drivers and display all memory data (a "stack dump"), respectively. The driver information will list the disk address of the driver file, the file's creation date (as a Unix timestamp), and the name of the file.



By default, Windows NT based systems create a memory dump file when a Stop error occurs. Depending on the operating system version, this can range from a 64 kB mini-dump to a complete dump of memory that saves the entire active contents of the RAM. The resulting file can thus be analyzed later. A kernel debugger software program may be used in order to obtain a stack trace (identifying certain memory information) to find the true cause of the error, as the on-screen information is limited and may conceal the true cause.



A Stop error can also be caused by a critical boot loader error, where the operating system is unable to start from the bootable drive due to the presence of an incorrect disk driver, a damaged file system, or a similar problem. In such cases no memory dump is saved.



Stop errors in Windows Vista are rarer than any other Windows Operating System. This is because of the unique way the operating system handles Stop errors. The operating system shuts down completely, then on rebooting shows an error box with an error code. This usually happens when a driver is the problem.





Blue screen of death in Windows 8

A new version of the error screen has been seen in the developer preview of Windows 8, released in September 2011. Rather than displaying detailed technical information about the error, it simply displays a short explanation that the system needs to restart, the technical name of the error and a sad emoticon. Also it contains a lighter shade of blue in the background.

Answer 2

This can be from a bad Driver, Bad Memory, Bad CPU or Bad motherboard or Hard drive.



You will need to send it back for warranty repair because its sounds like a hardware issue.





If you can disable the automatic restart option so you can tell us what the error message is.



That will be in control panel then the system icon. Then advanced system settings. Then click on the settings button for system startup and failure and debugging information. Uncheck automatic restart then ok. Now the BSOD will stay up write down the info on the top left corner on what it says. THEN hold the POWER button to turn it off.



Examples are IRQL-Less than or equal to, Memory Management, PFN list Corrupt, There is others.

If you have an ATI display or radeon use the drivers 10.1 steer clear from newer ones because I had BSOD after installing those.



Sometimes it might tell you the file that causing this issue too. which will be about in the middle of the screen.



Also it would not hurt to download memtest.



http://www.memtest.org/#downiso



download the Download - Pre-Compiled Bootable ISO (.zip)



extract the ISO to desktop and then Open the ISO and burn to CD. Leave the CD in the drive to boot from it and it will test your ram for faulty chips.



let it run for at least 45 mins or until you see a RED bar with the Addresses of failures.

The errors will be on the bottom half of the screen.



Also make sure your fan is working on it too. If its overheating this will happen too.

Answer 3

You have 2 choices

1. Try typing event viewer into start search bar and look at the critical error logs at the time the bsod occurred

or

change power management parameters. by default, the pc will stop after a bsod. If you change the parameters, it will not stop until you tell it to turn off.