The Blue Screen Of Death Survival Guide Decodes Your System Crash

@wjh31: I went almost 10 years with XP without a single blue screen... then I turned off the annoying "disk full" system tray notification because I had some secondary disks that were always filling up and being complained about. Shortly after I did that I ended up filling up my primary disk so full the page file wouldn't write correctly and it was blue screen after blue screen until I sheepishly realized what I'd done ;-)

Whoops!

A ridiculously high overclock did it to me on vista along with some bad nvidia software. Other than that it's been rock solid

syko21

Ive had a couple with vista, usually when im pushing the hardware a bit hard, e.g that time i was using a ram inensive program and was about 20GB into the page file.... I just restart, restart again to get a clean shutdown and boot, then try not to rape the hardware too much for a while

wjh31

I have seen one BSOD since Win95 and that was on Vista, but I was trying to run a bunch of programs and two VM's at the same time on a laptop so I gave it a pass. Kinda outdated if you ask me.

Angry Numismatist

I'll have bursts of BSoD's, usually based around hardware failure rather than software. 90% of the time it's happened it's been either a dead ram stick or the driver for a Toshiba Tablet's wireless card. The other 10% has been me doing stupid things, usually starting with the phrase "hey! I have a virus scanner on! What's the worst that could happen!"

Andrew Mussey

@VenomIreland says click the heart button.: i think that it was supposed to be funy

@WarnerBat: You can use the event viewer to view the log of the crash after the fact, or if you want it to stay up as a blue screen you can do this:

1. Go to Start -> Control Panel -> System
2. Go to Advanced
3. Under the Startup and Recovery section, click Settings...
4. Under System Failure un-check "Automatically restart"

Steps pasted from: [www.tunexp.com]

The last time I got a BSOD my computer rebooted before I could read it. Which, let me tell you, was monumentally unhelpful.

WarnerBat

@syko21: Every single time that I've been Blue Screened to Death in Vista, it's been due to Nvidia drivers.

ssj4Gogeta

@gmerin: If you don't like Windows then why comment?

VenomIreland says click the heart button.

I've only gotten a handful of BSODs since XP came out. Thankfully, a little bit of googling on what the BSOD said usually led to a quick resolution. Usually it was something directly my fault, or because I bought cheap, unbranded hardware with wonky drivers. The BSOD is something you don't want to see, but you should be happy when you do (instead of just a solid freeze or black screen).

reynwrap582

there are other meanings besides "Microsoft sold me a piece of shit, again."

gmerin

BSODs are also logged to Event Viewer for your viewing convenience.

Mykie Gunderson

@Richard James Drake: And this is why my name is what it is.

If you see this BSOD, I think you may be SOL.

[aquila76.googlepages.com]

Aquila76

@Richard James Drake: When you get out of your parent's house and into the workforce, you will see that 99% of the client PC's are Windows & MS Office. Enjoy your teen angst while you can; it only gets worse out here in reality.

Aquila76

@Angry Numismatist: This is exactly what I thought when I read this. I said to myself "great, about ten years too late!" I honestly cannot remember the last time I had a BSOD.

ANOPRAX

@Richard James Drake: I've never had a problem with Windows since 98, and I can't run my games on a Mac or Linux.

"you computer can do much better"? My computer can't do much better than what I've got. Let's all remember that Apple has always recommended getting antivirus software (the current worm attack, anyone?), my PC has never had "random" crashes, they've always been because I've done something stupid or faulty drivers, and I've NEVER had a BSoD without there being a hardware problem (I don't think that hardware problems don't occur on Macs or Linux, seeing as how the OS does not affect if you have a faulty RAM stick, for example).

Absolute fix for Windows? Sure. Just stop trolling.

@ssj4Gogeta: Funny, all of mine have been due to ATI drivers.

atikmdag.sys stopped working

you want the absolute fix for windows? really?

this is it

install linux

any distro and i mean any, will be better

windows is not worth the trouble of dealing with. i mean antivirus, random crashes, blue screens of death. pointless

and if you don't like linux, go mac. but you all do yourself a favor stay away from windows. as i said, pointless efort, your computer can do much better.

Richard James Drake

Ah, the wonders of Linux. On the rare occasion I do bork my Ubuntu, a quick restart and Ctrl+Alt+F1 will allow my to diagnose and fix the problem. It's a shame I still need to keep my Windows hdd for the things OpenOffice can't do.

FamiCube64

I rarely see the blue screen of death now.

most of the time my BSOD has been cause either by a new software installm overheat video card when gaming or registry error from my exsesive custumization of the system

dhlt25

i always heard of BSoD but never experienced one until last week when i installed a geforce video card and downloaded rivatuner. but it happened so fast and on a restart that all i had to do was hit ctrl+alt+del to restart again. everything is working perfectly, i forgot about it until i read this. so this was the dreaded ""blue screen of death" every ones been complaining about?
did i miss something?

@gmerin: Is that a statement, or was it supposed to be a sarcastic question and you missed out a question mark? I'm not being a Grammar Nazi, I just honestly can't tell.

Leszek

@reynwrap582: Yep, shame they couldn't get the BSOD to come in a kind of, cheerey way...

"Hi there Windows user, it appears that something has gone wrong, so I'm going to shut down now, but when you start me up again, search for "Nasty Little Virus which crashed your system" on a search engine, thank you for using Microsoft Windows, Press nay key to shut down!"

Think ships computer from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy...

tylerf

@mfusion: I think he was trying to make a point that Window isn't just bad, but the little messages you get which seem like something bad and annoying are actually useful.

tylerf

@Richard James Drake: you summed up your post perfectly "pointless efort"

Over the last 6 months I've had countless BSODs, though I'm not complaining as they are ALL due to me overclocking my system beyond stability as it get it stable again. Tbh all the BSODs I've seen over the last few years have been hardware related.

Bobly

I've noticed that Microshaft has stopped its message of "Your computer was not shut down properly" which inferred that the Windoze crash was the user's fault.

Bill Gates deserves a punch in the throat for every instance where he blamed users for failures in his crappy software.

P_Smith

I've only ever had one BSOD with vista which was due to some faulty code running on the GFX card which I wrote. Windows got a little upset when it couldn't talk to it and thought I would like to know :P. As mentioned by others, Windows OSs rarely a wobbly of their own occord - it's usually a fault with hardware.

Reminds me, I really must sort out my WMP drivers, they're the only thing that causes BSODs anymore (I usually use MPC but occasionally need WMP).

@Aquila76: lol!

@Richard James Drake: Your first comment on LH and that's what you come up with? Seriously, have you read LH before? If you did, you would realise that these sort of trolling comments are not welcome here.

In order to avoid ridicule next time, think before you type. Many would not be so civil in future.

Some already mentioned it but i will say it again.

Linux guys.Left microshaft for more than 2 years now and i am having the time of my life with my PC.No more problems.

Try it guys probably you wont regret it even if you have to learn something new,it worths it.

If your lazy,stay with Bill.
Best regards.

obscur156

@silentcon: I's seen it a total of 9 times ever since I started using Windows with Win98 and the majority of those where on Win Me. It's been very easy to solve for the 3 times on XP I have experienced as they where due to a badly installed driver just before. So a simple system restore and installing the driver again fixed apart from one involving having to roll back a Nvidia driver due to a quickly fixed software conflict.

I was going to put my .02 in, but I'd just be echoing what chappell101 said. I've tried to make the switch to Linux three times (Red Hat once, Ubuntu twice) and it just never pays off. Video driver problems and having to run a virtual machine all the time for the programs I want but needed from XP (of which there were MANY) finally sent me back to Windows. Now I run a virtual machine for Linux on Windows, and I notice how rarely I need it.

razordu30

I'll ditto the major opinion on here. Never seen a BSoD except for the time my friend pranked me and installed the BSoD screensaver. From Win 95 up, never had one. I've heard of Win 7 giving BSoDs, but my installs of it went perfectly well (5 installs and counting)

Hirsch Singhal

I build my own gaming PCs (only way to make the super high end affordable) and the only time a Vista64 BSOD has shown up is either in getting the drivers initially sorted out (usually a one time effort) or when there is hardware failure - such as a bad video card in a Tri-SLI setup.

I get them sometimes using ConvertXToDVD. Something like PCouffin.sys

Chris Raimondi

It's a good guide with explanations that even seasoned tech-savy people could learn something from as well.

Although many times (but not always) it is quicker and easier to just re-install Windows and re-transfer data since more than likely whatever caused the error still will have some remnants left in the registry and may reveal itself later. Maybe if it was your personal machine you may spend more time trying to diagnose the problem but for me working on the 34 client PCs at the office it is easier to just rebuild the machines.

I see no blue screens at home as personally I use the Mac and my wife has quite a stable XP that does not really get pushed to its limits...

@P_Smith: Well I used to hate my Mac on OS9 in a crappy digital woman's voice going It's not my fault! Well I certainly didn't crash Computer, It left me wanting to punch the screen every time it gave the message! So their not innocent ether!

@Richard James Drake: Pointless trolling comment with no justification. Even as an open source fanboy predominantly their is a universal problem that causes BSOD and X sessions to crash on Linux Drivers. Fucking crappy video drivers from Nvidia's and Ati have effected me on both OS's though Intel isn't off the hook really ether with their noted huge performance regressions with Ubuntu 9.04!

Me being a computer tech, I see BSODS a few times a week on customer PCs. It sucks to fix the IRQ ones. Or when you BSOD and go into infinite reboot. Those are fun..

For the love of God, PLEASE turn off automatic reboot after system failure MS!

tok3n ninja; is behind you

@Richard James Drake: Sorry to add more insult to injury, but I can't resist. BSOD is Windows, Linux has kernel panics, Mac have the rainbow wheel of doom. See? Every OS has their own "oh shit" screen. Now, if you would like an example of how we at Gawker treat "most" Facebookers, head on over to Gizmodo and read up on some of the comments and you'll understand why we legitimate commenters have people like you.

See? In my rant I put forth good information AND flamed you! Everyone take notes.

tok3n ninja; is behind you

@Richard James Drake: Please return to Digg or wherever you came from. The comments section of Lifehacker is usually filled with insightful comments, and for the most part, I enjoy the comments sections more than the actual articles. Please do not turn Lifehacker's comments section into the usual fanboy nonsense.

Hypermark

@Harrison: Why don't Facebookers need approval?: I agree completely and even though I use Facebook, I still auditioned as they put it and after 2 comments I was in! The lack of approval is contaminating the collective intelligence and reliability of the great LH community!

This find is incredibly useful. All hail Jason.

pointyblue

@tylerf: Why don't they make the blue screen more cheery?

I could've used this a week ago!

Rett Gerst

i got a blue screen when I forgot to turn my water on lol

craig198

How about instead of an error message aimed at hardware manufacturers and developers, the error message gracefully lets the system down with an explanation of what happened? Half the time MS has already seen the error and knows why it's happening. Let's catalog those through Windows Update and tell the user what to do instead of hinting that they might be better off with the geeksquad.

@obscur156: Tried multiple times. Drivers for most of my hardware don't exist. Wireless doesn't work and I have things to do besides mess with wrappers. To turn up the screen brightnes I have to hit the "lower screen brightness" until it gets to its dimmest before hitting it one more time to get it back to full brightness. DJ controller doesn't work. No replacement for Premiere so I can't edit my videos. Dual monitors never work right.

Is that enough? Linux is a great OS but the idea that it is the best tool for all jobs is ridiculous. The $99 I paid for Vista was worth every penny. Everything works. Doesn't crash. It's the kind of stability and consistency you get when you pay someone to develop.

Yes there are flaws but I have found it to be far better for my uses than Linux with poor software and driver support or OSX which forces me to run it on a single brand of hardware with limited choices. I find Windows to be the best compromise between hardware choice, software choice, and stability.

JerryA

BSOD usually caused by poorly-written device drivers or malfunctioning hardware. Due to incompatible dlls files or bugs in the OS kernal could also cause bsod.

smith134

99% of blue screens are caused by shoddy drivers, faulty hardware or an overclock that pushes the hardware too far.

just_laze

I prefer [aumha.org]
It has I'd guess like 70%+ of stop errors and there meanings. Along with links to MSDN pages about them. Just search the code and see what is said about it.

Douglas Mach

I have thank you guys for posting this. I don't deal with blue screens that often anymore, but were I work there are more then a few Windows boxes, so I know this will be usefull.

@obscur156: What is it that makes people think these sort of comments are useful or wanted?

I haVE THE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH published in this blog. What should I do to fix it? Any suggestions?

Lana Dee

I've mostly got BSOD's from "A Secondary processor skipped a clock time interval" or something like that.

Check out the site below:
[www.theblueapp.org]

Trentben101

What if a) we don't have the time, energy, or desire to learn a completely new operating system, b) we don't see the point in calling a company a name in an effort to look cool, and/or c) we can actually use proper grammar? Would linux still be the right choice for us?

PattyScaurus

@obscur156: "If your lazy,stay with Bill." But if you're too lazy to spell correctly or use standard punctuation, go straight to Linux. You'll fit right in, apparently. I haven't had a BSoD in years at this point. In fact, I've had to restart my Ubuntu box almost every day for the past few months, but my Vista install just keeps on chugging. Even my OS X install has frozen up a number of times in the past few months. I was going to say "Does anyone still get BSoDs at this point?" but it looks like lots of people do, mostly because of new hardware. I guess I'm living in a bit of a bubble at this point.

CarloTobias

Get Linux and say good bye BSOD !!!!

SutapaHeracles

@SutapaHeracles: And say hello to segfaults ;)

@Jason Fitzpatrick:

Woah, you got XP in 1999?? Show me how! Or wait, you LIVE IN 2011?!

Tell me your secrets!

@Leszek: I believe what gmerin intended to say was:

"There happen to be other various reasons for the malfunctioning of one's system other than the far too common, 'Microsoft sold me a product that does not work as intended'."

@Darthvinder:
The windows xp (codename "whistler") betas started at the end of 2000 for Ms affiliates, and the offical beta started feb 2001

2000 to 2009 is close enough to ten years to count for most people.

Reference: Link

eldorel

@eldorel:

You win, but I was really hoping he was living in 2011. I think we all lose a little bit here, me more than others.