Windows 7 blue screen pops up. Why does the Blue Screen of Death appear, how to remove it and what the error codes mean. Blue Screen crashes: what to do

How to find out the cause of the appearance blue screen of death (BSOD), as well as options for eliminating BSOD from your computer

Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) Windows. Theory.

Blue screen of death(Blue Screen of Death, Blue Screen of Doom, BSoD) – a message about a critical Windows system error, as a result of which the operating system cannot continue working and goes into a forced restart without saving data.

Preparing for Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)

It can be caused by a malfunction of some hardware or software failure (drivers most often). Screen of death errors are displayed on the screen with a blue background, on which the REASON for its occurrence is written. Therefore, the most important task will be to extract from this message the lines after the second or third paragraph, written in CAPITAL LETTERS with an underscore PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA) and the lines after Technical information: that begin with *** For example:
*** STOP: 0x00000050 (0x8872A990, 0x00000001, 0x804F35D7, 0x00000000)
*** SPCMDCON.sys - Address FBFE7617 base at FBFE5000, Date Stamp 3d6dd67c)
Lines to remember in the blue screen of death:

An equally important task is to save a dump file that contains the error report blue screen of death (BSOD). By default it is enabled in both Windows Xp and Windows Seven (7), but if you have it disabled then:
If the operating system is Windows 7: Right-click on “My Computer” -> Properties -> Advanced system settings -> “Advanced” tab -> After the “Startup and Recovery” lines, click on “Options” -> check the “Record event” box to the system log" and uncheck the "Perform automatic reboot" checkbox. Do as in the image

If the operating system is Windows Xp: Right-click on “My Computer” -> Properties -> “Advanced” tab -> After the “Startup and Recovery” lines, click on “Options” -> check the box “Write event in system log” and Uncheck the “Perform automatic reboot” checkbox.

Next time blue screen of death (BSOD) Firstly, the computer will not automatically reboot, and secondly, it will save a dump file in which information about the blue screen of death (BSOD) will be stored.

Determining the cause of the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)

After completing the steps, turn on the computer and try to boot Windows.
If upon boot you immediately get a blue screen of death, then the next time you reboot, boot into safe mode, just select not safe mode, but “Disable automatic reboot when system failure”

Let's write down the lines that we need on a sheet of paper.

In this case, as you can see, the system file SPCMDCON.sys is to blame. Therefore, the first thing you need to do is delete it or, on the contrary, restore it. To do this, boot from a bootable Live Cd or bootable Live usb and delete it manually (or restore it). Using Live, we look for the boot disk on the Windows disk SPCMDCON.sys and rename it, for example, SPCMDCON(2).sys. Reboot the computer. If it helps and everything is ok, I congratulate you, if not, we continue to fight the blue screen of death (BSOD) using the same method until we defeat it.
If the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) does not immediately appear and Windows boots, then check the Dump file. To do this, download BlueScreenView
Launch BlueScreenView.exe. The drivers that caused the blue screen are highlighted in red.

They must be removed manually and then new ones must be installed (often causes a blue screen of death of the video card driver)

Blue screen of death (BSOD) during games or after different periods of time (reinstalling Windows does not help)

If the situation is that everyone has already tried reinstalling Windows and other methods, but the blue screen does not go away, then the problem is in the computer hardware. CPU and RAM tests will help you here. This may be the reason for purchasing a new video card without replacing the power supply, which is not designed for such a load, or a faulty RAM stick. To make things easier, here is a list of the most common Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) errors.

The most common Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) errors – taken from the Microsoft website

KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED- A kernel mode process attempted to execute an invalid or unknown processor instruction. May be due to hardware incompatibility, hardware malfunction, driver or system service errors.
NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM- crash when executing the ntfs.sys file system driver code. The reason may be a violation of data integrity on the disk (failed cluster) or in memory, or damage to the IDE or SCSI drivers.
DATA_BUS_ERROR- a parity error was detected in the RAM. The reason is defective or incompatible equipment, for example, a failure in the second level cache chip or in video memory. It may also be associated with an incorrectly working or incorrectly configured driver, or a disk failure.
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL- a kernel mode process tried to access a memory area using an IRQL (Interrupt Request Level) that was unacceptably high for it. May be caused by errors in the driver, system service, BIOS, or incompatible driver, service, software (for example, antivirus).
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA- the requested data is not in memory (for example, the system looks for the required data in the paging file, but does not find it). Usually associated with hardware failure (defective memory), file system corruption, system service or antivirus error.
KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR- it is not possible to read the requested memory page from the paging file into physical memory. Reasons: defective sector of the virtual memory file, hard disk controller failure, insufficient disk space, incorrect hard disk connection, interrupt conflict, RAM defect, virus.
MISMATCHED_HAL- the hardware abstraction level (HAL) and the system kernel do not match the computer type. Most often associated with a situation where a second processor is installed in the original system, forgetting to manually update HAL and ntoskrnl. It may also be caused by a version mismatch between hal.dll and ntoskrnl.exe.
KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR- the requested data page cannot be read into physical memory. Reasons: defective sector of the virtual memory file, hard drive controller failure, RAM failure, virus, disk controller failure, defective RAM.
INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE- during the boot process, the OS was unable to access the system partition. There can be many reasons for this common failure: a defective boot disk or disk controller; equipment incompatibility; boot virus; an error in the file system, for example in the Partition Table; Damage or absence of a file necessary for downloading, for example - NTLDR; lack of a hard drive controller driver or mismatch of the current driver with the installed equipment; DMA mode enabled in BIOS; DRIVE SWAPPING mode for changing drive letters included in CMOS Setup; resource allocation conflict between the disk controller and another device; corruption of data about loaded drivers in the system registry; installing the system on a partition beyond the first 1024 cylinders of the hard drive; error in boot.ini file.
UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP- occurrence of a trap not supported by the kernel or a fatal error (such as division by zero). Hardware failure or software failure.
STATUS_SYSTEM_PROCESS_TERMINATED- a failure in a service running in user mode. The failure may be due to incorrect operation of application programs, drivers, or third-party system services.
STATUS_IMAGE_CHECKSUM_MISMATCH- the driver or system library file is damaged or lost. May be caused by a file system crash or accidental deletion of a system file.

If you have any questions, ask them in the comments. We'll be happy to help!

You can also read other articles on the topic "Windows 8.1, 7, XP"

First you need to understand that there are two types of blue screens (BSoD) in the system. One is caused by a standard hard drive check, which can run after a small power failure when your computer shuts down. And the second is caused by a technical failure or a conflict of some parts in the computer or drivers.

Let's look at both types in detail.
Let's first compare the two types of blue screen. When checking a hard drive (hard drive), the following window appears (Fig. 1).

Take a closer look at these screenshots so you know what you're dealing with.

Fixing a blue screen with a hard drive problem

Let's take a closer look at Figure 1. This blue screen is caused by problems in the electrical network, an unusual shutdown of the PC (for example, a button on the system unit was pulled out of the socket or kicked) or a sudden power surge occurred during a thunderstorm, which shut down the computer.

Such death is not scary, it’s just that when the system starts, the built-in utility chkdsk is automatically activated. It happens that I manually launch this utility from the command line in order to check the performance of a hard drive with which problems and glitches have been detected.

If you suspect that some hard disk clusters are damaged, you can run a scan. Open a command line interpreter. To do this, press “Win + R” and enter “cmd” or through the search, write “cmd”.

The first way to launch cmd.

The command line must be run as an administrator, otherwise the command will not work.

The second way to launch cmd.

Enter the command:

"Chkdsk /F" (without quotes).

Press "Y" and "Enter".

The next time you start your system, a blue screen similar to Fig. 1 will appear.

What will this command do?

A special utility will launch that will check the hard drive for errors and correct them if it finds them. They could just appear during the failures described above. It is best to wait until all five stages of checking and treating the hard drive are completed, however, if you don’t have time at the moment, you can interrupt the checking procedure by pressing the ESC key. I do not recommend interrupting, because glitches and errors may remain, which will greatly slow down your PC in the future.

If you start to see a blue screen more and more often, then it’s best to copy photos, videos, documents, etc. that are important to you. to some external media and preferably reinstall the operating system with a complete formatting of the hard drive; such formatting will mark damaged clusters and prevent information from being written to them.

Complex blue screen of death

Now let's look at a more complex death. Such a death, as a rule, occurs unexpectedly, interrupting the work of all programs and preventing the user from doing anything. He is talking about a serious system error that the operating system is not able to correct itself. To prevent some parts from burning out or other problems, Windows is deactivated, i.e. turns off.

In this case, only a forced reboot of the system using a button on the system unit helps. If you have an automatic reboot in the event of a system failure in your settings, then after a few seconds the PC will reboot itself. Unsaved data will be lost. When a blue screen of death like this occurs, the operating system lets us know where exactly the failure occurred with the help of a so-called error code.

Using this code, we can solve the problem ourselves. But if you do not have experience in solving these problems, then it is better to call a friend who has already encountered this and is popularly called a computer specialist. It is also worth noting that in this case, the error code is automatically recorded in the system log and a report is created in which the system records everything related to this problem.

While repairing computers and system software, I was able to identify a number of reasons why the Blue Screen of Death occurs.

Drivers. When either old (outdated version) or non-native drivers are installed, they may conflict with the operating system or built-in hardware. I recommend downloading the latest version of a particular driver from the part manufacturer’s website.
Overheat. If any part inside the system unit overheats, this indicates a lack of ventilation. And it can also cause death. The reasons for overheating were written here, reasons for computer overheating.
Incorrect operation of the software. It’s rare, but it happens that it throws you into a blue screen because of the last installed program. You can try to restore the system, it was written about.

Which of these reasons (or maybe not listed here) is causing the failure can be quite easily determined by the error code, and then use your brains and logic and fix it without calling a technician.
It happens that the PC reboots so quickly that the user does not have time to write down the error code, which means we need to make sure that the PC does not automatically reboot. Open the Start menu, then My Computer and right-click (Right mouse button) on the My Computer icon, select Properties, in the properties we need the Advanced tab, there, in the Recovery and boot subsection, select options. Opposite the item Perform auto reboot, uncheck the box and make sure that all other checkboxes are as indicated in the figure.

Windows XP boot and recovery window.

On Windows 7 the steps are the same. Click OK and restart the computer. We are waiting for the next failure in the system and on the blue screen of death in the Technical Information section we write down the error code we need. This is the most important cause-and-effect information when software or components break down.

Code 0x00000050 for blue death

Very often, users display the code 0x00000050. In 90% of cases this is due to RAM. In this case, the system very often complains about the system files ntoskrnl.exe, igdpmd64.sys, ntfs.sys, win32k.sys, dxgmms1.sys and dcrypt.sys. It is also possible that the video card may be the cause.

For code 0x00000050, do the following:

Turn off your computer.
Take out the RAM.
Clear the tracks, perhaps there are simply no contacts between the RAM and the computer’s motherboard.
Follow the steps described above with the video card if you do not have an integrated one.
Insert it back and turn on the computer.

Among other things, the cause of error 0x00000050 may be a driver conflict. In practice, there is a known case when antivirus files conflicted with some other program, and because of this, the Windows system was thrown into blue death. Uninstall your antivirus and see if the result is positive. If the problem disappears, then it is better to switch to another antivirus.

You can also try disabling BIOS memory caching.

Some explanations of error codes:

Experts also know that any error, among other things, is also recorded in a memory dump, which is located in the operating system in the mini dump folder and has the dmp extension.

And at the end of the article, I also want to say, of course, it’s difficult for a beginner to understand this right away, but once upon a time I was a beginner, and if it weren’t for curiosity and the desire to achieve the goal, it’s unlikely that I would have left such instructions.

If you have any complex case or addition not listed in this article, then write a comment.

The blue screen of death or BSOD (The blue screen of death) is always a very alarming symptom of problems with your computer. This screen appears when Windows detects a critical error that the system is unable to fix on its own. This will prompt you to restart your computer, and very often this will result in the loss of all unsaved changes.

Blue Screen of Death is the worst error a computer user can encounter. Unlike application crashes, a critical BSOD crash disrupts the functionality of the entire system. Typically, the Blue Screen of Death occurs as a result of low-level software glitches or problems with computer hardware components.

Reasons for BSOD

Blue screens of death are usually caused by faulty computer hardware or drivers. Regular applications should not cause BSOD. In case of a crash, third-party programs do not cause disruption to the operating system. The most common causes of BSOD are hardware failures or problems with Windows kernel software. There are crashes associated with antivirus updates.

A blue screen usually appears when Windows encounters a “STOP error.” This critical drop causes the Windows system to stop working. In this case, all that remains is to forcefully turn off the computer and restart it. This procedure may result in the loss of unsaved data because applications have virtually no chance to save changes. In an ideal scenario, programs should regularly save progress so that BSOD or other errors do not lead to data loss.

When a Blue Screen of Death appears, Windows automatically creates and saves a memory dump file, “minidump,” to disk that contains information about the critical crash. Users can view the information in the dumps - it can help identify the cause of the BSOD crash.

By default, Windows automatically restarts your computer when the Blue Screen of Death appears. If your computer restarts for no apparent reason, it may be due to a blue screen.

If you want to get detailed information when a blue screen appears, you should disable automatic restart in the Windows Control Panel.

Click on the “My Computer” icon.
Right-click and select “Properties”.
From the left navigation menu, select the “Advanced system settings” option.
Go to the “Advanced” tab and in the “Boot and Recovery” section, click the “Options” button.
In the “System failure” section, uncheck the “Perform automatic reboot” option.

The BlueScreenView app offers an easy way to view BSOD information. The program automatically scans all memory dump files and displays crash data.

Similar information can be viewed using the classic “Event Viewer” application built into the system. True, in this case, BSOD messages will be displayed in the same list with application crashes and other system log messages.

For developers or advanced users, the powerful WinDbg dump debugger from Microsoft is more suitable.

Finding and eliminating vulnerabilities

In Windows 7 and newer versions of Windows, BSOD information is also displayed in the Action Center. If you encounter a BSOD error, you can open the Action Center and check the available solutions. Windows will analyze BSOD and other types of errors on your computer and provide recommendations on how to resolve the problem.

You can often get more information about a blue screen error by searching for a specific error message - for example, “Driver_IRQL_not_less_or_equal”. New BSOD screens on Windows systems prompt users to search the Internet to learn more about possible problems.

Use the System Restore Wizard. If the system has recently started experiencing BSOD crashes, use the System Restore feature to return the system to a previous stable state. If this helps, then the problem was probably caused by software bugs.
Check your system for malware. Threats that penetrate deep into the Windows kernel can cause system stability problems. Scan your computer for malware to make sure the system crash is not caused by insidious malware.
Install driver updates. An incorrectly installed or faulty driver can lead to crashes. Download and install the latest drivers for your computer components from the manufacturer's official website - this may help deal with the BSOD.
Boot into Safe Mode. If your computer constantly crashes with BSOD, then try booting into safe mode. In safe mode, Windows loads only the most basic drivers. If the blue screen of death appears due to the installed driver, then in safe mode there will be no critical error, and you will be able to fix the problem.
Perform hardware diagnostics. Blue screens can be caused by faulty hardware. Try testing your memory for errors and monitoring the temperature of individual parts of your PC to make sure it's not overheating.
Reinstall Windows. A clean installation of the system is a radical action, but it will get rid of possible problems with installed programs. If after reinstalling the system, BSOD errors continue, they are most likely hardware related.

Even a completely healthy computer in rare cases may experience a BSOD crash for no apparent reason - due to errors in drivers, installed applications or hardware components.

If you experience BSOD very rarely (say, once every two years), then there is no reason to worry. If BSOD errors pop up regularly, then you need to look for the cause and fix the problem.

Found a typo? Highlight and press Ctrl + Enter

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What experienced PC user has not encountered the problem of the so-called blue screen? Yes, I think everyone. Meanwhile, you can quickly get rid of it only by restarting the computer. In this article you will learn in detail what the blue screen of death is, why it can appear and how to deal with it.

It must be emphasized that the article turned out to be quite voluminous, but it describes absolutely all aspects and nuances that need to be paid attention to.

The blue screen looks different on every operating system. By the way, on the latest Windows operating systems they are no longer blue at all. For example, it is already known that Windows 8, which has not yet been released, will have a blue screen with a sad emoticon depicted on it. This OS should be released at the end of 2012. This kind of BSoD can be seen quite often when testing various operating systems. In Windows 8, the blue screen should be more “positive” than in other operating systems.

However, some experienced users managed to see the red screen of death. Yes, and this is not a joke. This phenomenon can only be observed on Windows Vista. And in those ancient times, when Windows 1.0 and Windows 2.0 first appeared, the screen was completely black. The concept of a blue screen was introduced by an employee of a California company, Eric Noes, and since then it has become generally accepted.

Actually, what is a blue screen of death?

The concept of “blue screen of death” came to us from English-speaking users. They simply call this common phenomenon BSoD, when decrypted it turns out Blue Screen of Death. In official language it is called Stop Error. The appearance of a blue screen on your computer monitor does not bode well; moreover, it indicates that you have encountered a critical error. This method of warning about danger is typical only for OS Windows.

What is BSoD

Upon closer inspection, you can see the following inscription: . In the language of "techies" this is called a STOP code or 0x000000F4. You can also find the same inscription only without the zeros, it will look something like this 0xF 4. In this article, we will use this type of notation without zeros. This inscription, incomprehensible to a beginner, is a kind of code with a prefix, which is calculated in the hexadecimal number system. The prefix itself is used for recognition by various system services.

Thanks to this STOP code, the system analyzes all errors and enters them into the system log. Actually a mistake 0xF4 tells us that the most important thread or process in the system has stopped operating. What these error codes mean will be discussed below. The most detailed and necessary information for advanced users BSoD provides in Windows Server, as well as in XP/Vista/7. Thanks to such information, an experienced user can figure out what’s going on himself.

Blue screen on boot

When an error like this occurs, Microsoft displays a notification about what exactly caused the error. BSoD. The culprit of this error, according to Microsoft developers, is a system file called SPCMDCON.SYS. And on the monitor itself you can see the following inscription: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA. This error tells us that the system data contained in memory was simply not found.

Below you can see a guide for further actions, thanks to which you can prevent similar errors in the future. Below you will definitely find technical information in approximately the following context: STOP code 0x50 and again the system file SPCMDCON.SYS, but with parameters. For inexperienced users, this is a dense forest, which is why the developers of Windows 8 want to simplify this very ill-fated BSoD.

Top codes that appear on a blue screen

All the most popular and common blue screen of death error codes will be listed below. Immediately after the error, an approximate reason for the error is given. But for a complete diagnosis, you need to refer to the error parameters and interpret them using special debugging programs.

0x24	NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM	NTFS file system failure.
0x2E	DATA_BUS_ERROR	Parity error in RAM.
0xB4	VIDEO_DRIVER_INIT_FAILURE	Error initializing video driver.
0xA	IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL	Invalid address when accessing the device driver.
0x1E	KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED	A kernel-mode process is attempting to execute an invalid instruction.
0xB9	CHIPSET_DETECTED_ERROR	The motherboard chipset is faulty.
0x4E	PFN_LIST_CORRUPT	The driver I/O structure is damaged.
0xC2	BAD_POOL_CALLER	Memory allocation operation error
0x69	IO1_INITIALIZATION_FAILED	System initialization failed.
0x50	PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA	Data requested from memory is missing.
0x8E	PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA	The same as in the previous version - the data requested from memory is missing.
0x7F	UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP	An unexpected error occurred in the kernel.
0x77	KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR	The requested kernel page cannot be read.
0x7B	INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE	No access to the system disk partition.
0x79	MISMATCHED_HAL	Hardware incompatibility.
0x7A	KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR	Error reading into physical memory.
0xC0000135	STATUS_DLL_NOT_FOUND	Error loading library.
0xD1	DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL	Driver error, memory address not available.
0xF3	DISORDERLY_SHUTDOWN	Windows was unable to shut down due to low memory.
0xC000021A	STATUS_SYSTEM_PROCESS_TERMINATED	Error in service running in user mode.
0xC0000221	STATUS_IMAGE_CHECKSUM_MISMATCH	The driver file was not found or is damaged.

If suddenly you could not find an error similar to yours in this list, then do not despair. First, you need to contact Microsoft support. Everything will be explained and shown to you exactly, and you will also receive the probable reason why you got the blue screen of death.

Why does the blue screen of death appear?

It appears because a critical error occurs during the execution of the kernel code. That's why it fails. It is not uncommon to see a blue screen when installing Windows. A blue screen may appear if some parameters have been changed in the computer hardware. For example, installing or replacing an adapter, video card, controllers, hard drive and PCI and PCI Express devices. The drivers for these devices may simply be incompatible with the computer's settings, which is why a crash may occur.

For example, such a blue screen appeared when installing Windows on a netbook. The problem was solved by deleting all partitions on the hard drive and formatting it.

What to do if a blue screen suddenly appears?

All you can do at this point is simply restart your computer. If you are an experienced user and can work with debuggers (debuggers), that is the way out. To determine the cause of the screen of death, Windows has developed a comprehensive solution to this problem, called Debugging Tools for Windows, which runs on 32 and 64 bit OS.

Causes and methods of eliminating the blue screen of death

Possible reason for the appearance BSoD may be a change in settings in BIOS. It must be said that hastily adjusted settings do not lead to anything good. If for some reason you forgot exactly what settings you made, then it is better to set the standard settings, that is default.

Also, a blue screen can appear due to viruses specially created for this purpose, which first infect the master boot record ( MBR) and the main boot sector. It is they, according to Windows developers, that can lead to serious problems and the appearance of a blue screen of death. The computer must be checked for viruses; this is done using a recovery disk and an already installed antivirus. Almost all companies that, in one way or another, develop antivirus programs offer the function of burning a distribution kit to a CD. This solution to problems is offered by Kaspersky Lab. You can also download a ready-made image from the company’s servers. You can check the status MBR and another antivirus utility, for example, AVZ. You can get acquainted with her work by following the link.

Errors in RAM. Diagnostics

It also happens that faulty and often unequal RAM modules cause a blue screen to appear. If suddenly you notice that during installation or replacement of RAM modules the OS does not load or a blue screen of death appears, then most likely your RAM is simply installed incorrectly. You can try placing RAM modules in other DIMM slots or simply rearranging the DDR sticks. But the problems may be hidden in other ways; in order to find out exactly what is causing the blue screen, you need to carry out diagnostics using the standard Windows utility. This utility is available in Windows Vista and 7; in XP you can use a utility called Windows Memory Diagnostic, which can be downloaded from the link.

The utility creates an ISO - a bootable CD image that needs to be burned onto a CD. After booting the computer from this disk, the utility begins to conduct a standard set of tests. After the first pass, the second will be started and testing will continue until the pause is turned on or the computer is restarted.

In Windows 7, Microsoft has provided a tool for testing RAM. Below is how to use it.

So, first you need to go to " Start", Further " Panel"control", after which you need to find the icon " Administration" and click on it.
In the window that opens, you need to find the following inscription: " Windows Memory Checker".
In a new window that opens, Windows will offer you a choice of two options "" and " Run the scan the next time you turn on your computer".
After this, you need to close all third-party programs in order not to lose any important data and click " Reboot and check (recommended)".

After which the computer will restart and perform a memory test. This test is usually performed in two passes. On the monitor screen you will see the percentages of the procedure being performed, they will be both current and total. Once the procedure is complete, the computer will restart and you will be able to see the test results.

But there is another way, to test the RAM using the installation disk; this is only possible in Windows Vista and 7. In order to complete this procedure, you must:

First you need to go to BIOS and install CD-ROM or DVD-ROM as the first boot device in the menu BOOT, then save all the settings and exit BIOS.
The computer will restart and give you a notification in the following context: " Press any key to boot from CD"After which you will need to press any key.
Next you need to wait until Windows downloads all the files and in the window " Windows installation"press the button" Further".
Choose " System Restore", wait.
Next, you will see the settings of this window; I’ll say right away that it’s better not to change anything, but leave it at default. Then you need to click on the button " Further".
In the list you must select " Windows Memory Diagnostics".
In the window that opens, you must select 1 of 2 options. Eg, " Reboot and check (recommended)"and the RAM check will immediately start working.

With Windows blue screens of death ( B lue S creen o f D ead) has not come across, perhaps, only a rare lucky person. Most of us had the “fortune” to witness this phenomenon on our own PC. And it drives many people into panic: what if the computer is dead?

In order not to get lost when a blue “lantern” suddenly lights up on the screen, you need to be able to look the enemy “in the face.” That is, learn to find out what led to the appearance of BSoD, assess how critical the situation is and know what to do so that it does not happen again.

Blue Lantern turns on unexpectedly

During the operation of Windows, many errors arise, most of which the system eliminates without the user noticing. But some of them are so serious that continuation of the work session becomes impossible. Or the problem that has arisen threatens Windows or hardware with irreversible damage. In such cases, BSoD appears. The system seems to be telling the user: “Sorry, friend, but I had no other choice. If it weren't for the crash, something bad would have happened."

Blue screens of death occur at any stage of computer startup and operation. And the following leads to them:

Incorrect operation of device drivers due to poor compatibility with the operating system, conflict with other drivers, damage or changes in parameters.
Incorrect operation of software, most often those that create their own services - antiviruses, firewalls, hardware emulators, etc.
Malware infection.
Hardware problems - malfunction of RAM, disk drives, network, sound adapters, video subsystem, motherboard, power supply and other equipment.
Abnormal operation of devices - overheating, unstable power supply, overclocking.
Violation of data exchange between devices - poor contact in connectors, faulty cables and cables.
Device incompatibility.

By the way, a one-time BSoD after connecting a new device to the computer, if in the future everything works flawlessly, can be considered the norm.

What can you learn from the information on the blue screen?

Fortunately, the vast majority of blue screens of death are caused by software glitches that the user can fix independently and relatively quickly, without resorting to reinstalling Windows. Software problems are characterized by random BSoDs with the same or similar error codes.

Hardware “bruises” more often occur under the same conditions (for example, when the load on the video card increases, or when trying to open a large file) and have different codes. Or these codes indicate problems with specific equipment, such as: errors in accessing the device, inability to read, recognize.

However, these signs only allow us to make an assumption about the cause of the problem. To clarify it, more detailed information is needed.

The Windows 10 Blue Screen of Death looks like this:

The error information is contained in the line “ Stopcode" In my example this is CRITICAL PROCESS DIED.

By scanning the QR code located here with your phone, you can go to the website stopcode, which contains general tips for troubleshooting. Tips from Microsoft are sometimes useful, but there is nothing there about the cause of your specific case, which means you will have to look for this data in another source, for example:

On computer forums.
In reference books on various error codes, in particular, and in.

But this is not entirely complete information. Each error is unique, and the most accurate information about it is contained in the file that the system saves to disk at the time of the failure. Namely, in a small memory dump, which we will learn to analyze. In order for such files to be created, you need to make several small settings.

How to enable the feature to create and save small memory dumps

To save memory dumps on your hard drive, the system definitely needs one, which must be located in the same partition as the Windows folder. Its size can be from 2 Mb or more.

Go through the context menu to the folder properties " Computer».

Click the button in the window that opens Advanced System Settings».

» press the button « Options».

In the new window section " System failure" from the list " Writing Debug Information» select « Small memory dump" Let it be indicated as the save location «% SystemRoot%\Minidump"(%systemroot% is the Windows folder).

This completes the setup. Now information about BSoDs will be saved in the above directory.

How to analyze the contents of minidumps

There are different ways to analyze Windows crash dumps, but we will get acquainted with the most, in my opinion, convenient and simple - using a free utility.

BlueScreenView is especially convenient because it does not require installation of cumbersome Debugging Tools for Windows packages on your computer and can be launched from any media, just click on the file of the same name.

The utility interface, despite the lack of Russian language, is very friendly. The main window is divided into 2 halves. At the top is a table of minidumps - files from the Windows\Minidump folder with the date and time of creation (column Crash Time), error code in hexadecimal format (column Bug Check Code), its four parameters and other information. However, it is more convenient to view data about a specific failure in a separate window, which opens by double-clicking on the line of interest (shown below). The main window gives more information about the problem as a whole if BSoDs have occurred repeatedly. It makes it easy to track the dates of incidents and error codes, the frequency of which can be used to judge the nature of the problem.

The lower half of the main window displays the drivers loaded into memory at the time of the emergency for a specific dump highlighted in the list. The lines highlighted in pink show the contents of the event stream stack, and the drivers mentioned in them are most directly related to the cause of the failure.

Let's look at one of the small memory dumps with error code 0x00000154 as an example. Let me say in advance that it was caused by a broken hard drive cable. Starting the analysis, let's look at the list of drivers in the event stack. There is nothing here except ntoskrnl.exe - the Windows OS kernel, which, of course, is not to blame for the problem - it’s just that at the time of the failure there was not a single driver in the stack, and it is always present there.

To test this version, let's evaluate the S.M.A.R.T indicators of the computer's hard drive, which are monitored by the Hard Disk Sentinel program. On the day of the accident, changes in the following attributes appeared here:

188 Command Timeout.
199 UltraDMA CRC Error Count.

Both indicate data transmission errors on the interface cable. Testing the surface of the hard drive and checking the file structure did not reveal any deviations, so the problem was solved by replacing the cable.

Let's look at another case of a blue screen of death caused by Kaspersky Anti-Virus. BSoD occurred intermittently during Windows 10 startup and when the computer resumed from sleep mode.

The error was recorded several times under the same code - 0x000000d1, which means the following: "a kernel mode driver attempted to access a memory page in an IRQL process that had too high a priority." This time BlueScreenView pointed to a problem in the NDIS.sys driver, which is responsible for network connections. This means that there is a high probability that the failure is of software origin and is associated with something that uses the network.

To identify the culprit, it was necessary to analyze startup applications. At the early stage of launching the operating system of this PC, not too many programs were launched that were allowed access to the Internet, or rather, only Kaspersky. To confirm its involvement, I again turned to the list of drivers loaded into memory in BlueScreenView and, among what is usually present here, I found kl1.sys, which belongs to the antivirus.

After removing Kaspersky, blue screens no longer popped up.

The BlueScreenView utility allows you to analyze crash memory dumps obtained not only where it is running, but also on another computer. To do this, you do not need to copy them to the Windows\Minidump folder on your PC, which is loaded into the program by default. Copy them to any convenient location, for example, on your desktop, and tell the program the new location of the directory that should be downloaded.

The function for selecting a folder with dump files is in the “ Options» – « Advanced Options" (opened by the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + O) and is called " Load from the following minidump folder».