How to resolve Blue Screen Errors: Nothing can strike terror into the heart of the staunchest computer user more than the Blue Screen of Death. It never comes at a good time (if there ever was one), you've probably been working on a long report or you were about to make it to a hard earned save point in your game. Now all you can do is reboot the computer; all your hard work or hard play is forgotten as the ram is "erased" when there is no power to it. The Blue Screen of Death (alias Stop Error, Blue Screen Errors, Critical Stop, BSOD or more formally a Windows Stop Message) is usually caused by a few reasons. These can include faulty memory, a corrupt registry, badly coded device drivers or incompatible DLL's. Badly coded device driver: A device driver is usually written by a third party programmer to enable a device such as a peripheral, these include the computer mouse, sound cards and joysticks. The third party programmers write small driver programs which make it possible for these devices to communicate with a specific operating system, however many times these small programs can glitch, causing errors which can result in Blue Screen Errors. Faulty memory: Faulty memory can occur when a computer produces erroneous errors due to memory intensive applications. Defective hardware, whether it is a hard drive or ram can cause the operating system to produce a BSOD. Heat or other conditions can cause memory components to fail causing blue screen errors. Incompatible DLL's: DLL's are dynamic link libraries which are part of the operating system's shared library concept. These DLL's are files that are necessary for certain programs to run or processes to take place. If a DLL is not found or there is a problem with the file, this may cause blue screen errors. Corrupt Registry: The computer's registry is a database that Windows operating system uses to store configuration information regarding hardware and software, also for, information used for set up and user preferences. If the registry is corrupt the BSOD may occur. 1. Take note: When you receive an error on your computer, make notes of all the information contained on the screen. This is a good practice even for normal errors, not just Blue Screen Errors. Be sure to copy it as accurately as possible, you may feel that just part of an error message will probably be enough but it won't. These messages may only be on your screen for a limited amount of time before the computer reboots. To prevent your computer from rebooting automatically, right click on my computer, choose properties, select the advanced tab. Under setup and recovery, click settings and uncheck automatically restart. The next step is to restart your computer. Should blue screen errors appear on your desktop while windows is still booting, you may see a menu for troubleshooting that will give you the option to restart Windows normally. If your pc restarts without the blue screen making an appearance, be sure to save the information you wrote down about the error. If Windows will not start and you still receive blue screen errors, reboot the computer and when given the option press F8 repeatedly. This will take you to the advanced options screen. Choose to start Windows in safe mode; this will only install the minimum drivers needed for your computer to start. Your windows operating system should load properly now if your issue is software related. If that doesn't work then reboot your computer again and press F8 when the option is given. Now select restore last known good configuration. You may find that this option will fix your particular glitch. 2. Get out the bloodhounds and track it down: If the BSOD crash is a regular occurrence you may have to track down a more definite cause. Generally, if you cannot boot into safe mode, it is probably a hardware issue or a system file is missing or has become corrupted. If you can boot in safe more, but are still getting blue screen errors while running windows normally, you likely have a software or driver issue. Click Image to Enlarge 3. The Softer Side: When you boot into safe mode, run your anti-virus and anti-spyware software. Your system may have an infection. If no problem is found then you can try the windows system restore utility. Go to start> choose all programs> choose accessories> system tools and then click on system restore. Choose a system restore point from before the lock up started occurring. Note that you may have to install some programs that were installed after your restore point. Also note that when you reinstall programs to do so one at a time. If one of these programs is causing blue screen errors then it will more than likely return. Doing so one at a time will let you narrow down the problem and let you remove the offensive program once and for all. If you do find a particular program or device driver that is causing your problem and you feel that you really need it or at least paid for it then check out the vendor's website to find any information about problems with the software or for any update/patch that you can download and install. 4. You can do more for driver errors: If you find that a device driver is the source of your blue screen errors you can roll back to a previous version of the driver or you could simply disable the device. Right click on my computer, choose properties, click on the hardware tab and choose device manager. Expand the hardware tree for where the problem device is located, highlight the device, right click and choose properties. Click on the drivers tab. Click roll back to revert to a previous version of the driver or choose uninstall to completely remove the driver. You may also choose disable, which will prevent Windows from loading the device during startup. 5. Stop the software: You may find that preventing non-essential software from starting when windows starts may prevent blue screen errors. Choose start, click on run and type msconfig and click the startup tab. You can use Google or another search engine to help you identify what the programs in the list are and if they are needed at start up. Once you have edited your startup programs, start your computer. You will see a box when windows opens; telling you that you are running in compatibility mode. It's ok to close this. 6. Could it be hardware? Are there any new additions to your system? Turn off the power to the computer and remove the new hardware to see if this Blue Screen of Death fix answers your problem. You may want head over to the hardware section for help removing internal components of your system. 7. Thanks for the memories: You may have a problem with the integrity of your memory. You can test your memory by using free diagnostic tools. You can Google for a ram memory tester or you can download the one from Microsoft here. Windows Memory Diagnostic 8. Absolute Power Corrupts Missing or corrupt system files will have an impact on the performance of your computer. You can run a repair install and return all Windows system files without having any impact on your settings or your data. Blue Screen Errors by PC Apprentice 2009 - 2017 Beware of computer programmers that carry screwdrivers. - Leonard Brandwein