THE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH (BSOD)

 

So in this Rock Tech-Tip, were going to talk a little bit about the famous Blue Screen of Death…or well also known as the BSOD.

What is the The Blue Screen Of Death ?

The Blue Screen Of Death (also known as BSoD or bluescreen), known officially as a Stop Error 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.

Stop errors are usually hardware or driver related, causing the computer to stop responding in order to prevent damage to the hardware, whereupon, in the latest versions of Windows, the screen presents information for diagnostic purposes that were collected as the operating system performed a bug check.

How to Fix The BSOD?

Now to fix the BSOD might or might not be such an easy task, because it can sometimes be as simple as replacing the Memory stick, to never really finding out what the cause may be no matter what you do!

What we’re going to want to do is preform a few different procedures to try and track down the issue.

First thing we want to check is the drivers to make sure we got all the proper driver installed,

Windows XP

1.       Double click on My Computer

2.       Right click on the My Computer window.

3.       Select properties on drop down menu.

4.       Select Hardware tab.

5.       Select Device Manager.

Windows Vista/7

1.       Double click on My Computer.

2.       Click on the System properties located under the address bar of the My Computer window.

3.       Click on Device Manager located on the left side of the System properties window.

Now once in device manager, the system drivers you want to check are for:

1.       Sound

  • Sound, Video and Game controllers

2.       Video

  • Display Adapters

3.       Network

  • Network Adapters

4.       Chipset

  • IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
  • System Devices
  • Universal Serial Bus Controllers

 

What you’re going to try and look for is a Yellow question mark located beside any of these devices.

If you manage to see a device driver that is missing, then what you’re going to want to do is install them,

 

1.       Right click on the missing device driver

2.       Click on Update Driver Software

3.       On next window select the option to look for drivers through the internet.

 

However the drivers will not always be found, in this case you will have to search for your device drivers manually and best way to do this is to check your devices manufacturer website.

 

Now this is just one of the many reasons as to why the BSOD could occur, if after updating and reinstalling your drivers you’re still getting the BSOD, the next thing you might want to try is a windows repair.

 

Good luck!!

 

V.P. Tech