Blue Screen Of Death

What is the Blue Screen of Death?

The blue screen of death (also known as the BSoD, blue screen or a stop error) is a phenomenon that most PC users will have encountered at some point or another.  It is an error screen displayed by every version of Windows since version 3.1 onwards that indicates that your machine has just encountered a critical system error that has forced it to close down in order to prevent further damage.

In most cases, the blue screen will be accompanied by an error code which is designed to indicate the root cause of the problem.  In many cases, however, the error code shown does little other than confuse, as it is quite common that the code itself is incorrect.

In addition, there is absolutely no guarantee that there was indeed any kind of critical error before you machine shut itself down.

For example, if you are one of the many millions of users still using Windows XP, then any small problem or error that occurs during the course of a normal shutdown can be read by your operating system as a critical error, leading to the blue screen of death appearing.

So, whilst it is meant to indicate a critical system problem, sometimes it may be doing so, but at other times it may not be.

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What causes the blue screen of death?

Although it is completely unhelpful to know this, almost any kind of error or defect in your computer caused by any software program or hardware device can lead to the sudden appearance of the blue screen of death!

However, the most common causes of stopped errors are as follows:

• Poorly written device drivers;

• Incompatible DLL files;

• Faulty memory devices;

• A corrupt or damaged registry;

• Poor quality audio and video drivers;

• A faulty power source.

From this list, it is immediately apparent that almost any single component of your computer can cause a blue screen of death shutdown.

It may even be something as simple and as basic as a power surge or a lack of power that leads your operating system to ‘believe’ that a critical error has taken place so that it shuts down your system completely.

Plugging in or removing a USB device is also a relatively common cause of false critical error readings leading to a stop error.

In some situations, the blue screen of death might appear at regular intervals, whilst in other scenarios it appears entirely at random.

For example, if your laptop overheats, then it is highly likely that your system will shut it down.  Almost inevitably you will then see the blue screen of death several times before your machine finally cools down enough to be switched back on again.

And, as suggested, the error codes that usually accompany the blue screen of death are more often than not extremely unhelpful, as in the majority of cases they will point in completely the wrong direction.

In fact, many error descriptions and codes can actually hide the genuine cause of a critical error, so that if you do manage to isolate and repair the error that your machine appears to be suffering from, you will be no closer to solving the problem!

In fact, almost the only thing that the blue screen of death indicates is that your machine has just shut itself down, and it is not particularly happy about that fact!

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Repairing the blue screen of death.

The first thing that you need to do is get your Windows operating system running once again, and you may need to attempt to reboot your machine several times before it will eventually open properly.

Once it does so, the first possible cause that you will need to consider are any new software programs or hardware components that have recently been installed or connected to your PC.

If possible, disable or switch off any new programs or devices and see if your machine will reboot properly without showing the blue screen of death.  If it does so, this would certainly indicate that the software or hardware is at fault.

Try running your machines Device Manager (Right-click My Computer, click Manage, and then Device Manager) to see if that highlights any hardware problems  Also use the system configuration utility (msconfig) to troubleshoot for configuration problems.

And despite what I suggested earlier, if you are seeing an error code, then you should still go online to discover what you can about it.  You may then want to attempt the suggested repair.

Try running antivirus and anti-spyware tests as well, as it is possible, though not likely, and that some form of ‘invader’ is behind your problems

Failing all this, as suggested, you may have a problem with your registry and it is therefore something you should also check.  If you have software already installed on your machine that you can use to check and then repair your registry, now would be an ideal time to use it.

If not, then you should at least take advantage of a free online check using a program like SpeedyPC to see what errors and faults lie hidden in your operating system registry.  Once you know what problems you have, then you can decide what should be your next step in your efforts to repair the registry.