Questions tagged [bsod]

Blue Screen of Death; a Windows fatal system error, e.g. "A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down" or "Your PC ran into a problem". Mention the specific error code and all information on the screen in your question.

"Blue Screen of Death" is the nickname of the "Stop Error", an error screen which appears when a Windows operating system (NT or later) suffers a fatal low-level crash, usually within a device driver.

The error screen consists of white diagnostic text on a blue background typically beginning with:

  • A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

    (Windows 7 and earlier)

  • Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart.

    (Windows 8 and later)

Be specific and include as much detail as you can about what you have changed just before the BSOD started happening as well as any error IDs or notices you see on screen at the BSOD dump.

If you didn't catch the BSOD display, information about the crash can be found in the System event log (viewable in the Event Viewer, eventvwr.msc). Error events from the BugCheck source contain the bugcheck code, the parameters, and the path to the dump file on the General tab. Critical events from the Kernel-Power source contain the code and parameters in the EventData section of the Details tab.

For a list of all possible BSOD errors and their descriptions, see the Bug Check Code Reference.

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Convincingly "breaking" a system for a non technical user

For various reasons out of scope for Super User, I've been tasked with temporarily disabling one of my own systems. I have full admin control and own this system. It’s running Windows 7 SP1. I want to do this right—something believable, deniable and…
Journeyman Geek
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Where can I find last "blue screen" error message after reboot in Windows 10?

Just saw a "blue screen" in Windows 10. I wanted to google the error message but the moment I reached the phone to take a photo - computer rebooted. Can I find this error message somewhere in the logs?
Boykodev
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How to make Windows 10 BSOD show more details like older versions of Windows

I would like to know if there's any way to make Windows 10 show more details when crashing like Windows 7 did. In Windows 10, the Blue Screen of Death: hides the parameters of the kernel panic: The MSDN article Blue Screen Data explains how to…
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Running VirtualBox machine causes Blue Screen of Death on host Windows 7 PC

VirtualBox has now twice caused a BSOD on my host operating system Windows 7. The first time I was running VirtualPC so thought the two Virtual Systems together might have caused the issue, but this time it was just VirtualBox. I didn't get the…
Toby Allen
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What exactly is IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL?

What exactly is IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL? What is IRQL? What things use IRQL? Why does it need to be less or equal? What would cause it to not be less or equal? Why can't the OS recover from it not being less or equal? Does IRQL only affect…
Aaron Franke
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How to get more info out of the uninformative Windows 8 BSOD?

Windows 8's Blue Screen of Death is different from the previous Windows versions' one: In order to find out what caused the problem you need to write down or remember the search term it presents you with. The two search terms I have seen suggested…
amiregelz
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Is there an application to log component temperatures to file?

I purchased a computer a month or two ago (core i7, 24gb ram, geforce gtx 590, windows 7 ultimate). Within the last week it began to bluescreen regularly. I tried lots of things (check hds, check memory, reinstall windows etc..) but it still…
MrVimes
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How to diagnose Blue Screens in Windows 7 (64bit)

Using programs like WhoCrashed and BlueScreenView you can see the BSOD and the errors but how do you tell exactly what's causing the BSOD? I'm not sure if it's because of bad hardware, bad driver software or OS corruption. The computer seems to…
ritch0s
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Fastest way to reproduce a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)?

As part of a multi-operating system challenge (testing computer integrity), I need to find the fastest way to reproduce a genuine Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) on a Windows machine. Any version that is XP or later will work. As Shinrai puts it: So…
nopcorn
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How to fix the CrowdStrike blue screen?

There is an ongoing issue where a bad CrowdStrike update has caused systems worldwide to fail to boot Windows and blue screen to WinRE after the failed boot attempts For machines affected by this, how to resolve the issue and have them boot…
peterK88
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Why does Windows still have the BSOD on Ctrl+Scroll+Scroll "feature"?

Background information While Windows XP came out I heard about a testing feature that existed to manually cause a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death). I also heard this was supposed to be removed in XP Service Pack 2. It didn't get removed. It's also in…
Kredns
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Can prematurely powering down a computer cause bad sectors in a hard drive?

Q1: Can forcibly powering off a PC without using the built-in shutdown/reboot functions, cause a HDD to accumulate bad sectors? Whether it be the result of BSODs, lockups, crashes, etc. Q2: If so, are these bad sectors repairable? I know an OS…
Enigma83
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How to cause a BSOD on Windows XP and newer versions?

Is there a way to programmatically cause a BSOD on Windows XP and newer versions? How? BTW just to clarify, this is not for malicious purposes. The client requested to be able to shut down/reboot a terminal on their LAN this way. When I asked why,…
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Where are Blue Screen of Death events logged on Windows XP and how can I view the history of them?

I got a Blue Screen Of Death on reboot. Where are events like this logged on Windows XP and how can I view the history of the BSODs?
user39966
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PC Blue Screens and then instantly reboots. How do I stop this or find the error later?

I've started getting random blue screens from my (admittedly aged PC). Unfortunately it reboots straight away so I don't get chance to read the error. It's been happening when browsing Stack Overflow in Google Chrome and Firefox so I'm assuming that…
ChrisF
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