How to deal with Windows BSoD - Blue Screen of Death

What is BSoD

BSoD refers to Blue Screen of Death (also known as stop error screen or bug check screen or blue screen of doom). It is usually caused by unsuspected software errors in device drivers, incompatible DLL driver files or bugs in the kernel of the operating system. It can also be caused by physical hardware faults such as faulty RAM, overheating of components or over-clocking (running a hardware device beyond its specification limits).

The information about the memory when the system crashed is saved in a file called as ‘mini dump’ or the ‘dump file’. It is usually stored at ‘C:\Windows\Minidump’ folder. This dump file can be used to analyze the cause of the blue dump.

Ways to deal with blue dump

      1. Open up your CPU and remove the RAM stick(s) from their slot(s). Wipe them off with a clean cloth or by an eraser (softly) and put them back in the slots. You can also try exchanging the positions of the RAM sticks provided you have more than 2 RAM sticks.

      2. Download and install WhoCrashed (a free system utility to find the drivers responsible for crashing your computer) from http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed. This utility requires the Windows Debugging Package (WinDbg) from Microsoft. This is available for download while installing WhoCrashed or can be separately downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/installx86.mspx. Once WhoCrashed is successfully installed, start the tool, click on analyze and it would display the information about the driver which caused the system crash. To resolve the problem, you can just uninstall that driver if not required, or re-install the updated driver for the same.

      3. Another way to analyze the cause of blue dump is to look at the Windows Event Logs. Right click on Computer in the Start menu, select Manage. In the Computer Management window select Event Viewer. Go to Windows Logs à System. And check for Error type of events marked with red exclamation. The Details tab displays the detailed information of the error.

      4. You can try installing the ‘fixshell.exe’ from http://info.prevx.com/download.asp?GRAB=BLACKSCREENFIX

      5. You can download and install the hotfix directly from Microsoft support site at http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=979444&kbln=en-us

      6. Just install this hotfix and forget about anything else - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/979444/en-us

      PS: These ways have been consolidated through various search results and are intended only for informational purpose and home use. These methods should be tried at your own risks.