How to Fix Blue Screen Errors
Blue screen errors, or blue screen of death (BSOD) errors, are the most severe errors Windows can encounter. Since Windows can not recover from this kernel level error, a blue screen is displayed with the error details. The error details contain a STOP error code, which indicates the type of error.
There are a lot of possible causes for blue screen errors, but most of them relate to the computer hardware. The cause of a BSOD error can be a temperature problem, a timing error, a resource conflict, hardware failure, a corrupt registry, a virus or simply a device incompatibility or driver error.
How to analyze blue screen errors
The first thing to do to analyze a blue screen error is to check the meaning of the STOP error code. You need to stop Windows from rebooting when a STOP error is encountered. Once the blue screen of death is shown, you can check the meaning of the STOP error code. Together with the filename of the driver or module, this will give an indication of the error cause.
Another option to analyze the cause of the blue screen error is to look at the Windows system event log or to debug the memory dump (minidump) that Windows created when the error occurred. The event log can be viewed using the event viewer. Right-click Computer in the Start menu, and then select Manage. In the Computer Management window select Event Viewer. The information in the event log can be of great help to isolate the cause of the blue screen error.
Within the Event Viewer, use the right-hand pane to create a custom view and select a date range or specific event category to nowwor down the events relating to the blue screen error.
Windows can also be configured to create a minidump of the current state when a critical error happens. Reading the minidump requires a bit more technical knowledge, but Microsoft has tools to read the minidump. Read more about how to analyze Windows minidump files if you want to use the crash dump file to find the cause of a Windows stop error.
The most common cause of blue screen errors
In reality, the most common cause of blue screen errors is a device driver problem. Outdated, incorrect or corrupt drivers can cause the system to encounter a STOP error, resulting in the BSOD.
So the easiest way to try and fix a blue screen error is to reinstall and update your system’s device drivers. This will ensure that all driver bugs are fixed and that all hardware has the correct driver.
If you know which device caused the error, you can update or reinstall that driver first. The file name in the blue screen of death can help identify the driver. Look for a file with the .SYS extension and search for that file name.
If you do not have the drivers for all devices, or are not comfortable updating your PC’s drivers manually, you can use a driver update tool to find, download and update all device drivers for you. Such tools will accurately identify your computer hardware, including any device causing an error, and automatically install the latest drivers for it.
In most cases updating or reinstalling drivers will solve your blue screen errors.
Other causes of blue screen errors
However, if updating device drivers does not fix the blue screen error, there are a number of additional things to try:
- Load the default BIOS values – resource conflicts and timing issues can be caused by incorrect BIOS settings.
- Update the BIOS – especially after adding new hardware or installing a Windows service pack this can help fix issues.
- Update Windows – missing updates, including service packs can be a source of stop errors.
- Check your system – run a virus scan after updating your definition files.
- Run a memory test to check your computer’s RAM. Memory faults can easily cause blue screen errors, so see if your RAM is error free. Vista and later Windows versions have a built-in option to test the memory, for XP you can use a program called memtest86.
- Driver rollback – if you have recently updated a driver, you can use the driver rollback to revert back to the previous driver version.
List of STOP Errors Causing BSOD:
- Stop 0x00000003 UNSYNCHRONIZED_ACCESS
- Stop 0x0000000A IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
- Stop 0x0000001E KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
- Stop 0x00000023 FAT_FILE_SYSTEM
- Stop 0x00000024 NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM
- Stop 0x0000002E DATA_BUS_ERROR
- Stop 0x0000003F NO_MORE_SYSTEM_PTES
- Stop 0x00000044 MULTIPLE_IRP_COMPLETE_REQUESTS
- Stop 0x00000050 PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
- Stop 0x0000006B PROCESS1_INITIALIZATION_FAILED
- Stop 0x00000073 CONFIG_LIST_FAILED
- Stop 0x00000074 BAD_SYSTEM_CONFIG_INFO
- Stop 0x00000076 PROCESS_HAS_LOCKED_PAGES
- Stop 0x00000077 KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR
- Stop 0x00000079 MISMATCHED_HAL
- Stop 0x0000007A KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR
- Stop 0x0000007B INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE
- Stop 0x0000007E SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
- Stop 0x0000007F UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
- Stop 0x0000008E KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
- Stop 0x0000009C MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION
- Stop 0x0000009F DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE
- Stop 0x000000BE ATTEMPTED_WRITE_TO_READONLY_MEMORY
- Stop 0x000000C2 BAD_POOL_CALLER
- Stop 0x000000C4 DRIVER_VERIFIER_DETECTED_VIOLATION
- Stop 0x000000CA PNP_DETECTED_FATAL_ERROR
- Stop 0x000000CB DRIVER_LEFT_LOCKED_PAGES_IN_PROCESS
- Stop 0x000000CE DRIVER_UNLOADED_WITHOUT_CANCELLING_PENDING_OPERATIONS
- Stop 0x000000D1 DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
- Stop 0x000000D5 DRIVER_PAGE_FAULT_IN_FREED_SPECIAL_POOL
- Stop 0x000000D8 DRIVER_USED_EXCESSIVE_PTES
- Stop 0x000000DA SYSTEM_PTE_MISUSE
- Stop 0x000000EA THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER
- Stop 0x000000ED UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME
- Stop 0x000000F2 HARDWARE_INTERRUPT_STORM
- Stop 0x000000F4 CRITICAL_OBJECT_TERMINATION
- Stop 0x000000FC ATTEMPTED_EXECUTE_OF_NOEXECUTE_MEMORY
- Stop 0x000000FE BUGCODE_USB_DRIVER
- Stop 0xC0000218 UNKNOWN_HARD_ERROR
- Stop 0xC000021A STATUS_SYSTEM_PROCESS_TERMINATED
- Stop 0xC0000221 STATUS_IMAGE_CHECKSUM_MISMATCH
- Stop 0xC0000244 STATUS_AUDIT_FAILED
A complete list of error codes can be found on the Microsoft MSDN website.
Please share your own experiences with blue screen of death errors, including possible solutions. New insights can help others, or maybe we can help you with specific STOP errors.
@Jenny – Stop error 0x0000007B means INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE, so the computer cannot access the hard disk to load Windows. From what you describe, it appears that even booting from the CD/DVD does not work. So it is very likely that there is a problem with the hardware, either the cabling to the hard disk and CD/DVD drive, or the controller.
I would suggest you take it to a service center, as I do not think this can be fixed by a software or configuration change.
This was a registry problem for me, ran ccleaner and bam! It fixed most of it.
Hi, I have a problem with Blue Screen Error STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF78AA524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000). It makes my laptop keep on reboot & reboot non-stop, can’t login to windows. I can’t even select safe mode, safe mode in networking, safe mode in command prompt, last known good config, start windows normally. I’m stuck here. Although i tried to change my BIOS setting to first boot cd/dvd in order to repair it using my windows xp cd, when i restart my laptop, it never run cd/dvd & directly jump to the screen where to select the safe mode options again. My laptop model is Acer Aspire 4530. Can you recommend me what can I do now in order for me to get into my windows again? Really appreciate if you can help me to solve this headache problem of mine. Hope to hear from you soon. Thanks.
Hi all, sorry if this has been asked before…
i recently bought my son a PC and installed Windows Vista, all seemed well then after a couple of days he started getting bluescreen errors, my wife tried installing vista again but now when you try to turn the pc on it just restarts itself, if you try to use the windows disk it begins the install then goes bluescreen again with the stop error : 0x0000007E, would replacing the hard disk sort this out? any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
:)
i was partitioning my hardrive on a asus pc when it frozed. i didnt know what to do, so i had reset it. since then i catch nothing but the “Blue Screen” i know it had something to do with the partitioning… can any 1 pleeeeeeeeeeeeeese help me!! is there any way i can pull out of this & repair it w/out wiping out the Hardrive???
@Mig – That type of BSOD error means the computer had a problem accessing the boot device. I’d run a chkdsk to make sure the hard disk does not have any serious problem. But it could just have been some kind of memory corruption that got fixed by rebooting a few times.
Powering down and removing the power cable (and battery in case of a laptop) for a few minutes can also help in those cases.
If it happens again, I would run a few more checks, like a memory test and a thorough AV scan…
Today my computer got a BSOD and when it rebooted , it said it didnt found any boot,and to insert a boot…
I tried reboot it and, at fourth time , it booted and now is perfectly fine.. Can someone tell me what happened? Im curious.. and i couldnt read the Stop code
@Deanna – No need for a new hard drive just yet. First try running a memory check. Vista and Windows 7 have an integrated test (Memory Diagnostics Tool in the Start menu), for XP you can use memtest86.
Also run a disk check (e.g. “chkdsk /r C:” for the C-drive).
Does it boot in Safe Mode at all though?
Stop 0×00000050 PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA : This is the error that keeps popping up when I try to boot my system. I thought that it might have been caused by an interrupted update on my Acer 6920 Laptop, and I’ve tried many solutions to fix it, but none seem to work. Can this be fixed or do i need to buy a whole new hard drive for my lappy?
@vaughn – I have not seen a lot of cases where the webcam causes a blue screen error. What is the software you are using with the webcam? Does it happen with all programs that you use the webcam in?
And please do a virus scan as well, that countdown (actually up as I understand it) time is not something that should generally happen, unless something is timing out.
Have you checked to see if your webcam has any physical problems in the device manager?
Is there an update you had installed that has been causing this to happen or have you not installed any updates for the webcam?
everytime i open my a4 tech webcam the blue screen always appears and there’s a countdown timer 1 to 100 then it restart automatically please help me thanks in advance!!!!
@Mandy
You also have to keep in mind that certain errors are hardware related and any sort of restore will not work. As for me, I tried doing that (Asus G72GX) but pressing F9 to restore to factory settings only restarted the pc and never worked. Have to have your mind open to all the possibilies; thank you for sharing that. Another useful piece of information !
@Mandy – Thanks for sharing your experiences.
The factory reset, or restore, works best in all cases since it not only restores the Windows configuration, but also all drivers, extra software and specific settings.
And you are right, when installing a basic version of any Windows edition, you will need to configure and install a lot of extra software, including the drivers.
For computers that do not have a factory restore partition this will not work though. But it is again a good lesson to never remove the factory reset partition of a hard disk. And always immediately create recovery DVD’s from your system!
For literally months I’ve gone around and around with the BSOD problem, with Microsoft blaming hardware conflicts, drivers, or hidden rootkits. Throughly cleaning the system with practically every antispyware and antivirus on the market didn’t help. Doing a system restore to another time didn’t help. Doing an OS installation repair didn’t help either. And the last thing I wanted to do was reformat my hd and do a fresh install of the OS. The only thing that finally got rid of the problem was to do a factory restore (not a clean install of the OS) which brought my computer back to the state on the day I received it. It’s the best option because reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling the OS is tedious and time consuming. You’ll also have to reinstall all your drivers and any programs that came with your computer. Even if you did all that by reformatting and doing a fresh install of the OS there’s no guarentee that your computer won’t be up and running properly. The only way you can accomplish this is to do a factory restore to its original state on the day you purchased it, which takes all of a few minutes to do.
First thing you have to do is see if your computer has a factory restore partition on your hd. Start>right click My Computer>Manage>Disk Manage. In my case there was a partition called Dell Restore, but on your computer it might not be labeled. A clue that there is a restore partition is if there are two or more partitions on the drive. Once you know, leave My Computer and turn off your computer.
Depending on your computers manufacturer, you have to press specific keys at specific times. For instance, I have a Dell Mini 1012. Right after my computer boots and as soon as the blue screen shows with the yellow bar on top, I have to press Control + F11 at the same time (your key combination might be different so check with your manufacture or google it for your manufacturer). There is only a 2 second window of opportunity to do this, so you might have to try it again to get your manufacturer’s restore install page to open up. When you do it usually ask a simple question – do you want to do this? Answer yes, and you’re on your way. In under 10 minutes my computer was in the same exact state as the first time I opened it up.
Prior to doing the factory restore, I saved all my important info (documents, music, and executable programs) on an external hard drive. I usually save all executable programs I get off the internet on a file I keep in Documents called downloads, so when I moved Documents from the external hd to my computer it was easy to reinstall them. The first thing I did, though, was to treat my computer like I did the day I first got it and eliminate things I don’t need or won’t use. Then I reloaded my computer with my backups. In a little over an hour my computer was back to the pristine new state with all my apps and data and I’ve yet to have a BSOD which has been several weeks now. In the future, should I start having this problem again, which I attribute to Windows OS getting crapped up, I won’t hesitate to use this option again. I have been toying with the idea of purchasing a separate internal hd (they’re cheap enough now) and an enclosure and using Acronis to make a copy of my hd so if I have this problem again all I have to do is pop the keyboard out and pop the new hd in. Doing that would save me even more time and trouble. Hope this info saves someone else months of frustration trying to figure out the cause of BSODs. I don’t care what causes them. I just want them to stop.
No, it’s fairly new. Asus G72GX came out about a year and a half…ok, it’s a little outdated, but it’s surprising and thank you.
@Alex – That is indeed very surprising, this wasn’t even a very old computer, right? But I am glad you fixed it that way.
Actually, you’ll be shocked. I replaced the hard drive, reinstalled Windows from the Recovery Disc and it works. Hasn’t given me any problems, played my game, installed everything, and it still runs except now…keyboard doesn’t work. Spilled soda. How quaint. Thanks for all the help though!
@Alex – Seems to me that there is definitely something wrong with your computer, possibly the motherboard. If possible, I’d take it to an Asus service center. Just hope you still have warranty on it….
I still receive the DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_EQUAL_OR_LESS error after installing Windows XP. I’ve changed the RAM and moved the network card. I can’t boot into Safe Mode either because it freezes when loading the necessary files.
@Sudip Jana – From your description of the problem that causes the blue screen, it seems to me that the problem is with the hard disk.
Try removing all partitions during XP setup, and then create a new partition and do a full NTFS format (not a quick one). If there are any bad sectors, the format will ensure they are not actually used in the file system.
Then continue the XP installation.
in my computer i have already format my drive but when i am installing the winxp cd it is taking so much time & after that blue screen error is shown or it shows system32 file was corrupted or it shows hard drive did not found. pleeeeeeeeeease help. how can i fix this problem. Actually i have not any installed windows o/s show i can’t open my computer in safe mode. whenever i am trying to open my computer in safe mode to fix this problem. after some time it will shows again error report.
I’ll try the installation of XP but seeing as it’s a gaming notebook from Asus, it is quite a shocker getting all the blue screens I’ve gotten but not surprising that it’s messed up now. Thanks for the help. Shall do that today !
@Alex – Considering what you have tried so far, I think I’ll have to agree with you that it is possibly the motherboard. The CPU itself does not often cause such problems in my experience.
If you have a different version and don’t mind spending more time on it, you could try installing XP instead of Windows 7 to see if that has the same problem. There is a small possibility that some of the hardware in your system is not compatible with Windows 7 (can simply be caused by a non-compatible driver for example).