You've probably noticed that when your computer crashes, a blue screen appears on your monitor screen. big amount strange characters on English language. It was so?
Usually this state of the computer is very scary for a novice user. In this article, let's try to understand this situation a little and find out what kind of blue screen this is and what it threatens us with.
First, let's deal with appearance such a blue screen and consider two different images.
Image #1
Blue screen when checking the disk:
Such a blue screen can be seen, for example, after turning off the computer incorrectly (for example, during a power outage).
There is nothing scary about this. This screen just shows us the work special program to check disks. This program is called Chkdsk(Check Disk - disk check), it is built into Windows and very often runs automatically in case of sudden computer failures.
The program checks HDD for errors that could arise as a result of such failures.
We can even monitor the verification process by changing numbers on this screen, indicating the number of percentages until the end of the next verification stage (there are five in total - stage 1 - 5).
If such a screen appears, it is best to simply wait until the program Chkdsk will finish its work and restart the computer. Otherwise in the file system hard drive errors may remain or damaged sectors may remain on its physical surface, and this naturally will not lead to anything good.
If such a screen appears once, then do not be afraid - there is nothing wrong with it, but if it appears very often, then be sure to do it backups important data and think about
It should be noted here that even if your computer is working stably, from time to time (every few months) it is advisable to force a disk check by running the program Chkdsk manually.
This is done using the service built into Windows Disk check, which I talked about in one of the lessons.
So, we dealt with the first blue screen. Let's move on to the next one.
Image #2
The so-called “blue screen of death”:
This screen is a message about irreparable system error Windows. This means that Windows cannot handle a problem and shuts itself down to avoid more serious problems. In such a situation, all we can do is restart the computer with the button Reset(unless it reboots itself). All unsaved data will be lost.
On this screen we can see the error code that the system tells us so that we can independently eliminate the cause of the error. However, I can note that it is not always possible to fix such problems on your own (especially for a beginner), so the system records information about the error in the system log and creates a special file describing the problem.
Such information can be used by specialists to analyze the situation in order to eliminate the problem and prevent similar errors from occurring in the future.
The most common causes of the Blue Screen of Death are all kinds of driver conflicts. For example, when the drivers are not “native” and are incompatible with the system or computer devices. In addition, the cause may be conflicts of programs or devices, overheating of components, or the action of viruses.
In this article, we will not understand the intricacies of analyzing “blue screen of death” error codes, because This topic is quite extensive and not for beginners. But if you want to figure out the cause of such a screen or you seek advice from a specialist, then you need to have on hand all the necessary data to analyze the problem.
First of all, you need to write down the error code that is displayed on the blue screen, and for this you need to make sure that when such a screen appears, the computer does not restart, and we can see all the necessary information.
To do this, do the following: click right click My Computer - Properties- tab Additionally– section – button Options.
In the window that appears, uncheck the box Perform automatic reboot and press Ok:
In addition, check that the remaining parameters are as shown in the figure.
Now, in the event of a computer failure, there will be no automatic reboot, and we can safely write down the error data, namely everything that is written in the section Technical Information:
This data will be important when analyzing your situation.
In addition, analysis may require a dump file that details the cause of the error, and your job is to provide this file for analysis. Such files have the extension dmp and by default are located in the folder
C:WINDOWSMinidump.
Usually this data is enough to find out the reason for the appearance of such blue screens.
And at the end of this article, I want to say once again that it will be very difficult for a beginner to figure out the reason for the “blue screen of death” on his own, although if you are confident in your abilities, you can always try to look for the necessary information on the Internet by entering error codes in a search engine . It is possible that to solve your problem it will be enough to simply replace any “wrong” driver.
In any case, I hope that this article helped you understand the main reasons for the appearance of these “scary” blue screens, and they will no longer scare you, because knowing the enemy in person is always easier to deal with him!
How to find out the cause of the appearance blue screen of death (BSOD), as well as options for eliminating BSOD from your computer
Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) Windows. Theory.
Blue screen of death(Blue Screen of Death, Blue Screen of Doom, BSoD) – a message about a critical Windows system error, as a result of which the operating system cannot continue working and goes into a forced restart without saving data.
Preparing for Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)
It can be caused by a malfunction of some hardware or software failure (drivers most often). Screen of death errors are displayed on the screen with a blue background, on which the REASON for its occurrence is written. Therefore, the most important task will be to extract from this message the lines after the second or third paragraph, written in CAPITAL LETTERS with an underscore PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA) and the lines after Technical information: that begin with *** For example:
*** STOP: 0x00000050 (0x8872A990, 0x00000001, 0x804F35D7, 0x00000000)
*** SPCMDCON.sys - Address FBFE7617 base at FBFE5000, Date Stamp 3d6dd67c)
Lines to remember in the blue screen of death:
An equally important task is to save a dump file that contains the error report blue screen of death (BSOD). By default it is enabled in both Windows Xp and Windows Seven (7), but if you have it disabled then:
If the operating room Windows system 7: Right-click on “My Computer” -> Properties -> Extra options system -> “Advanced” tab -> After the “Boot and recovery” lines, click on “Options” -> check the “Write event to system log” checkbox and uncheck “Perform automatic reboot”. Do as in the image 
If the operating system is Windows Xp: Right-click on “My Computer” -> Properties -> “Advanced” tab -> After the “Startup and Recovery” lines, click on “Options” -> check the box “Write event in system log” and Uncheck the “Perform automatic reboot” checkbox. 
Next time blue screen of death (BSOD) Firstly, the computer will not automatically reboot, and secondly, it will save a dump file in which information about the blue screen of death (BSOD) will be stored.
Determine the cause of the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)
After completing the steps, turn on the computer and try to boot Windows.
If when loading you immediately get a blue screen of death, then the next time you reboot we boot into safe mode, just select not safe mode, and “Disable automatic reboot on system failure” 
Let's write down the lines that we need on a sheet of paper.
In this case, apparently, the culprit is system file SPCMDCON.sys. Therefore, the first thing you need to do is delete it or, on the contrary, restore it. To do this, boot from a bootable Live Cd or bootable Live usb and delete it manually (or restore it). Searching via Live boot disk on the Windows disk SPCMDCON.sys and rename it, for example, SPCMDCON(2).sys. Reboot the computer. If it helps and everything is ok, I congratulate you, if not, we continue to fight the blue screen of death (BSOD) using the same method until we defeat it.
If the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) does not immediately appear and Windows boots, then check the Dump file. To do this, download BlueScreenView
Launch BlueScreenView.exe. The drivers that caused the blue screen are highlighted in red. 
They must be removed in manual mode and then install newer ones (often causes a blue screen of death of the video card driver)
Blue screen of death (BSOD) during games or after different periods of time (reinstalling Windows does not help)
If the situation is such that everything has already been experienced and reinstalling Windows and other methods, but the blue screen does not go away, then the problem is in the computer hardware. CPU tests will help you here, random access memory. This may be the reason for purchasing a new video card without replacing the power supply, which is not designed for such a load, or a faulty RAM stick. To make things easier, here is a list of the most common Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) errors.
The most common Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) errors – taken from the Microsoft website
- KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED- A kernel mode process attempted to execute an invalid or unknown processor instruction. May be due to hardware incompatibility, hardware malfunction, driver or system service errors.
- NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM- crash when executing driver code file system ntfs.sys. The reason may be a violation of data integrity on the disk (failed cluster) or in memory, or damage to the IDE or SCSI drivers.
- DATA_BUS_ERROR- a parity error was detected in the RAM. The reason is defective or incompatible equipment, for example, a failure in the second level cache chip or in video memory. It may also be associated with an incorrectly working or incorrectly configured driver, or a disk failure.
- IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL- a kernel mode process tried to access a memory area using an IRQL (Interrupt Request Level) that was unacceptably high for it. May be caused by errors in the driver, system service, BIOS, or incompatible driver, service, software(for example - antivirus).
- PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA- the requested data is not in memory (for example, the system looks for the required data in the paging file, but does not find it). Usually associated with hardware failure (defective memory), file system corruption, system service or antivirus error.
- KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR- cannot read from the swap file in physical memory the requested memory page. Reasons - defective sector of the virtual memory file, controller failure hard drives, there is not enough disk space, incorrect connection hard drive, interrupt conflict, RAM defect, virus.
- MISMATCHED_HAL- the hardware abstraction level (HAL) and the system kernel do not match the computer type. Most often associated with a situation where a second processor is installed in the original system, forgetting to manually update HAL and ntoskrnl. It may also be caused by a version mismatch between hal.dll and ntoskrnl.exe.
- KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR- the requested data page cannot be read into physical memory. Reasons: defective sector of the virtual memory file, hard drive controller failure, RAM failure, virus, disk controller failure, defective RAM.
- INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE- during the boot process the OS was unable to access system partition. There can be many reasons for this common failure: a defective boot disk or disk controller; equipment incompatibility; boot virus; an error in the file system, for example in the Partition Table; Damage or absence of a file necessary for downloading, for example - NTLDR; lack of a hard drive controller driver or mismatch of the current driver with the installed equipment; DMA mode enabled in BIOS; DRIVE SWAPPING mode for changing drive letters included in CMOS Setup; resource allocation conflict between the disk controller and another device; corruption of loading driver data in system registry; installing the system on a partition beyond the first 1024 cylinders of the hard drive; error in boot.ini file.
- UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP- occurrence of a trap not supported by the kernel or a fatal error (such as division by zero). Hardware failure or software failure.
- STATUS_SYSTEM_PROCESS_TERMINATED- failure in a service running in user mode. The failure may be due to incorrect work application programs, drivers, third-party system services.
- STATUS_IMAGE_CHECKSUM_MISMATCH- the driver or system library file is damaged or lost. May be caused by a file system crash or accidental deletion of a system file.
If you have any questions, ask them in the comments. We'll be happy to help!
You can also read other articles on the topic "Windows 8.1, 7, XP"
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What is BSoD
BSoD - Blue Sceen of Death, blue screen of death. Appears in the most critical situations, when closing a faulty program is impossible.
The Windows operating system has several layers of running programs. We see only the top one - open windows programs and running services. These are what the Task Manager shows. When one of the programs makes an error that it is not able to process and work around, it, as many users say, “crashes.” You can start it again and continue working.
Software modules running at a lower level (drivers) will not be able to restart in the event of an error. The Windows operating system tries to protect the user from many errors, but this does not always work and it capitulates, showing a sad face or a set of characters on the computer screen.
You need to understand that drivers are an intermediary between the software and hardware of a computer. Both drivers can fail (programmers are people too, they may not take something into account or make a mistake), as well as the hardware part of the computer.
Symptoms of BSoD
1. The appearance of a blue screen with strange symbols or a sad emoticon.
In 99% of cases, the computer reboots on its own due to a critical error (BSoD), but there can be a worse situation: problems with the power supply or motherboard. If you have a desktop PC, check to see if there are any bulges anywhere.
Reasons for a blue screen
1. Overheating. Overheating of the video card or processor leads to the blue screen of death.
By the way, in Windows XP, when the video card overheated, a BSoD always occurred; in Vista and newer, the video driver simply rebooted. If you see the message “The video driver has stopped responding and has been restored,” then this is an overheating of the video card:
How newer than Windows, the more perfect the protection against failures. Let's hope that in some Windows XV, instead of a blue screen, we will see an error notification that does not interfere with work.
2. RAM failure. It’s possible, but in order not to hit the mark, read on first - perhaps the cause of your blue screen of death is something else.
If you installed new RAM in your computer and get frequent BSoDs, replace it at the store with a working one. There are no other ways to overcome blue screens of death when replacing RAM.
3. Failure of other hardware. Maybe the voltage in the power supply “sags”. Maybe there is a loss of contact somewhere. Maybe your computer doesn't like the full moon. There are many reasons, one can guess endlessly.
If, after you have analyzed the minidump (more on this below) and eliminated errors, the blue screen does not go away, you should replace all components one by one. You can’t just go ahead and determine the cause of BSoD if the error codes are different every time.
4. Overclocking. If you are an advanced overclocker, then you know what overclocking a computer has to do with BSoD. If not, don't overclock your computer.
5. Driver(s) failure. The cause of BSoD is not necessarily a hardware problem. Unstable drivers are a frequent guest on user computers. How to identify a faulty driver will be discussed next.
6. Viruses. Be sure to check your computer with some or .
I never tire of being amazed at the self-confidence of users who say “ I have no viruses and no antivirus either! I have a straight hand/I only use trusted sites/sometimes I check with a one-time antivirus and that’s why everything is fine!". Leaving aside the debate about how you can live without an antivirus, think about it: if a person sees BSoD, he has This is no longer a normal situation. How can you say that there are no viruses and this is not the cause of the blue screen?
Also, do not think that if you have an antivirus installed with the latest databases, there cannot be viruses. Check with others to completely rule out the possibility.
7. Antiviruses. It's funny (and sad) that antiviruses can cause crashes. Remove your antivirus temporarily. Have blue screens of death stopped appearing? Install a new one so that blue screens do not appear due to reason No. 6.
8. Windows updates. Developers at Microsoft sometimes test updates poorly. Some are shutting down the Center altogether because of this. Windows updates and sit without updates, although this is not an option. Control Panel - Programs and Features - View installed updates - right click - Delete for updates installed recently, then check Windows operation. Has everything returned to normal? Just don't install updates for a couple of weeks - usually during this time some kind of corrective update for the update comes out and everything becomes fine.
9. Programs crash. This happens, but rarely. If you see BSoD while playing or working on something specific program, I advise you to check your computer for overheating, because most programs are not capable of causing a blue screen, with the exception of those installing drivers into the system (antiviruses, emulators virtual disks, game security systems like PunkBuster, accounting programs that work with digital keys).
10. File errors hard systems disk. It won't be amiss
Let's find out the cause of BSoD
As you can see, there are quite a lot of reasons and there is no point in guessing. Fortunately, the Blue Screen of Death contains clues as to why Windows suddenly started to crash. Among the incomprehensible text there will be error codes containing a direct indication of what caused the failure.
Most often you are BSoD you won't see, since in Windows settings By default, the computer is restarted in case of critical errors.
You can disable automatic restart of Windows like this: Control Panel - System - Advanced System Settings - Options- check/uncheck the boxes as in the screenshot below:
Pay attention to the “Small memory dump” item - check it too.
Google the error code from the Windows Log
The “Write event to system log” checkbox is checked by default, which means error codes will be in the Windows Log.
Go to Control Panel - Administration - Event Viewer - System- and look for a line in the list that coincides in time with the appearance of a blue screen or restarting the computer:
Look for the error code (in the screenshot above it is 0x0000009f) in Google and read the first few sites in the results, follow the recommendations that have helped others. If a driver is specified (a word ending .sys, then it’s generally great - the likely culprit was found immediately, you need to install a driver for this device of an older/newer version. If there is no clear and clear indication on the Internet reasons for BSoD according to the specified error code, read my instructions further.
If there is nothing in the Windows Log, wait for the blue screen to appear and look for the error there:
Just search Google for information on the error code and follow the recommendations.
Analyze the minidump
Unfortunately, if the problem is a faulty driver, this is not always shown on the blue screen. The error code is also not always informative. You need to analyze the minidump file that is created when a BSoD occurs and contains information about the failure, in particular which drivers reported the error. There are two programs for minidump analysis: Windows Debugging Tools and BlueScreenView. Unfortunately, the first one is too complicated for novice users, although it gives a more informative result. In 99% of cases, the second, simple and free BlueScreenView is enough.
The BlueScreenView installer is available at this link.
After starting the program, you will see a window in which at the top there will be minidumps created by the system and information about them, at the bottom - a list of drivers. Failed drivers will be indicated in yellow.
Example No. 1 - the video card is to blame
A blue screen appears with the text ATTEMPTED_WRITE_TO_READONLY_MEMORY. Let's look at the minidump:
The ATTEMPTED_WRITE_TO_READONLY_MEMORY error, judging by googling, is caused by some driver. The likely culprit in this case is nv4_disp.sys. There are others, but they are part of the system and are statistically unlikely to be the cause. A Google search showed that nv4_disp.sys is a video card driver from nVidia. Three steps:
1. Check the video card for overheating.
2. Installing an older video card driver (new if the old one is installed). This is done with any drivers, not just video cards.
3. Installing the video card in another computer.
4. If a blue screen appears on another computer, take the video card to a service center. If the warranty is still valid, you can replace it with a working one free of charge.
5. Doesn't the blue screen appear on another computer? Try installing a different power supply on yours - this may be the reason.
6. Doesn't help? Reinstall Windows completely.
7. If this does not help, take it to the service center for diagnostics.
Example No. 2 - the culprit is not at all what was expected
A blue screen with the message PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA is associated with many problems:
If the likely faulty driver was ntfs.sys, then I would recommend checking the hard drive for errors, and also replacing the cable that goes from the hard drive to the motherboard. In this case, BlueScreenView points to the USB port driver and this could be true, but where I took the dump from for example, the person is at fault motherboard- the capacitors on it were swollen. Solution - system unit in hand and stomp to the service center.
Example No. 3 - the antivirus is to blame
I found this minidump on the Internet:
The culprit was SRTSP.SYS, an antivirus component from Norton. Solved by removing it.
Example No. 4 - “broken” RAM
A blue screen with MEMORY_MANAGEMENT is a sign that the RAM is unusable:
Reinstall Windows
I thought for a long time whether to recommend this. However, a quick glance through popular forums showed that many users still use pirated Windows builds. So, if you have:
- Windows assembly,
- there are or have been installed many optimizers,
- the computer takes more than ten minutes to boot,
- programs often close with errors,
reinstall Windows completely! And set it to normal original Windows. If you have a laptop, there will be a recovery partition on your hard drive with Windows prepared by the manufacturer - read the instructions and install (restore) it!
Installing Windows is not a matter of five minutes, but even a novice user can do it if desired.
Where can I get help?
Nothing helps? There is an excellent forum thread: Troubleshooting critical Windows errors (read the rules first).
Just first make sure that you have done everything possible: analyzed the minidump, updated the faulty driver. If the problem is in the hardware, the only way out is to contact a service center.
Death". This is the common colloquial name for messages about critical failures in operating systems running MS Windows. Their appearance is due to the occurrence of fatal errors that occur when executing the code of any drivers or As a result, the only possible action for the user is to send the computer to reboot without ability to save current data.
Typically, system default settings are set in such a way that if a critical failure occurs, it will occur automatically. Then operating system A log entry is created that describes the error that occurred.
Information that you can use when you see the “blue screen of death” - errors and their codes, specifications, as well as some tips for troubleshooting these failures. Usually the message and recommendations have a standard form, but Technical information varies according to the type of error that occurred and consists of:
The code of the failure that occurred and its symbolic name;
- parameters explaining the error, intended for debugging software;
- addresses of the failure location;
- the name of the driver in which the malfunction occurred.
What to do if the “blue screen of death” does appear? As we said above, the system settings assume an automatic reboot in case of a BSoD. At the same time, it will do this until the error is completely eliminated. But we recommend disabling this option so that the user can write down the fault code and find out the reason that caused it. To do this, you need to open the “Control Panel”, go to the “System” item, in which on the left side there will be a link “Advanced system settings”. In the properties that open, on the "Advanced" tab, click the "Options" button in the "Boot and Recovery" block, then in the "System Failure" block, uncheck "Perform automatic reboot." Changes made save.
If you see a “blue screen of death”, write down the error code, it will help you find out the cause of the problem. After this, send the computer to reboot using the "Reset" button. When the system starts to boot, press F8. From the menu that appears, select "Load last known known configuration."
If this operation does not bring results, restart the computer again, press F8 again and enter. If the boot is successful, try performing a system restore. If this fails, find your error code in a special table, which contains a list of faults that cause the “blue screen of death”, and try to find out its cause. After fixing it, try restoring the system again using Safe Mode.
If the problem that causes the BSoD is software rather than hardware character, to eliminate it, it will be enough to restore the system, or even better, install it again, and this error won't appear again.
In order to make sure that the hardware of your computer is in order, you need to test its hardware. You can check your hard drive using the MHDD utility, which runs from a 3.5" floppy disk under MS-DOS, and to check the status of RAM you can use memtest86+, which also runs from a floppy disk.
By the way, the “blue screen of death” of Windows 7 will soon cease to be relevant - this is the last OS where it will be present in its pure form. However, do not delude yourself, since this does not mean that Microsoft will write the ideal OS. The fact is that BSoD will simply be replaced with KSoD ("blacK Screen of Death"), and from now on you will have to deal with death," that's all.
Finally, we note that reinstalling the OS is only a short-term solution to the BSoD problem, and if the cause of its occurrence has not been clarified, there is a high probability that it will appear again in the near future.