Officially called the stop screen, or stop error, the blue screen of death (BSOD) is a most unwanted error, second only to malware or ransomware in indicating that a user is in for a very bad day. It comes with no warning and all unsaved work is immediately lost. And given what it indicates, that could be the least of a user's problems.
BSODs result from a driver software error or issues with hardware. A BSOD is a full system failure at the Windows kernel level due to an issue with Windows drivers and/or hardware. It is not an app crash. If the browser crashes, Windows continues running. It's very rare that an app can cause a blue screen because they run at a higher level in the operating system.
The term blue screen of death stems from the fact that a blue screen with white text appears describing the error when it occurs. Up to Windows 7, the BSOD was full of hardware information that was useless to most users.
Starting with Windows 8, it scaled down the amount of information and put a large sad face on the screen. It also puts a QR code on screen so users can look up the cause of the blue screen with their smartphones.
When hit with a BSOD, a computer stops running for its own protection to prevent a catastrophic hardware failure or damage to devices, while creating a memory dump file and writing it to disk. Users then must reset their systems to restart Windows.
When a computer restarts after receiving a BSOD, it goes through an automatic troubleshooting and repair process. However, if Windows can't repair the issue, users can try to troubleshoot on their own.
There are two causes for the BSOD: hardware and software. At the software level, it would most likely be software drivers for hardware devices. A bad device driver can easily cause a BSOD. It is far less likely that an app such as Microsoft Word would cause one, but not impossible. If a BSOD occurs after a device driver upgrade, then the solution is to roll back or uninstall the driver -- or perhaps reinstall it -- as the initial install could have been corrupted.
There could also be a very low-level bug in the firmware or BIOS. In this case, users should check with the motherboard maker for a BIOS upgrade.
If the issue is with a hardware component such as a graphics card or sound board, the easiest way to check is to remove the board and see if the problem persists. For more vital components such as SSDs (solid-state drives) and memory, there are utilities to run diagnostics. Most SSD makers have free utilities to test their hardware, while the free utility MemTest86 is the standard for memory testing. Less frequent causes for a BSOD are low disk space and malware. If a computer is very low on space on the C: drive, the Windows swap or paging file might have problems. Malware can cause issues if the infection causes damage to the hard disk master boot record or system files are damaged.
During a BSOD, stop codes appear at the bottom of the screen. There are 270 stop codes total, but most are exceptionally rare. Here are the most common:
KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
An error in the kernel process associated with incompatibility or equipment malfunction.
NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM
This is a drive error caused during read or write, usually due to data integrity on disk or in memory.
DATA_BUS_ERROR
This is the result of errors in RAM. The cause may be incompatible or defective memory sticks.
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
This error may be due to a malfunction of the drivers, system services or incompatible software.
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
This is an error related to the swap file during operation of file systems or failure of a service or software.
Click here for a more extensive list of stop codes.
Here are some steps to take to troubleshoot BSOD:
Read more about how to troubleshoot BSOD for Windows 10.
27 Apr 2021