Arrgh - BSOD

[kolnikoff]

Never saw one of these with Vista but just had one now on Win 7 64bit -
copying a file to a 4Gb pen drive.

Shall I expect more of these BSOD - memory dumps - when doing 'standard'
things? Quite unexpected and rather unnerving.

Cheers

Kol
'''

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Kol.

BSODs in Win7 are rare - but they can happen. Most often the problem is in
a driver - such as for your pen drive?

But each BSOD tells a story to those who know its language. Trouble is,
every Windows version comes with default settings appropriate for newbies.
For example, the default for "what to do in case of system failure" is to
"automatically restart". We all learned early in our computing experience
that simply rebooting clears many kinds of problems, which often are only
momentary glitches that won't happen again. So when the BSOD flashes on the
screen, it disappears in a moment and the computer reboots; after it
restarts, we have to decipher the mysterious memory dump to try to find some
clues to the problem.

A better solution is to change that default. On the System Properties page,
click Advanced system settings (you'll need to furnish Administrator
credentials). On the next Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and
Recovery. On this final window, remove the check from the "Automatically
restart" box, then OK your way out.

The next time the BSOD pops up, it will stay on the screen until you
manually press the hardware Reset button, so you'll have all the time you
need to study it and copy down the important codes that tell WHY the BSOD
appeared. Ignore the "boilerplate" language about possible viruses and
such. But copy and paste the STOP: code, both the hex digits and the
ALL_CAPS name of the error, if it appears. There may also be 4 long
(16-digit hexadecimal) numbers, and even the name of a driver or other text.
The STOP Code - something like 0x8000007B - may be gibberish to most of us,
but it is very meaningful to many readers here, so post that and someone
should be able to point you in the right direction. Or just do a Bing or
Google search for that code.

(You probably already know this, Kol, but there are newbies "reading over
our shoulders" who probably don't.)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

 

[Homer L. Hazel]

The next time the BSOD pops up, it will stay on the screen until you
manually press the hardware Reset button, so you'll have all the time you
need to study it and copy down the important codes that tell WHY the BSOD
appeared. Ignore the "boilerplate" language about possible viruses and
such. But copy and paste the STOP: code, both the hex digits and the
ALL_CAPS name of the error, if it appears. There may also be 4 long
(16-digit hexadecimal) numbers, and even the name of a driver or other
text. The STOP Code - something like 0x8000007B - may be gibberish to most
of us, but it is very meaningful to many readers here, so post that and
someone should be able to point you in the right direction. Or just do a
Bing or Google search for that code.

<snip>

I like your suggestion, but I've never been able to copy and paste from a
system
that has just crashed. I generally just write such items down on a piece of
paper.

Or is this some new feature of Windows 7 that I have not discovered.

Larry Hazel

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Larry.

You're right, of course. That was just a slip of the finger on my part -
along with some wishful thinking, I suppose. When the BSOD is on the
screen, Windows is not even running anymore, so no key press will be
detected at all, not even <Ctrl>+<Alt>+<Del>. :>(

I should have said to copy the STOP code on paper, then type it into a post
here.

I often use my digital camera to take a photo of my blue screen, before I
press the Reset button.

Thanks for the correction.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

 

[kolnikoff]

R. C. White wrote:

<snip>

wow, the way you two talk it looks like BSOD is quite common!! )

I'll try and remember the STOP code tip and do some investigating.
Haven't tried plugging in that pen drive again yet.

Cheers for the info.

Kol
'''

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Kol.

BSODs WERE quite common, but each generation of Windows improves. We rarely
see them with Vista and even less often with Win7. When they occur now,
they are almost always in a hardware driver or other add-on, rather than
with Windows itself. Often we find they are caused by hardware problems,
such as heat buildup or loose physical connectors, not by software at all.

When you post the actual Stop code information, we will be able to help you
track down the problem. But simply saying "a BSOD" or "the BSOD" doesn't
help much; there are hundreds (thousands?) of them, each with a different
cause, and the Code is the place to start narrowing down the possible
suspects.

With your reported symptom, the first suspect is your pen drive - or the
driver for fit - or the physical connector for it - or your USB port - or
the physical connector inside your computer - or ???

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

 

[SC Tom]

Hi, Larry.

You're right, of course. That was just a slip of the finger on my part -
along with some wishful thinking, I suppose. When the BSOD is on the
screen, Windows is not even running anymore, so no key press will be
detected at all, not even <Ctrl>+<Alt>+<Del>. :>(

I should have said to copy the STOP code on paper, then type it into a
post here.

I often use my digital camera to take a photo of my blue screen, before I
press the Reset button.

********* Good tip! I hadn't thought of that before.
Thnx,
SC Tom

 

[Homer L. Hazel]

I seldom get BSOD's so I thought there might be a way it could be done.

I didn't think too hard because in the past when I got the Screen Of Death,
it was truly dead. Did the B change colors from Black to Blue at some
point?

I like the camera idea.

Larry

 

[kolnikoff]

Hi, Kol.

BSODs WERE quite common, but each generation of Windows improves. We
rarely see them with Vista and even less often with Win7. When they
occur now, they are almost always in a hardware driver or other add-on,
rather than with Windows itself. Often we find they are caused by
hardware problems, such as heat buildup or loose physical connectors,
not by software at all.

When you post the actual Stop code information, we will be able to help
you track down the problem. But simply saying "a BSOD" or "the BSOD"
doesn't help much; there are hundreds (thousands?) of them, each with a
different cause, and the Code is the place to start narrowing down the
possible suspects.

With your reported symptom, the first suspect is your pen drive - or the
driver for fit - or the physical connector for it - or your USB port -
or the physical connector inside your computer - or ???

RC

Hi RC,

I appreciate what your saying and I take on board about the STOP code
info. I was just a little perturbed as in all my Vista time I didn't see
a single BSOD (lucky, I know) and got a feeling of 'oh no, not theses
again' after a mere couple of weeks use of Win 7.

Anyway, fingers crossed I don't have to post here with the BSOD details.

Thanx for your input, especially the digi photo one.

Cheers

Kol
'''

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Larry.

I'm happy to say that I haven't yet seen the BLACK Screen of Death, but I've
seen it mentioned. It often is abbreviated KSOD to avoid the Black and Blue
confusion. The K is used in some other contexts to mean black, such as in
CYMK printing inks: Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and blacK.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

 

[Dr. Hammer]

One trick that hasn't been mentioned is to go into the event logs and
look for the information there. Usually, even with STOP errors,
windows will log the error in the system logs. In XP you usually get
"System unexpectedly shutdown" message with real h/w errors. Not sure
about win7.

This of course doen't help much when you CAN'T boot to windows.

It's a good idea to view the logs for warning and errors,
periodically, though warnings are more of a FYI - like a printer that
it can't connect to via a share, though I've seen these as errors when
you don't even have a hp printer, etc.

If the BSOD calls out a driver, like tbswdm.sys, you can google it up
and see what piece of h/w is causing it.

MT

 

[FiOS-Dave]

Look for a program called BlueScreenView.
As long as you can boot into Windows, you can
run the program and it will show you all the info available on the last
n BSODs. If the errors are random, it is a good possibility that you are
having a memory issue.

Dave

 

[Cesaro Morales]

********* Good tip! I hadn't thought of that before.
Thnx,
SC Tom

One more quick tip, albeit off topic, and then we return to our
regularly scheduled program.

Digital cameras are good for a lot of things. For example, if you
discover blood in your stool, take a nice clear digital picture and
make a print. When you go to see your doctor and he asks how much
blood you saw, you just show the picture instead of trying to describe
it.