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These are technically known as stop errors, and have been occurring since Windows came out. However, with the ever- increasing improvement of Windows platforms, these errors have become less frequent. When they do occur, however, there is nothing you can do but reboot - and engage in a little investigative work to ensure they don't reoccur. If rebooting doesn't work, call your computer technician. While you're waiting for him or her to show up, copy the error message at the top of the screen. It is usually a group of numbers followed by four additional numbers in parentheses. (Your computer technician will find these handy.) These may look like gibberish, but it tells you more or less what happened. For example, **STOP 0x0000007F (0x000000XX, 0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0x00000000) UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP means that you either had a hardware problem or that the system was unable to handle all the programs you had open. Further down, there is another group of numbers that also looks like gibberish. These, too, should be copied, as they detail the drivers that are installed and running. Oftentimes, drivers are the reason for crashes. If you have access to another computer, you may want to look up Microsoft Knowledge Base on the web. When you access the site, enter your complete error message. You should be able to ascertain what happened. If you keep having these sorts of crashes with the exact same sort of error messages, you will want to tell that to your technician, as it most likely means you have a bad memory module. What Caused It? In addition to having too many programs running at the same time, the following scenario might have been the culprit: while one program was working in a certain portion of your computer's RAM memory, another program may have attempted to place its memory in the same address space, with "fatal" consequences. A great many of these stop errors are caused by troublesome drivers or hardware problems. So you need to ask yourself what, if anything, you did most recently regarding hardware. Start with the most obvious: Have I kicked the tower by mistake and unseated a card from its socket? If not, go on to: Have I installed any new devices recently? Did I download and install any new service packs or other applications within the last couple of days? Did I make any changes in the configuration of the Operating System, lately? What about to my BIOS settings? Reboot Automatically If your system isn't set to reboot automatically after a stop error like the Blue Screen of Death, you might want to set that up. To do that, select Control Panel » System » Advanced » Startup and Recovery » Settings. You'll see the Startup and Recovery screen, where you can configure boot options. Make sure that the option "Automatically restart" is checked. Read Your System Log If you've been able to restart your computer and want to track down what caused the problem, check your system event viewer log. To do this, go to Control Panel » Administration tools » Event Viewer. According to what you find there, you will do one of the following:
How Can I Prevent It? In addition to not running too many programs at one time, and avoiding the devices that may have caused your BSOD, you can go to msconfig and unload a lot of the programs that start up, every time you reboot. For example, you don't need QuickTime or RealPlayer to load automatically each time. To do this, go to: Start » Run (and type in) msconfig » Startup. In addition to helping you avoid stop errors, you'll find that clearing out programs that you don't need will speed up your computer's performance. |
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