Diagnosing Blue Screen of Death - what to do?

[thepeoplespal]

I've had a little dinky Dell D420 for getting on 3 1/2 years now, but I'm wondering what to do now that it is Blue Screening and saying it is dumping everything to stop damage. Sometimes it is the pagefile, other times it is ntfs.sys , other details include not having enough memory (17Gb free on a 80Gb drive) or an errant antivirus programme (currently Zonealarm suite) shadowing in the BIOS etc.

I did add a little more RAM a few months ago from Crucial, but would I be correct in thinking that this is probably only a failing hard-drive problem or is it indicative of the processor/memory modules failing as well?

If it is a hard-drive failing then, a new drive should be my first port of call - wonder if a SSD would be the way to go. As the computer occasionally boots up and can be used for a while, I was thinking of putting the hard drive into the freezer to allow enough time to get some of my latest files of the HDD. Any thoughts folks?

[joebongo]

http://www.lazybit.com/index.php/2007/12/14/window...

You could try this to help get more info on your BSOD errors and then search them? It's hard to tell without having it in front of me but in my experience maybe 7/10 BSOD's are hardware related but you do get some that are software.

Can you get the data off the HD and then reinstall windows fresh? That would definitely tell you if it's HW or SW as windows does get clogged up over the years.

[buggalugs]

Random bluescreens = more than half the time it's duff memory. Run a memtest on it overnight and see what comes back.

Failing hard drives usually hang the machine, or bluescreen consistently about ntfs.sys or unmountable volume.

[bigdods]

thepeoplespal said:

I did add a little more RAM a few months ago from Crucial

BSOD is often an hardware fault and I would point to the RAM as the easiest first thing to look at. Try removing one stick , then the other , see what happens (assuming you have 2 sticks of course)

[TonyToniTone]

could try http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

[rfisher]

TonyToniTone said:

could try http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

Yup.

I use this and it is a most excellent programme.

Your machine needs to do the dumpfile write before BSOD occurs for the viewer to work.

[mph999]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSeNWvjhBfg

[grumbledoak]

BSOD means the hardware isn't behaving, and if you are getting a short window before failure it is probably heat related. It could be RAM or CPU, but with no information it could be graphics card or motherboard, or basically anything. Though, probably not the hard drive with those symptoms.

Remove the hard drive and rescue the files on another PC. Then play about with the rest of it, starting with the RAM and the CPU heatsink.

hth

ETA- don't put the hard drive in the freezer.

Edited by grumbledoak on Thursday 12th August 23:53

[Matt_Tilda]

grumbledoak said:

BSOD means the hardware isn't behaving

It might be hardware related, but many BSODs are driver issues. Recent ones I have diagnosed involved, for example, a modem driver and a graphics card driver.

[lestag]

Post the Techincal information

STOP:xxxxxx (xxx,xxx,xxx,xxx)

cc.sys blah blah blah

That is the ONLY way to start a diagnosis
Otherwise your just shooting black cats in a dark room

[thepeoplespal]

grumbledoak said:

BSOD means the hardware isn't behaving, and if you are getting a short window before failure it is probably heat related. It could be RAM or CPU, but with no information it could be graphics card or motherboard, or basically anything. Though, probably not the hard drive with those symptoms.

Remove the hard drive and rescue the files on another PC. Then play about with the rest of it, starting with the RAM and the CPU heatsink.

hth

ETA- don't put the hard drive in the freezer.

Edited by grumbledoak on Thursday 12th August 23:53

Heat related sounds feasible, will have to rescue the RAM from the M-I-L's house.

Thanks for all your suggestions, will have a play using the suggestions from everybody and then give up and probably leave it off with a local computer bod, who managed to rescue the data of my Mrs's laptop a few months ago.

The XP operating system is the original install from 3 1/2 years ago.

[mph999]

grumbledoak said:

BSOD means the hardware isn't behaving, and if you are getting a short window before failure it is probably heat related. It could be RAM or CPU, but with no information it could be graphics card or motherboard, or basically anything. Though, probably not the hard drive with those symptoms.

Remove the hard drive and rescue the files on another PC. Then play about with the rest of it, starting with the RAM and the CPU heatsink.

hth

ETA- don't put the hard drive in the freezer.

Edited by grumbledoak on Thursday 12th August 23:53

Not always, it's usually when you try and talk to a bit of memory you shouldn't be talking to, which is often driver or software based. Mis-conception that BSOD = hardware.

[ErnestM]

bigdods said:

thepeoplespal said:

I did add a little more RAM a few months ago from Crucial

BSOD is often an hardware fault and I would point to the RAM as the easiest first thing to look at. Try removing one stick , then the other , see what happens (assuming you have 2 sticks of course)

I have found Dells to be highly finicky about what RAM they use. Try something like memtest or just make sure that the memory meets original Dell specs.

[annodomini2]

ErnestM said:

bigdods said:

thepeoplespal said:

I did add a little more RAM a few months ago from Crucial

BSOD is often an hardware fault and I would point to the RAM as the easiest first thing to look at. Try removing one stick , then the other , see what happens (assuming you have 2 sticks of course)

I have found Dells to be highly finicky about what RAM they use. Try something like memtest or just make sure that the memory meets original Dell specs.

If the laptop still has its Dell Diagnostic partition then run the Dell diagnostic (memory test functions in there)

F10 or F12 during Initial boot, it'll say on the screen in the top right hand corner.

If that doesn't show anything up its probably corrupt drivers somewhere.