Steps to begin the diagnosis of BSOD errors aka Blue Screen of Death



To discover the type of Errors the machine has encountered recently, use Event Viewer.

1. Go to Start - Run type eventvwr.msc then Press Enter.
2. When the Event Viewer opens, there will be two panes.
   The left pane is for event categories (Application, Security, and System).
   The right pane is for event messages (Information, Warning, and Error). (We want to find errors.)
3. Left-click the Application category in the left pane and check for any error messages in the right pane.
   You want to find the one(s) that occurred at the same time your system encountered the problem you have posted about.
4. Repeat the previous step for each category, or until you find an appropriate error to investigate.
5. Double-click the error message to bring up the information.
6. Click the third button on the right side of the information window (copies information)
7. Paste the information here

Also turn off the auto restart function:

How to turn off Auto Restart in XP

Right click on My Computer

Select Properties

Select the Advanced tab then the Startup & Recovery section

Select the Settings button

Uncheck "Automatically restart" and then click Apply


This will give you a Blue Screen with the error message rather than restarting the computer.

Write down the error detail then use the reset button on the computer to restart.

Basic information about these errors can be found here:

Troubleshooting Windows STOP Messages




Then if your Blue Screen is showing a Memory Dump do the following:


1) Download and install the

Debugging Tools from Microsoft

All you need do is download and install this. Make no attempt to start or run it.

2) Then download and install: Who Crashed

Run it and post back your results.

note in Vista or Win 7 you need to RUN as Administrator.