Blue Screen Of Death

The blue screen of death (also known as BSoD, blue screen error, blue screen, fatal error or bugcheck, and officially known as a stop error is a critical error screen displayed by the Microsoft Windows and ReactOS operating systems. It indicates a system crash, in which the operating system reaches a critical condition where it can no longer operate safely.

Possible issues that can cause a BSoD include hardware failures, an issue with or without a device driver, or unexpected termination of a crucial process or thread

What is the BSOD error?

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.

What causes BSOD?

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.

Troubleshooting BSOD

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.