Blue Screen of Death!

[Ironman5000]

I am having an issue with my laptop crashing every so often which bring up a "crash dump" blue screen.

 

After a bit of research it's apparently a common problem and the advice I followed so far has not worked so I thought maybe someone here with a bit of technical know-how would assist me?

 

I have found a lot of talk about faulty or conflicting drivers and so far I tried restoring the system to the last known configuration which didn't work and a full system scan using my anti-virus software (Norton) which didn't find anything. I've heard other possibilities about RAM errors and other hardware issues but at this time I don't know what to do about that.

 

I'm now attempting a disc error check, or "Chkdsk" to see if that will solve anything :ohdear:

 

Basic stats are,

 

It's an Acer laptop, OS Windows 7 64 bit

AMD AthalonII X2 processor

ATI mobility Radeon HD 4250

 

Any help would be great, I have no official IT training and anything I know about computers was mostly acquired by myself so I recon most of you might be able to shine some light on the subject :tongue:

[Illiad86]

This should be in Hardware and Software Discussion, I'm sure a moderator will move it over there :)

 

Did you catch what the BSOD was? The actual error like IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, MEMORY_MANAGEMENT or something to that extent? You can see the actual error and where it came from with Blue Screen Viewer. Install that and post up what it says :)

 

Did you update any drivers recently? ATIs drivers have been finicky lately. Was getting BSODs with about every driver release since 12.1. 12.8 seems to be stable, haven't gotten a BSOD since I installed them.

 

RAM errors can be checked with memtest. Read up on the instructions and you can use that to test your RAM.

 

 

Good luck haha, I always dread when I see that nasty screen come up :P

Edited September 26, 2012 by Illiad86

[MalachiDelacot]

Carah gets The Blue Screen of Death every few days. She ran memtest, and it seems we might need to get some new ram. I figure the 50$ we'll spend will well be worth it.

[Ironman5000]

I will have a look at this Bluescreen Viewer if this the disk error check fails to fix anything, that seems like my best option thanks for the link Illiad :thumbsup:

 

I can't remember if I have updated the drivers for it lately but I will try the stable version asap eitherway and go from there.

 

 

@Malachi Delacot: That's unnerving, I recently had to pay £85 for a replacement hard drive with installation because mine had become corrupted and I shouldn't have to pay more. I would have thought they would have done some basic diagnostics or something to check for the cause...bunch of cowboys!

Edited September 26, 2012 by Ironman5000

[Illiad86]

No probs. I love that little program :)

 

Ugh, that's a lot of money. I don't trust shop guys...they always seem to be looking for a quick buck :P You can also test your HDD with Seatools if you have a Seagate/Maxtor HDD or Data LifeGuard Diagnostics if you have a Western Digital HDD. Chkdsk normally finds the issues though.

Edited September 26, 2012 by Illiad86

[Ironman5000]

Thanks I will have to bookmark this topic for any further troubleshooting I might need to do :thumbsup:

 

So far I updated my drivers and no problems so far it's staying on longer than it has in the last few days without incident (fingers crossed). I won't mess about with these other programs unless I absolutely have to because i'm afraid I might mess something up :tongue:

 

Yeah it's a shame I have to rely on shops to do any sort of maintenance, they didn't look vaguely interested about what actually caused my system to crash even though I asked they just pretty much shrugged their shoulders. Well hopefully I have gotten to the root of the cause for now and maybe I can do my own fixes with these tools, thanks for your help :thumbsup:

[Illiad86]

No probs, feel free to PM me if you need anymore help. If I'm stumped, post in Hardware and Software next time, lots of folks on there are very helpful :)