Have you ever gotten that dreaded “Blue Screen” on your computer with all the error codes on it? It usually says something like “STOP, a problem has been detected and Windows has shutdown to prevent damage to your computer.” It can be quite alarming if you don’t understand what may be going on. Let’s look at what the blue screen is, what causes it and some ways to troubleshoot the problem.

First of all, the blue screen is what Microsoft calls a “STOP Error”. The techies affectionately (not really) call it the “Blue Screen of Death” or BSOD for short. Why use the word death? That word is probably used because of the finality of the error. There is nothing to do after a BSOD except reboot and hope it doesn’t happen again, which it usually does. Blue obviously describes the color of the screen when that error appears. Blue Screens have been around for a number of years dating back to the days of the early Windows versions, possibly before Windows 3.0, in fact. According to Microsoft, Blue Screens are usually caused by poorly written device drivers or hardware problems. Drivers are pieces of software that make hardware components like motherboards, video cards, networks cards, etc to work. If it is a hardware problem rather than a driver problem, it could be that a piece of hardware is conflicting with another hardware component or your Operating System.

What can cause a BSOD? Well, there are a few things. First of all, have you added any new hardware to your PC? If so, try replacing that piece of hardware to see if the BSOD goes away. Are your drivers up to date? Usually Windows Updates can check for this, but if you are not sure, you can check your driver versions on your computer and compare them to the latest drivers available on that hardware manufacturer’s website to see if you have the latest and greatest drivers. The Blue Screen error codes themselves can give you a clue regarding what is causing the problem. For example, if you receive a STOP error saying, NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM, then it is usually a problem with disk corruption or a problem related to reading and writing data to your disk. You would probably need to run a “CHKDSK” on your computer. You can search out that particular error on the Internet, assuming you can get to another computer to lookup the error.

Here are a few things that I recommend doing if you get a BSOD. First of all, document the error code (usually looks like 0x00000024) with a message at the end like the one listed above (NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM). Reboot the machine and see if the problem persists. If it does, ask yourself if any hardware has been added recently. If it has, check to make sure the hardware is not the issue. The next thing to ask yourself is what other changes have been made to the computer. For example, have you installed any new software or installed some driver or Windows Updates? If that doesn’t help, research the error code on the Internet to give you a clue as to what the problem may be related to. If you can narrow down the problem to a particular piece of hardware, then you can update the drivers for that device to see if it resolves the problem. Other things you could try are updating windows, resetting your BIOS settings back to factory default or upgrading your BIOS. Viruses can sometimes cause a Blue Screen, although not usually, but if you suspect a virus, then by all means see if you can put your hard drive in another machine or use a Hard Drive/USB adapter and scan it with an up to date Anti-Virus program and Malware Checker. Of course, if all else fails, take it to a professional and have them fix it.