Help with Blue Screens of Death - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

01/15/2007 08:51:49 PM · #1

Well, starting Friday my computer started in on random Blue Screens of Death. I've had it for 18 months and never had such an issue before. 2 on Friday, then interestingly none on Saturday and Sunday (spent at home, but using the same profile that I used at work), and then at least 6-10 today.

I had installed a small program on Friday and thought that might have been the culprit, so I uninstalled. Still got the problems. I then went to system restores to before Friday (2 or 3 points). Still had the problem. Currently I am running in safe mode and it has been stable for about an hour (usually I'd get a BSD by now).

So, the question is how to proceed with diagnosis. Should I do the special safe mode where I tell it which drivers to load and then load them a few at a time waiting for issues? Is there a better way to go?

Advice is always appreciated.

asimchoudhri

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

01/15/2007 08:55:46 PM · #2

since the following piece of advice will come up at some point, i might as well offer it: get a mac :-)

edit: i'm too lazy to give any advice other than getting a mac, however the culprit is most likely the software... probably did something that the uninstall doesn't address. check some discussion boards to see if others have had issues with this software

Message edited by author 2007-01-15 21:23:07.

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS

01/15/2007 09:01:54 PM · #3

Step 1: Clean dust from all heat sinks and fans. If using a vacuum, be sure to wrap the nozzle in aluminum foil, and ground the foil. A vacuum cleaner nozzle can generate very high levels of static electricity, enough to damage the system.
Step 2: Remove and reseat processor and memory. Ground yourself immediately before touching the memory or processor!

Fire it back up and see if the problem persists.

MattO

Nikon D4

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II

01/15/2007 09:06:28 PM · #4

Perhaps you could start with some basics. What OS and system are you working on. Seems my crystal ball is broken and I cant tell from here. Kirbics suggestions are pretty good and following those will help. But knowing what your doing when it happens and what your running will help us tremendously.

MattO

option

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D

01/15/2007 09:07:52 PM · #5

I'm moderately computer literate, and fixed my blue screen issues by copying down the error code and googling the specific error in order to find a suggested fix. Didn't take too long to fix the prob once the geekspeak was translated for me...

Spork99

OM System OM-1

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro

01/15/2007 09:08:51 PM · #6

.

Message edited by author 2007-01-15 21:11:05.

Spork99

OM System OM-1

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro

01/15/2007 09:09:40 PM · #7

This will keep you from having a BSOD ever again.

Swing up over head.

Smite offending PC into bits.

Buy a Mac.

Message edited by author 2007-01-15 21:10:39.

chimericvisions

Canon EOS-60D

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II

01/15/2007 09:20:59 PM · #8

Originally posted by Spazmo99:

This will keep you from having a BSOD ever again.
[...]
Buy a Mac.

Yeah, but then what would he do to get rid of the Mac? ;)

(I'm not prejudiced... I hate all OSes equally.)

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro

01/15/2007 09:22:52 PM · #9

First it's a Dell Laptop and not a desktop. I'm running Windows XP professional on a network at work. I have two profiles, one primarily for work and one for home. However, this weekend I was using the work profile at home and not having issues.

The problem is unlikely to be heat related as the problem was not happening with an increasing frequency. In other words, I never gave it a chance to cool down. Second, it seems to work fine in safe mode. While this doesn't totally rule out a temperature problem, I don't think that's high on my list.

Having it work fine in safe mode, to my simple logic, means perhaps I should start looking at drivers. My thinking is to load a few at a time and see if it runs. When I get a BSD, start looking at the most recently loaded drivers. I left it at work this evening because a secondary problem I've been having (possibly related) is when windows is shutting down and "saving my settings" it takes forever to actually shut down. I just decided to leave it there so it could chew on whatever it was doing all night if needed.

Spork99

OM System OM-1

01/15/2007 09:27:28 PM · #10

Originally posted by chimericvisions:

Originally posted by Spazmo99:
This will keep you from having a BSOD ever again.
[...]
Buy a Mac.

Yeah, but then what would he do to get rid of the Mac?

Why would you ever do that?

yanko

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Carl Zeiss 50mm ZE f/1.4 Planar T for Canon

01/15/2007 09:30:35 PM · #11

Damn, Jason you have had shitty luck with electronics lately. It could be software related but just curious have you had any errors recently that you've ignored before you started getting the blue screen? It could also be a failing hard drive as well as what kirbic mentioned. Have you had any bad sector messages lately?

Btw, Dell had issues with many of their laptop batteries overheating. I don't suppose your laptop was on the list with that problem? If so did you ever have it replaced?

Message edited by author 2007-01-15 21:31:31.

01/15/2007 09:31:04 PM · #12

ok, take your Mac love elsewhere. This is for us hardcore people who aren't afraid of a little driver incompatibility...

My father works for Microsoft...
My brother works for Microsoft...
My sister works for Microsoft...
...I can imagine the grief over getting a stylish piece of art deco with a keyboard.

zeuszen

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II

Fujifilm XF 55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 R LM OIS

01/15/2007 09:34:56 PM · #13

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

which takes us right back to the original post... :-)

ursula

Fujifilm X-T2

01/15/2007 09:36:24 PM · #14

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Man, with your luck, maybe you should get a Mac (and a Nikon) ;-)

doctornick

Apple iPhone 13 Pro

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

01/15/2007 09:38:29 PM · #15

Originally posted by zeuszen:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:
ok, take your Mac love elsewhere. This is for us hardcore people who aren't afraid of a little driver incompatibility...

My father works for Microsoft...
My brother works for Microsoft...
My sister works for Microsoft...
...I can imagine the grief over getting a stylish piece of art deco with a keyboard.

which takes us right back to the original post... :-)

Citadel

Nikon D7500

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

01/15/2007 09:39:02 PM · #16

Simple (but not easy solution), is to uninstall all your drivers and then add them back one by one. Likely its a driver issue and something is being cranky. You could also do the reverse and uninstall drivers until things work and then reinstall drivers from there. Oh and as for switching OS's? Linux is fun but nice things like Photoshop don't work well. Any OS that only uses one mouse button (I.e. Mac) seems like a glorified Etch-A-Sketch to me. Photo editing on an Etch-A-Sketch I believe violates both Basic and Advanced Editing techniques however.

Message edited by author 2007-01-15 21:39:23.

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS

01/15/2007 09:40:40 PM · #17

Ahhh, lappy. Yes, I'd agree that if it's running fine in safe mode, that seems to make heat and or bad contacts much less likely as the culprit(s).
The suggestion to search the 'net on the specific error you are getting is a good one. Often, the error will tell you something about the driver or executable that threw the error, and that may lead you to a solution. You also might try disabling everything you can that runs at startup, and then start reenabling one at a time.

Shmee

Nikon D70s

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G IF-ED

01/15/2007 09:53:09 PM · #18

That almost exact thing happend to me a few weeks ago! I thought I had a virus, did a virus scan, well I did have a virus, but after fixing it it kept happening...

Put on new virus scans, still happend, etc etc in an endless loop...

Finally my dad looked up what the blue screen was saying on google, and it said it's probably due with a problem in the memory, and gave him a program to download.

So he downloaded the program, checked my memory, and one of my 512 MG of memory was bad. We took it out, exchanged it at the store, and it works perfectly now.

You might try googling what your blue screen of death says.

hihosilver

Nikon AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 28-70mm f/2.8D IF-ED

01/15/2007 09:55:40 PM · #19

When you get the blue screen, an error number will show in the middle of the screen... it will look like a long alpha numberic set of characters. Post the character set here, or Google it and the error details will clarify the issue for further troubleshooting. A repeatable BSOD is easier to troubleshoot than an intermittent one.

01/15/2007 10:21:17 PM · #20

well, like I said, the laptop is left at work, but I recall that the error was "bad pool call" or something like that.

I googled it but didn't get too far. I seemed to get the sense it was a driver issue.

hihosilver

Nikon AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 28-70mm f/2.8D IF-ED

01/15/2007 10:34:57 PM · #21

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

The alphanumeric character set for the Stop Error will give the most accurate information. When troubleshooting, it's best to narrow down the details as much as possible before making assumptions to "sense" the problem.

Microsoft Knowledgebase gives the following search criteria for "bad pool call" but the actual stop error will be more useful to you:

//support.microsoft.com/search/default.aspx?catalog=LCID%3D1033&spid=global&query=bad+pool+call&adv=

crayon

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

01/15/2007 11:04:02 PM · #22

I think Doc mentioned it worked flawlessly with his "work profile". in that case, i seriously doubt it to be a driver issue. also, we can safely rule out that is has anything to do with hardware problems either. the next best thing may be to re-create his "personal profile" on the machine.

hihosilver

Nikon AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 28-70mm f/2.8D IF-ED

01/15/2007 11:19:18 PM · #23

Just a side note:

I'm sure I'm pointing out the obvious here, and a backup to an external media source (cd/dvd/external HDD) has been already created of any crucial data that has been stored on this machine.

On such an unstable machine, you don't want to risk losing any imporant information (or any beautiful photos!!)

Acronis is an excellent backup software if you need one.

01/15/2007 11:51:19 PM · #24

thanks silver, yes, most of the important stuff is off and I just off loaded all my pictures last week.

Interestingly it seems to be rock stable at home with my work profile. What's up with that? Could it be some piece of hardward at work like the wireless router? no other computers at work seem to be having problems.

BTW, why can't it be a driver problem if one profile works and the other doesn't? Would the two profiles ever have different drivers? My thinking is regarding things like the network printer at work or the wireless router at work. I don't think my home profile would be loading those drivers when it is loaded. But I could be wrong.

Message edited by author 2007-01-15 23:53:32.

Penny Lane

Canon EOS-5D