Blue Screen of Death...aka... BSoD

[Ray S ECenFL]

One of my computers started having one of its Microsoft Hissy Fits yesterday. About every hour or so the Blue Screen of Death would pop up. Each time it had a different STOP error. Nice. You know, the Memory Dump message indicating you have a major problem, but the instructions of why this happend is about as clear as Mud.

I went through the normal, routines of looking for spyware, Trojans, viruses, registry errors, on and on. I even shut down everything on the start menu just in case there was a program conflict. Nothing helped.

Even went as far as to try to look up one of the error messages on line. Lot of useless information is about all I found.

I had been running Reg Cure to help keep my registry up to speed, but the program had expired and I did not want to renew until I had some time to do some research into programs that might be better than the one I was using. Well, now is the time to do that I guess. LOL


I stumbled on a program called Tune Up Utilities 2009 and it had some good reviews. It is free to try and you get to use most of the programs features. If you like it, after using it, you can buy it.


Well, I used it and so far no more blue screen of death. It looks like this utility program has done the trick.

Just passing on the info for any of you who may be interested.

Ray S

 

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[Smee]

Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Ray S ECenFL]

Well, it looks like the BSod has returned. My computer was stable for a few days but the problem has resurfaced.

Curse you, Microsoft. LOL

Lots of information concerning the BSoD and the error message, most of it speculation. The messasge concerns a Bad Pool Header. Many guesses as to what causes it. Apparently this particular error is very common and hard to fix.

Just thought I would update you all. The magic program Tuneup Utilities 2009, did not fix the problem like I thought.

Happy Hunting

Ray S

 

[godisnum1]

2 more days to download Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 for free... they stop downloads on August 20th. The copy is good until next Summer... and is free.
Upgrading might help the blue screen go away.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/download.aspx

Bran <><

 

[Noodle]

Check your unit for heat. Have found if I leave mine on too long, it overheats, shuts down, and gives me mystery messages. Told my hubby (tech), who "blew it out" with a vacuum. Problem solved. Must do it every now and then, though, to cancel the heat buildup inside.

 

[Timberwolf]

Ray,

Many of the PC's that I repair have Regcure on them. I remove it.

Here are the three programs that I use the most: Avast Anti-virus, Malwarebytes Anti-malware, and SuperAntispyware.
They can all be downloaded from the net and they are free. After you install each program, be sure and download the updates for each one. Avast will want to scan your drive after you reboot, be sure and say yes to this. While Avast is scanning your drive it might find a virus. It will ask you to choose an option. Choose option 2 for "delete all".

After Avast is finished scanning and your Desktop is up, goto Control Panel and turn off "System Restore".
Now reboot your PC and soon as it begins rebooting, start tapping the "F8" key. If you have done it right, you will get a Boot Menu.
If not, start over and try again. At the Boot Menu choose Safe Mode with Networking. You will get a message that tells you that you are in Safe Mode. There will be an option for you to click yes or no...click yes. When your Desktop comes up, run the three new programs.

If you don't run these in Safe Mode, you will not be able to properly clean your PC.

Allow the programs to delete/remove all spyware, malware and viri that they find.
When finished, reboot back into normal Windows and turn your System Restore back on.

If you continue to have the BSOD, I would suspect that you may have a Ram problem.
Try swapping the Ram and see if that takes care of your problem.

Timberwolf

 

[Ray S ECenFL]

Hi TW,

I am currently using two of the three mentioned programs. Avast and Malwarebytes. I also have tweaknow reg cleaner and CCleaner.

The error I am getting with the BSod indicates a Bad Pool Header. That could be a whole host of things but I suspect it may be a bad driver or ram problem. I have found a possible problem listed under the Multimedia Audio Controller under the Device Manager. I have currently disabled it for the time being.

If the BSod returns, I will replace the Ram.

Thanks for the advice, it is very much appreciated.

Ray S ECenFL

 

[Farmercal]

2 more days to download Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 for free... they stop downloads on August 20th. The copy is good until next Summer... and is free.
Upgrading might help the blue screen go away.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/download.aspx

Bran <><

Bran, while it is good until June of 2010, in March of 2010 your computer will restart every 2 hours until you change operating systems. My son has the beta version of 7 (I will install the RC when I get back from vacation), and every two hours his computer just restarts. This can become very annoying. It is a good operating system though and I am contemplating buying a copy because I do like it a lot.

 

[Timberwolf]

Ray,

You are welcome.
I am sorry that I could not be more help.
The Superantispyware program will find stuff that the other programs will miss.
Be carefull though....when you Google it, there are several programs spelled nearly the same.
The one you want will look like this:


TW

 

[mtntrekr2]

We were suffering the same fate with the blue screen until I had someone look at our system and all he did was update the Bios.
He went into the Dell downloads for our comp. and got the latest version for free and installed it.
No blue screen since.

Joe

 

[godisnum1]

Bran, while it is good until June of 2010, in March of 2010 your computer will restart every 2 hours until you change operating systems. My son has the beta version of 7 (I will install the RC when I get back from vacation), and every two hours his computer just restarts. This can become very annoying. It is a good operating system though and I am contemplating buying a copy because I do like it a lot.

You're right about that. I forgot about the restarting thing. I actually plan to either backup my drive before, and then revert back to Vista... or just purchase a copy of 7 right after the Christmas season. Thanks for the reminder though, I did forget.

Bran <><

 

[sweetemo22jd]

Thanks for your post. The Blue Screen of Death is indeed bad news for all computer users. Tune Up Utilities 2009 has worked for you, so I presume that it is really good. RegCure is also another good registry cleaner and it offers a free trial version. But what is better, Tune Up Utilities 2009 or RegCure? I hope you can elaborate their differences so that other computer users will know which one to choose for blue screen repair.

 

[Digger]

BSoD is most likely hardware failure than software.

Open it up and look at the big capacitors near the CPU and memory. Look at the top for swelling or leaking brown junk. Bad capacitors has been the major cause of my BSoD problems. If the top of the capacitor(s) is not flat it is bad and will only get worse until the PC dies altogether.

 

[Ray S S]

We have a dumb problem, too, Tues. the 22nd I was on here about 7:33 PM and decided to go back to our email
and forward a particular one and was writing about a 2-line message to go with it and it all vanished an left me on
the main email page. So I tried again and the same thing happened again. Then after another try a pop-up came
up and showed our user name and about 6 or 7 black dots for the password and said that it rejected our password.
It seemed awful strange that would happen after using it for so long. I x'ed out of it and tried once again to forward
the email when the pop-up came back and the dots reached all the way across the line. We have not had any come in
since 5:28 that night and there should be a bunch of them since then. When calling Comcast, they say that they have
such a bunch of incoming calls that they want us to call back later. I just called again just before reading this thread
but now I'm going to keep bugging them until I can get through. They must be having a lot of problems right now
Our server is Outlook Express and I heard the other day that they are going to stop but I don't know when.Trying
to get through to them is about enough to drive you nuts with all the numbers to punch for so many different
titles. Karen will be gone till after lunch and I'm going to get on the phone and keep trying and hopefully I'll
get through.
Another Ray

 

[allen]

I hate viruses !!!

 

[Ray S S]

Well, I just got through to comcast and they set up a new password and right away the emails started
pouring in. Now we have a ton of new ones to go through. LOL.

I know what I'll be doing for a while now.

Ray

P. S. Ray S, I hope your's keeps on working good for you.

 

[Digger]

Here is a link to the official Bad Caps site. On the right you can see some examples. The story of how Bad Caps came about is really interesting if you have time to read it. I've had over 30 some PC's with Bad Caps in the last 3 years. I've learned to look for them first when I have a PC acting strange.

http://www.badcaps.net/pages.php?vid=5

 

[Ray S ECenFL]

I know this is a little late, since the post was first made in 2009.

The computer I was having the BSOD on DIED. Yes, just up and DIED. Reason is unknow. I suspect mother board failure or CPU failure. Since the MB is no longr made I decided to junk the whole thing and get another one.

Those of you who suggested a hareware failure, were correct. In my particular case, that was the reason for the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death).

I went to Cyberpower and had them build me a new rig. All is well in cyber land, at the moment.


Ray S ECenFL