blue screen of death

[belladonna 279]

I keep getting 'memory dumps' on my computer, also called the BSOD. Pretty much everyone with vista has experienced this, so please, tell me why I get this more than 2-3 times a week.

 

The blue screen vanishes too quickly and I can never read the reasons for the crash on time.

 

 

:(

[mod 135640]

Is the error a physical memory dump error? If so this could mean a few things.

 

1) You have some bad memory on your system. Use a good memory test program to scan your memory http://www.memtest86.com/ (Should have a free trial)

 

2) A program may be using too much memory (more than your system can spare). When this happens are you using any specific program? Do you notice the system slowing down first? If so you can CTRL+ALT+DEL and run the Task Manager and see what is using up all your memory.

 

3) Could be the CPU as well (Overheating) make sure your tower has lots of space to breath and blow out any dust from your fans and power supply.

 

It if still does it re-install windows...

[belladonna 279]

Sometimes I leave my computer on for a week, without letting it 'sleep' or 'hibernate'.

 

When I finally allow my computer to rest, when I turn it back on it will crash a few times.

 

Firefox takes up a lot of memory, as does Itunes and explorer.exe (whatever that is... I think that's my taskbar?) But, everyone uses those things...

 

If I have VISTA, can I downgrade to XP? I never have any problems with my other computer, which runs on XP.

[twoblues 258]

Is your Vista system "up to date"? Latest service pack installed (ie. SP2)? There were a lot of great changes in the 2 service packs they released. Really stabilized the system.

 

I wouldn't suggest downgrading to XP, rather an upgrade to Windows 7 if only for the reason that XP support will be ending very soon.

[ivazun 135]

I've had the same problem with mine. Once I updated my audio driver (Realtek) for my acer laptop, the blue screen never appeared again. After my webcam happened to have driver issues as well and started crashing and I just deleted it. So it could just be a driver issue. But then again every computer differs. I recently upgraded to windows 7 and I've had no complaints. Even my headphone port works now when I couldn't even listen with headsets before. My acer inspire laptop is crap.

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[Guest Ou**or**n]

Windows computers are a nightmare. I use one because I have to but random stuff just starts happening. After one round of service updates my computer would always crash after coming out of 'sleep' mode. Now I have to hibernate it instead of sleeping it.

 

So many things can cause a BSOD. You need to think if there is anything that you changed prior to the sudden start of the BSOD's. See if you can then undo it.

 

For my next computer I'm seriously thinking of Mac hardware running Windows. The drivers tend to better which results in fewer random problems such as the ones above.

 

I hope Toyota doesn't use Windows for their vehicle control systems.

[mod 135640]

Here is a question for you. How old is the computer? (This may explain it - older computers that ran stable with windowsXP on 1 gig of ram or less don't have the "horse power" to run vista as it is a memory hog.

 

 

So... Let's see what you have going on in your computer as far as hardware is concerned.

1) Click the START icon (or press your windows key)

2) where it says "Start Search" type "msinfo32.exe" (without the quotes) and hit enter

 

This will tell you all sorts of good stuff...

 

1) What version of Vista do you have? (home basic, home premium, ultimate, etc) the home basic version is HORRIBLE and if that is listed chances are that is your problem)

 

2) What version "Build" (under Version does it say "Service Pack 2") if so your good in this department

 

3) Under SystemType x32 or x64? (32 bit or 64 bit)

 

4) Processor (Intel or AMD or other?) Is it 2Ghz or higher?

 

5) Installed Physical Memory (This is your RAM) does it say at least 2 (Ideally it works best with 4GB but 2GB would be the recommended MINIMUM if this is lower than 2 you need to add more ram and this is most likely your problem

 

6) Total Virtual Memory (This should be twice the size of your installed ram so if you have 2 gigs this should be 4 GB) if not you may have shut off the virtual memory (Page file system) and this would most certainly be your problem as your computer would be running out of space in your RAM and need to do an emergency DUMP of memory to make room causing stuff to crash and panic (Causing BSOD)

 

If none of this helps you should take your computer into a professional but keep in mind that for about 500.00 you can get a pretty fast brand new system (as you don't need keyboard, mouse and monitor as you obviously have those already)

 

Again.. make sure the computer can breath... they get VERY HOT and fill with dust very easily blocking air flow. The computer works the hardest when you boot up windows and pre-load all the crap windows likes to load before it lets you do anything you want to do... It can overheat here easily on boot if the fans are not moving enough air.

 

FYI (In case you are interested in what explorer.exe actually is)

 

explorer.exe is the interface between you and the windows kernal (main core) that controls the computer (the taskbar is part of it so that was a good guess).

 

On a windows machine the "explorer.exe" is what is known as the GUI (meaning graphical user interface or some refer to it as the shell).

 

Without it you just have a prompt > where you would just type commands (This is known as a terminal or prompt)

 

This always needs to run.

[playtoe 201]

I have suffered a similar issue with my computer. It was crashing and giving me the BSOD. In my case I had to open the case up and give it a good dusting. More specifically the video card heat sink has a habit of getting plugged with dust.

 

Once I dusted it out with a can of compressed air it started to run as per normal.

 

Another item to be aware of is a little bug with FireFox. I have noticed on surfing web sites with video links the software does not appear to close properly. As such I have to do a control+alt+del to start the task manager, click processes tab, find the process called "firefox" (you can sort by name by click on "Image Name" or similar [i'm on a server 2008 system]).

 

Once you find the process, and you've closed fire fox application you can select the process and press the "end process" button.

 

According to my research this is a well known bug, with no resolution in site.

[hunknhot 1067]

It might sound silly but take your battery out and put it back in.. could be loose.. could be anything really.. but at least try the easy stuff.

[Ragnaglar 440]

Sometimes it is a failed patch install or other software installed generating a memory leak.

 

There are so many things that it could be.

Posted via Mobile Device

[kih 458]

Vista is a headache. To alleviate, I use a prog called Vista Smoker Pro. Works well and puts control back in your hands.

 

http://www.xp-smoker.com/vistasmokerpro.html

[Ava Foxx 1747]

Same thing happened to me when I was running Vista. Once I switched to Windows 7, everything started running smoothly. It made a HUGE difference.

[mod 135640]

Oddly enough I was checking out a computer the other day with Vista with a memory leak issue caused by what appears to be a firefox bug. Forced firefox to close and dump the memory and the system came back to life (It was using over 1.5gigs of memory and I forced it to shut down than opened it again and it reloaded all the pages it was on... and sure enough 250K was all the memory the pages used). Now the computer was not shut down the night before and all these firefox windows were left open over night so I suspect the leak is very small but over 12+ hours it grew rather large).

 

Outlook 2007 does the same thing on the same computer if you have over 10000 emails in the deleted items folder as well (Big memory leak at that point) ... I had no time to really look into it in great detail however.

 

Outlook always has issues (I hate it but that is what we use - thunderbird is MUCH better and it's free)

 

I am surprised at Firefox doing this but it could be a vista thing as well - Has anyone had anything similar with firefox in windows7... I doubt it and it could be why it was overlooked in vista.

 

Vista's window memory manager devotes the same amount of RAM to every window you have open (even if you had them minimized). This sucks up LOADS of ram when you have multiple browser windows open (Should use tabs not windows in Vista to help prevent this)

 

Windows7 however has a new memory manager that ONLY dedicates it for visible windows. Is why you can actually run Windows7 with 1GB of RAM - not advisable but it can be done where Vista needs a minimum of 2GB (Just because of the memory manager).