quickstart
DOCTOR
THIS MONTH THE DOCTOR TACKLES...
> Fix STOP erro
> Faster video encod
> Is Hasleo crap?
Blue screen of death
I recently booted into Windows, only to encounter the dreaded blue screen of death. On rebooting, the same error popped up again—something about a page fault in a non-paged error. Windows booted to a recovery screen, but I tried one last restart, and this time Windows loaded with no problems. However, Malwarebytes reported that its ransomware protection component had been switched off. Could the two be related, and should I reenable it?
—Robert
M
Hagan
THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: You can find out more about any blue screen of death error with the help of a tool called WhoCrashed. Download and install the free Home edition from www.resplendence. com/whocrashed to access past logs that provide you with detailed analysis of the STOP error in question. After installing, open the app and click Analyze to generate the report, then scroll to read a summary of its findings.
In Robert’s case, the description confirmed that “invalid system memory has been referenced”. Among the possible culprits was the telling line, “antivirus software can also trigger this error, as can a corrupted NTFS volume”. However, although it’s tempting to draw a line under this and assume that Malwarebytes was the culprit, it always pays to check out other possible reasons, including drive errors and faulty or overheating RAM/VRAM.
Although Robert only switched on his PC for the first time that morning, his first resort was to check system temperatures using a tool like HWMonitor (www. cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html), which confirmed no major spikes in temperature that might have indicated cooling problems. Next, he ran a disk check on his system drive (right-click the drive in File Explorer, select Properties > Tools tab. Click Check followed by ‘Scan drive’). Again, no problems were found.