News How to Fix a Windows Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)

ginthegit

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I keep getting a BSOD saying the

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

None of the material I searched could explain its frequenct occurance. It never happened in Win8, so I gathered it was a Kernel based problem with allocating the IRQ to system. It was more of a trial and error thing, but figured out it was a Switchable Graphics problem. I though it was the Discrete problem, but turns out it was the Intel one. So once setting the Graphics to AMD for most my apps, I no longer get it.
I was blaming the AMD for a long time, but Intel was the Offender with its graphics.

But no thanks to Intel and Microsoft for both being useless in telling me where abouts the problem lied. I had to figure it out after 3 months of Tweaking and testing.
My Linux partition never had a problem.
 
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InvalidError

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I think the only times I have ever had blue screens on my nearly nine years old 3470 are from running the system without rebooting after updating display drivers: update drivers, continue running the system for a few days, crash, then runs fine for months on end until I reboot for Windows updates or update drivers and get the next one-time driver-related crash. That said, I haven't even seen the driver update crash in about two years, Nvidia must have fixed whatever code nugget was causing it.
 

BillyBuerger

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One of our users had a laptop that was getting BSODs recently. Rand a memory test and it reported a LOT of errors. This is on an "ultrabook" with soldered memory. Goodbye laptop just over one month past it's warranty.
 

InvalidError

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One of our users had a laptop that was getting BSODs recently. Rand a memory test and it reported a LOT of errors. This is on an "ultrabook" with soldered memory. Goodbye laptop just over one month past it's warranty.
If the memory is standard stuff you can get from DigiKey, Arrow, Element, etc., swapping memory chips out isn't horribly hard, you just need replacement chips that match the originals' parameters. Skilled people can remove large BGAs, re-ball them and re-install them using basic SMD rework tools in 10-15min. DRAM chips in small quantities are pretty expensive and skilled labor isn't cheap either. A DRAM replacement job would likely cost $200-300 in labor on top of parts.
 

ginthegit

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One of our users had a laptop that was getting BSODs recently. Rand a memory test and it reported a LOT of errors. This is on an "ultrabook" with soldered memory. Goodbye laptop just over one month past it's warranty.

I'm intrested to know what brand of laptop this was?
 

Colif

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Some BSODs won’t be amenable to quick and easy fixes. When they come up, as they sometimes will, it’s time to ask for help in getting things figured out. I can recommend two terrific sources of troubleshooting assistance available online, each with its own dedicated user forum specifically focused on solving BSOD issues. Likewise, each one stipulates certain requirements on users seeking BSOD help.

Source number one comes from TenForums.com (key disclosures: I am a VIP member of this community; I contribute input and suggestions to its members daily). The TenForums venue is in its BSOD Crashes and Debugging forum. Posting instructions are explicitly provided, along with a collection of BSOD tutorials, including those on WinDBG Basics,and how to Install and Configure WinDBG for BSOD Analysis, Run BSOD Error Troubleshooter in Windows 10, and Enable or Disable BSOD Automatic Restart in Windows 10.
Source number two comes from British PC security and troubleshooting site BleepingComputer.com. They operate a user forum named Windows Crashes and Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) Help and Support. There, you’ll find pinned threads for the following topics (all of which are worth reading through)

nice when Toms isn't mentioned as a source of help in its own articles.

Guess I mustn't do anything around here... goes on a holiday
 

ginthegit

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If the memory is standard stuff you can get from DigiKey, Arrow, Element, etc., swapping memory chips out isn't horribly hard, you just need replacement chips that match the originals' parameters. Skilled people can remove large BGAs, re-ball them and re-install them using basic SMD rework tools in 10-15min. DRAM chips in small quantities are pretty expensive and skilled labor isn't cheap either. A DRAM replacement job would likely cost $200-300 in labor on top of parts.

10-15 mins, really! so are we talking using the machine for this purpose (massive cost) or are we talking stenciling? But 15 mins to resolder a BGA maybe, but how do you get it back onto the board if it is direct soldering requied? The stenciling method only works for Removable BGAs otherwise, we are talking machine only, which is expensive. The replacing of memory modules are throughhole too, so it is a whole different ball game (no pun intended). And this is a fixable problem if you have a good soldering iron, solder sucker and a really steady hand... But 10-15 minutes is a bit of a fantasy for this memory problem.
I have borked a few chips trying this, and I am not a fan of the heated gas method.
 
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InvalidError

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10-15 mins, really! so are we talking using the machine for this purpose (massive cost) or are we talking stenciling?
All you need is a somewhat decent hot-air station and a steady hand. A $300 machine isn't a massive cost for a shop that does a dozen of these a day and charges $200+ per repair excluding parts. The expensive fancy machines are only needed to automate the process so anybody with a working set of eyes, a usable brain and no soldering skills can also do the job even if they have Parkinson disease.
 

ginthegit

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All you need is a somewhat decent hot-air station and a steady hand. A $300 machine isn't a massive cost for a shop that does a dozen of these a day and charges $200+ per repair excluding parts. The expensive fancy machines are only needed to automate the process so anybody with a working set of eyes, a usable brain and no soldering skills can also do the job even if they have Parkinson disease.

Still, your point is moot, you will rarely need to use the machine as it is often cheaper just to buy a new one. It make no economic sense to pay for a 200 cost repair for a chip that is effectively damaged. The heating effect only firthers that. Most Chips are not top range enthusiast and will cost 200 or less any way, so this point is again irrelevant and pointless.
 

InvalidError

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Still, your point is moot, you will rarely need to use the machine as it is often cheaper just to buy a new one. It make no economic sense to pay for a 200 cost repair for a chip that is effectively damaged. The heating effect only firthers that. Most Chips are not top range enthusiast and will cost 200 or less any way, so this point is again irrelevant and pointless.
Yet repair shops that do this sort of work do exist because there are enough people more willing to pay $300 for a repair than $1000+ for a whole new device. Also, with SSDs being built into the motherboard on a growing number of thin-and-light laptops, repairing boards is often the only way to recover data.
 

ginthegit

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Yet repair shops that do this sort of work do exist because there are enough people more willing to pay $300 for a repair than $1000+ for a whole new device. Also, with SSDs being built into the motherboard on a growing number of thin-and-light laptops, repairing boards is often the only way to recover data.

Because some people have more money than sense. Its like many of the students that I taught in the past, told me that they went to the shop to have their 600-1200 costing phone fixed for 500 because that is better than paying the full 600 again.

Sorry mate, sense and logic are two different things, and just because some people are happy to pay it, does not mean that it is worthwhile to do. So yes, you can make the point that people spend hundreds on repairing their phones, thinking it a good deal rather than just buying a new one. But most of the time they admitted that they didnt want to lose their porn collection. So yes I will give you this one! There is a market for Idiots.
 
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BillyBuerger

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I'm intrested to know what brand of laptop this was?
It's a Thinkpad L13 Yoga. I found someone selling one on eBay for $400 that appears to work but has some other damage that sounds unrelated. It's possible I could pick that up and get one good one plus some spare parts. But that's still a lot for an unknown result. I did a couple of quick searches for repair shops but nothing specific came up. If anyone has a specific place that can do it, I might be up for trying it.
 

TechieTwo

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It sounds like Microsoft planned on a lot of BSOD so they incorporated a means to record the crashes instead of fixing the code to prevent BSOD.
 

s997863

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Never in my entire career have I seen an SFC scan fix a thing
I've never seen ANY Windows self-troubleshooting fix ANY issue: network, compatibility, sound/mic, dll errors ... etc. Maybe the old Win98 scandisk fixing file system errors would count?
When you see a BSOD, you give it the one finger salute, right on the power button.