I had a blue screen of death. Please tell me how to find out what it

[utahraptor]

said. There is nothing in the event viewer. It rebooted before I could read it. Thank you.

 

[smalltime0]

Do you have more than one stick of RAM?
Try only having 1 stick at a time if you do...

Also please post your system specs. Sorta hard to tell you what to do without them.

 

[shadowduck]

Welcome to the pointless Vista Event Viewer!

Without specs you won't get replies.
Describe your system and what you did just prior to the BSOD. Turn off Auto Restart too.

 

[aevm]

How do you turn off Auto Restart? I've just spent 5 minutes trying to find that thing again, no luck

 

[shadowduck]

Right Click my computer--> Properties

Click "Advanced system settings" in Vista or Click on the "Advanced" tab in XP..

Click Settings under "Startup and Recovery"

Uncheck "Automatically Restart" under System Failure

 

[carver_g]

If it's Vista, tap F8 after post (before OS boot) and one of the options will be something like turn off automatic restart after system failure. I don't know if this also works for XP.

 

[carver_g]

Right Click my computer--> Properties

Click "Advanced system settings" in Vista or Click on the "Advanced" tab in XP..

Click Settings under "Startup and Recovery"

Uncheck "Automatically Restart" under System Failure

That's assuming the OS boots all the way. The OP is a little vague about this....

 

[shadowduck]

Yep, i was more answering avem's question at that point then the OP.

 

[utahraptor]

I was just wondering if windows logged the blue screen message and if so where it was located. I don't see why you would need my system specs to tell me that Sorry if I was not clear.

 

[shadowthor]

we need your system specs to see if any of the components could have been a factor.

 

[carver_g]

I was just wondering if windows logged the blue screen message and if so where it was located. I don't see why you would need my system specs to tell me that Sorry if I was not clear.

We don't need your specs for that.

It 'logs' the blue screen in the sense that it does a memory dump. Rather than wade through and decode all that, just disable auto restart as explained above, and then have a look at the blue screen itself. It will give you a filename or a general message. It will also give you several memory strings. I've found that if you google the first two, you will often get a hit that will point you in the right direction.

Good luck.

 

[aevm]

Thanks Shadowduck.

@OP:
I followed those steps last year and it gave me a chance to see the blue screens. The useful part in them was the reference to nv4_disp.dll. I used that with Google and figured out my nVidia drivers were the problem. Your problem might be totally different, of course, but a file name would help a lot.

 

[Allanag]

Hi Utahraptor,

To resolve and troubleshoot BSOD errors, I'd recommend following the steps on the following site: http://bluescreens.homeserver.com/BSOD/Windows_Blog/Entries/2007/9/9_BSOD_Hell_%26_How_to_Fix_it.html

I have personally done this and found it extremely helpful. It helped me with a BSOD error I received and led me right to the culprit.

Allan