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Find Out What's Been Causing Your PC to Crash
Windows is generally quite tolerant of badly behaved programs but sometimes a program (or especially a device driver) causes a problem so severe that Windows gives up entirely, and you're left with nothing but a Blue Screen of Death.
Before Windows stops responding, it normally creates what's called a Minidump file. Within this file are a lot of clues as to what caused the problem. However, understanding the file is not easy.
And that's where a great freeware utility called Nirsoft Bluescreen View comes in. It's a tiny download (123 KB), compatible with all versions of Windows from XP upwards, which automatically analyses all your minidump files to help you track down the cause of crashes.
For each crash on file, BlueScreenView displays the minidump filename, the date/time of the crash, the basic crash information displayed in the blue screen (Bug Check Code and 4 parameters), and the details of the driver or module that possibly caused the crash (filename, product name, file description, and file version).
For each crash displayed in the upper pane, you can view the details of the device drivers loaded during the crash in the lower pane. BlueScreenView also mark the drivers that their addresses found in the crash stack, so you can easily locate the suspected drivers that possibly caused the crash.
If your system has been unstable recently and you're having problems finding out why, this excellent program should help.
Download BlueScreen view from http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html.
My thanks to user Dave Burnett, who filled in the form at http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/submit-product-review.htm to tell me about this hot find. If there's something you'd like to tell me about, why not do the same? I'd love to hear from you.
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Comments
Nice utility. Thanks so much for all great efforts. For my current BSOD case, this utility did not find the correct answer. It is interesting and easy to use and does sometimes find the right answer. Importantly for me, it got me going looking for a better answer and I discovered WinDBG. This does lots more then a quick look at dump files, but it does a nice job at that too. If you're looking to enhance your BSOD skills, WinDBG is well worth exercise your Google-foo.
Thanks again to Gizmo and crew for putting me on the path.
(WinDBG is intended for programmers and may be tough for non-techies to use)
I'm a rookie needing lot's of prayer & knowledge thankz 4 all th info!
I think BlueScreenView is OK.
I checked from Virus Total & only (1/41) s suspicious found from China software "Jianqmin".
http://www.virustotal.com/zh-tw/analisis/d4de29a88e83ea2edf7b410b965c097fc911e87cc555de99be2ff92ab915d8a7-1275056564
FCCMA
(cont.) - i keep looking at that site and it just seems impossible that one person has written all of these (albeit mostly small) programs by himself and he claims on the "About" page that its not even his full-time job...he must be a damn genius, i've never seen any other freeware site that has anywhere near the amount of programs...
damn - Nirsoft has about 100 freeware apps now on their site, unbelieveable...most of the GUI's are kind of primitive but the programs themselves kick ass...and its just 1 person...
simple answer.. windows is causing my computer to crash.. since moving to linux i have not had any issues
hi, interesting article, but i tried entering the site using the link provided. I am using zone alarm force field, and it shows a red warning to the site and lists it as dangerous.
The site is perfectly fine, and is a source of many such wonderful programs like the one listed above.
that maybe so, but unfortunately i can not access it.. tried several times. but not willing go to drastic measures to find another problem on my pc.. zonealarm has been a good friend in the past, and ill trust its recommendation on this site.. but for all you are able to use the programs on that page, i wish you the best and enjoy them.
I believe you are talking about the nirsoft site. If yes, then Zonealarm is in the wrong here. Still, its your choice.
28/May/2010 10:30
My PC is programmed to **not** show a BSOD...and my PC rarely crashes (famous last words). Will BlueScreenView show the cause of a crash even if the crash do not result in a blue screen of death?
Interesting. Too bad my Windows 7 64-bit was set to do kernel dumps by default, not mini dumps.
I´d like to share a mailconversation with Nir:
"Hi!
I´m a Swedish IT tech.
I think your free BlueScreenView is a fabulously simple tool to use, viewing dmp-files.
I use it often to help try finding out what is causing the BSOD.
It works very well when the dmp-file starts with an minixxxx.dmp.
But if the dmp is called user.dmp nothing shows up in BlueScreenView.
Do you have a comment on why that is?"
And here´s his reply:
"Hello,
Currently, BlueScreenView only supports Minidump files, it doesn't support other types of dump files. It's possible that support for dump files that are not Minidump will be added in future versions.
Nir."
Have had a few of these in the past, this looks like a good programe to have in your rescue kit.
Thanks for this Dave.
Nice program and useful thanks to developer
Anything NirSoft develops is great. Anything.
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