I wrote about random blue screen error message in my previous post when the random blue screen error message appear when one of my friend overclocked his processor. Another main factor that can cause random blue screen error message would be a faulty Random Access Memory (RAM) module. Even though the percentage of a RAM module became faulty is low, it does happen once in a while.

Most of motherboard nowadays integrate SPD (Serial Presence Detect) for RAM module speed setting in their motherboard, it is advisable to set the RAM module frequency to your default RAM module.

Serial Presence Detect (SPD) refers to a standardized way to automatically access information about a RAM module. It is the serial version of Parallel Presence Detect (PPD).

Sometimes SPD (Serial Presence Detect) can misconfigured the appropriate value for your RAM module, thus causing random blue screen error message. Usually, random blue screen error message caused by faulty RAM will appear when your Windows load, or during Windows operation.

If you encounter random blue screen error message after installing a new RAM module, make sure you do a quick check on your system BIOS on the RAM module setting. Random blue screen error message caused by faulty RAM module will disappear after the faulty RAM module is changed, or the RAM module setting are reset back to default.

See also:

• Blue screen with random error messages (1)
• Diagnosing Microsoft Windows XP blue screen (1)
• Blue screen when installing Microsoft Windows XP (1)
• Blue Screen of death after Microsoft Windows XP loading screen (2)

It is easy to diagnose, troubleshoot and repair blue screen error message if the same blue screen error message occure everytime the computer crash. But what if you get random blue screen error messages everytime the computer crash?

That’s what happened to my friend just now, when he call me through the phone.

The first thing I ask him is what was the last he thing he do to his windows before the random blue screen error messages occur evertime his computer crash. He told me he didn’t install anything before the random blue screen error messages appear. Then I ask him if he did anything with his hardware. He told me he add a new RAM module to his computer before the random blue error messages appear.

I told him to remove the new RAM module, and see if it solved the problem.

15 minutes later he call me again and told me the random blue screen messages still appear. I ask him again, besides adding the new RAM module, is there anything else that he did with his hardware before the random blue screen error messages appear everytime his computer crash that he forget to told me about. Suddenly he remember he overclocked his processor.

He overclocked his Intel Celeron 2.0Ghz to a whopping 2.6Ghz!

Overclocking is changing your processor speed to a higher value to squeeze out more performance from your processor. This technique can also be applied to RAM, graphic card, or anything that can be overclock

I told him to downclock it back to 2.0Ghz, install the new RAM module back, start the computer, wait and see if the random blue screen error messages everytime the computer crashes still occur. He doesn’t call me till now, and it has been 3 hours. I guess the random blue screen error messages problem have been solved.

See also:

• Random blue screen error message cause by faulty RAM (6)
• Diagnosing Microsoft Windows XP blue screen (1)
• Blue screen when installing Microsoft Windows XP (1)
• Blue Screen of death after Microsoft Windows XP loading screen (2)

A friend call me last night asking me why his computer is giving him blue screens while he is installing a fresh install of Microsoft Windows XP.

I ask him which part of the installation process is giving him the blue screens. He told me the blue screens appear when Microsoft Windows XP are loading the files after finish copying the files from the CD during the first installation step before the installation process self restart to boot into the Graphical User Interface of the installation process.

Usually when blue screens occured during this part of Microsoft Windows XP installation process are due to several factors:

1. Faulty RAM memory module.
2. Faulty Microsoft Windows XP installation CD, or Optical media problems.
3. Faulty motherboard.

I told him try to replace another RAM memory module.

Luckily by replacing a new RAM memory module on his computer, the Microsoft Windows XP installation went smoothly.

Blue screens due to faulty RAM memory module happen because the Microsoft Windows installation files got corrupted as the installation files are copied to RAM memory module during the first stage of Microsoft Windows XP installation process.

See also:

• Diagnosing Microsoft Windows XP blue screen (1)
• The basic tips for computer troubleshooting and repair. (0)
• Why Computers Crash (0)
• Random blue screen error message cause by faulty RAM (6)
• Blue screen with random error messages (1)

Microsoft Windows Operating system are synonym with the term blue screen of death , or just blue screens. Most technician will prompt the user to format or reinstall microsoft windows xp when the user bring the computer for computer repair.

Sometimes blue screens will occur when computer crashes , and Microsoft Windows will self restart after blue screen appearing for some seconds. This is due to the default settings of Microsoft Windows operating system.

To diagnose blue screen, you must change the default setting of Microsoft Windows XP operating system in System Properties.

1. Right click on My Computer icon on the desktop, and click “Properties”.
2. Choose “Advanced” tab
3. Click on “Settings” in the “Startup and Recovery” section.
4. Go to “System Failure” section , and tick “Write an event to the system log” , untick “Send an administrative alert” , untick “Automatically restart.
5. Click OK.

Now Microsoft Windows XP will write a dump file containing information on blue screens and will not self restart itself everytime blue screens occured during computer crashes.

Everytime blue screens occur, it will display some information on error occured. This informatios are crucial when troubleshooting and computer repair. Most of the blue screens will display error code. You can use this error for a search on the net for troubleshooting and computer repair process.

For example, a blue screens display the error nv4.sys . A quick search on the will show that nv4.sys is a component of Nvidia driver file, so automatically you know that the blue screens is caused by incompatible nvidia driver which is causing a conflict with the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Most of the time, an update of the driver will solved the blue screens problem. This can be apply to most of Microsoft Windows XP blue screens error.

See also:

• Blue screen when installing Microsoft Windows XP (1)
• Why Computers Crash (0)
• The basic tips for computer troubleshooting and repair. (0)
• Random blue screen error message cause by faulty RAM (6)
• Blue screen with random error messages (1)

A desktop computer came in just now, and the owner complaint about his Microsoft Windows XP giving blue screen of death right after the Windows XP loading screen.

I boot the computer, and right after the Windows XP loading screen, a blue screen of death appear for 2 seconds, and the computer restart itself.

For those of you who don’t know what blue screen of death ( BSOD ) is, it is the blue screen synonymous with Microsoft Operating Systems variant. It will came out everytime your Microsoft Windows Operating system detect a serious and unrecoverable error(s).

The computer restart itself as the setting the Microsoft Windows XP environment have been set to “Automatically Restart” in the event of a system failure , which will be giving the Microsoft Windows XP blue screen of death.

You can change this in:

1. Control Panel > System
2. “Advanced” Tab
3. “Startup and Recovery” >”Settings”
4. Untick “Automatically Restart”
5. Click “OK” to save changes.

The advantage of disabling this feature is that you can jot down the blue screen of death messages for diagnosing and troubleshooting purposes.

Now back to the desktop computer.

The first thing I do after the computer restart itself, is to login Microsoft Windows XP into “Safe Mode” function. You can do this by entering F8 key right after the CMOS loading screen, and before the Microsoft Windows XP loading screen. Simply you can push the F8 repeteadly untill the safe mode menu appear.

Unfortunately even after I choose to login into Safe Mode, the safe mode loading screen hang during the loading stage.

For me, when encountering this kind of problem, where Microsoft Windows XP gave Blue Screen of death after Windows loading, and loading info Safe Mode will failed, I will try to boot into Microsoft Windows XP repair mode using the Windows XP CD.

The steps are:

1. Boot your computer using Microsoft Windows XP CD. (make sure to set your first boot device to CD-ROM in your computer CMOS/BIOS configuration).
2. Choose “R” or repair when prompted.
3. Choose your default Windows XP Installation.
4. At the command prompt, type
5. chkdsk /R
6. Wait for the checkdisk to finish.
7. type “fixboot”
8. “Y” when prompted
9. type “fixmbr”
10. “Y” when prompted.
11. type “exit” to restart.

After doing the steps above, and restarting the computer, the system boot normally and no more Blue Screen of death error.

Do take note that the method above won’t work with every Blue Screen of death error. In this case, after checking the Windows XP dump files, I found out the error was “Unmountable boot volume” , thus this error was easily fixed by running checkdisk in Microsoft Windows XP repair mode.

See also:

• Windows XP got extended again (1)
• Windows XP blackout screen with no icons (3)
• Windows XP blackout screen face heavy criticism in China (1)
• Using BBlean as an alternative shell for Microsoft Windows XP (2)
• Remove username from Windows XP start menu (0)