Blue screen (BSOD)
Crashes with a stop code
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Showing 36 of 36 researched guides in this category.
Blue screen of death (BSOD)
A stop-code crash usually points to a driver conflict, faulty RAM, or overheating, rarely the operating system itself.
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (Stop 0x0000000A)
A kernel-mode process or driver attempted to access a pageable memory address at an elevated interrupt request level (IRQL) that is strictly prohibited.
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (Stop 0x00000050)
The system attempted to reference nonexistent physical memory, typically indicating a failing RAM stick, bad L2/L3 CPU cache, or a corrupt NTFS volume.
SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION (Stop 0x0000003B)
An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of a system service routine, frequently caused by graphics drivers or anticheat software.
KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR (Stop 0x0000007A)
The operating system kernel failed to read requested kernel data from disk storage into physical RAM due to hardware connection failure or bad sectors.
CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED (Stop 0x000000EF)
An essential Windows system process (such as csrss.exe, wininit.exe, or svchost.exe) unexpectedly terminated, forcing an immediate safety kernel panic.
SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED (Stop 0x0000007E)
A system thread generated an exception that the kernel error handler did not catch, predominantly caused by outdated hardware device drivers.
DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION (Stop 0x00000133)
The Deferred Procedure Call (DPC) watchdog timer detected a single DPC routine that ran for excessive duration or spent too long at high IRQL.
DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE (Stop 0x0000009F)
A device driver was unable to transition between active and power-saving states (sleep, hibernation, or resume) within the kernel timeout window.
WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR (Stop 0x00000124)
Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA) detected a physical hardware error that cannot be corrected by CPU or bus architecture.
MEMORY_MANAGEMENT (Stop 0x0000001A)
The Windows memory manager encountered severe corruption in its internal page translation tables or physical memory structures.
KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED (Stop 0x0000001E)
A kernel-mode program generated an exception that the error handler was unable to process, typically due to faulty drivers or memory corruption.
CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT (Stop 0x00000101)
An expected clock interrupt on a secondary processor core was not delivered within the allocated time interval, pointing to CPU core lockup or instability.
KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE (Stop 0x00000139)
The operating system kernel detected corruption of critical kernel structures, indicating a driver or program violated kernel data integrity.
BAD_POOL_HEADER (Stop 0x00000019)
A device driver improperly allocated memory in the kernel pool, resulting in a corrupted memory allocation header.
DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (Stop 0x000000D1)
A named kernel-mode driver attempted to access pageable memory at an improper IRQL level, identifying the driver at fault.
BSOD: DXGKRNL_FATAL_ERROR (0x00000113)
The DirectX Graphics Kernel subsystem detects a fatal violation, typically triggered by an unstable GPU memory overclock, corrupt display driver, or failing PCIe power delivery.
BSOD: VIDEO_SCHEDULER_INTERNAL_ERROR (0x00000119)
The Windows GPU video scheduler detects that a display driver timed out while executing a graphics command and could not be recovered via Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR).
BSOD: PFN_LIST_CORRUPT (0x0000004E)
The Page Frame Number (PFN) list, an internal operating system structure used to map physical memory addresses, became corrupted due to faulty RAM chips or disk I/O driver errors.
BSOD: BAD_OBJECT_HEADER (0x00000189)
The Windows kernel executive found that an internal object header was corrupted, almost always caused by a misbehaved third-party driver overwriting kernel memory pools.
BSOD: KERNEL_MODE_HEAP_CORRUPTION (0x0000013A)
A kernel-mode driver corrupted the operating system kernel heap memory manager, commonly triggered by kernel-level gaming anti-cheat engines or outdated network filter drivers.
BSOD: HYPERVISOR_ERROR (0x00020001)
The Windows Hyper-V hypervisor encountered an unrecoverable exception, typically caused by conflicting third-party virtualization software (VirtualBox, VMware) or unstable CPU voltage.
BSOD: DRIVER_VERIFIER_DETECTED_VIOLATION (0x000000C4)
Windows Driver Verifier caught an active device driver performing an illegal operation, such as accessing paged memory at elevated IRQL or freeing already-released memory.
BSOD: SYSTEM_PTE_MISUSE (0x000000DA)
A driver attempted an illegal operation against Page Table Entries (PTEs) or conflicting memory protection flags, often triggered by outdated security software or firmware bugs.
WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR (0x00000124) hardware CPU or PCIe crash
Hardware error detected by Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA) caused by unstable CPU voltage, bad undervolt, or PCIe fault.
KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE (0x00000139) anti-cheat or memory crash
Windows kernel integrity check failed, typically caused by kernel-level anti-cheat drivers (Vanguard, BattlEye, EAC) or faulty RAM.
CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED (0x000000EF) NVMe SSD dropping or Windows system crash
Essential Windows background process terminated abruptly, often caused by an M.2 NVMe SSD suddenly dropping off the PCIe bus.
SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED (0x0000007E) driver crash on boot
System thread generated an unhandled exception, pointing directly to a specific third-party .sys driver file on the blue screen.
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (0x00000050) invalid memory address crash
Invalid system memory referenced, usually caused by defective RAM hardware, bad memory timings, or corrupted NTFS volume.
DRIVER_VERIFIER_DETECTED_VIOLATION (0x000000C4) Windows Driver Verifier boot loop
PC is stuck in an infinite blue screen restart loop after running Windows Driver Verifier tool (verifier.exe).
UNEXPECTED_STORE_EXCEPTION (Stop 0x00000154) Storage Timeout Triage
Troubleshoot UNEXPECTED_STORE_EXCEPTION stop code caused by NVMe SSD communication dropouts, controller timeouts, and corrupted kernel memory stores.
CRITICAL_STRUCTURE_CORRUPTION (Stop 0x00000109) PatchGuard Crash Triage
Diagnose CRITICAL_STRUCTURE_CORRUPTION bugchecks triggered by Windows Kernel PatchGuard detecting unauthorized memory modification or RAM hardware parity faults.
KERNEL_AUTO_BOOST_LOCK_ACQUISITION_WITH_RAISED_IRQL (0x192) Triage
Resolve KERNEL_AUTO_BOOST_LOCK_ACQUISITION_WITH_RAISED_IRQL (Stop 0x192) crashes caused by driver lock deadlocks during elevated IRQL processor states.
ATTEMPTED_WRITE_TO_READONLY_MEMORY (Stop 0x000000BE) Driver Violation Triage
Diagnose ATTEMPTED_WRITE_TO_READONLY_MEMORY bugchecks where a kernel-mode device driver attempts to overwrite write-protected memory segments.
MEMORY_MANAGEMENT (0x1A) Sub-Parameter Triage and TestMem5 TM5 Testing
Decode MEMORY_MANAGEMENT (0x0000001A) bugcheck sub-parameters (such as 0x41792 Page Table Entry corruption) and stress test with TestMem5 Anta777 profiles.
Driver Verifier Configuration (0xC4) and WinRE Boot Loop Recovery
Safely configure Windows Driver Verifier to catch misbehaving kernel drivers and recover from DRIVER_VERIFIER_DETECTED_VIOLATION boot loops via WinRE.