# The dreaded Bluescreen



## NaphtaliPress (Feb 23, 2007)

I had something weird happen just now. My PC gave me a bluescreen with no warning. The screen said the PC encountered some kind of hardware problem , and said if this was the first time to see such a thing to reboot, or if not, to follow some instructions. It was the first time but I couldn't do a keyboard reboot, and so tried the on off button, at which point the fan or something rev'd up and got way louder than it normally runs. So I unpluged from the power; after plugging back in I hit the on button and the PC booted as normal. Seems to be working fine. I did a backup real quick since it'd been a few days. I've got a Dell sytem running XP. Any one ever see anything like this?


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## VictorBravo (Feb 23, 2007)

Yes, I've seen this on an older Sony laptop. It did that once and lasted a year before it died. I don't know what it means, but it's good that you backup.


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## Semper Fidelis (Feb 23, 2007)

It's possible your CPU overheated. You might want to open the case and see if it's full of dust.


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## NaphtaliPress (Feb 23, 2007)

SemperFideles said:


> It's possible your CPU overheated. You might want to open the case and see if it's full of dust.


Will do; that is certainly possible.


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## Davidius (Feb 24, 2007)

I work with the IT department on campus and have seen this many times. It's hard to say exactly what it is but the hard drive may be about to burn out. How old is the computer?


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## Herald (Feb 24, 2007)

CarolinaCalvinist said:


> I work with the IT department on campus and have seen this many times. It's hard to say exactly what it is but the hard drive may be about to burn out. How old is the computer?



Ditto! The hard drive on my Dell laptop did exactly that (two weeks ago) before it gave up the ghost. This I do know: hard drives don't fail the same way each time. Good thing you backed up all your data. Make sure you have all the drivers in case you need to replace your hard drive. Since you have a Dell, go to Dell Support and download your drivers. If you don't have a copy of your operating system you'll need to call Dell.


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## NaphtaliPress (Feb 24, 2007)

BaptistInCrisis said:


> Ditto! The hard drive on my Dell laptop did exactly that (two weeks ago) before it gave up the ghost. This I do know: hard drives don't fail the same way each time. Good thing you backed up all your data. Make sure you have all the drivers in case you need to replace your hard drive. Since you have a Dell, go to Dell Support and download your drivers. If you don't have a copy of your operating system you'll need to call Dell.


Well, I hope it is just dusty. For good measure though, where would the hard drive drivers be listed? This is the list dell gives for the XPS Gen4 system system.


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## fredtgreco (Feb 24, 2007)

Can I ask a similar question of the IT guys? I have a Dell INspiron E1505 and occasionally I get a bluescreen memory parity error. It happens in bunches (3 times yesterday) but infrequently - last time before yesterday was about 4 months ago.


The memory should be fine, one stick is from Dell, and one is (supposedly) compatible Kingston. Short of replacing the memory (obvious solution) is tehre any other trick/test I can try?


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## Herald (Feb 24, 2007)

fredtgreco said:


> Can I ask a similar question of the IT guys? I have a Dell INspiron E1505 and occasionally I get a bluescreen memory parity error. It happens in bunches (3 times yesterday) but infrequently - last time before yesterday was about 4 months ago.
> 
> 
> The memory should be fine, one stick is from Dell, and one is (supposedly) compatible Kingston. Short of replacing the memory (obvious solution) is tehre any other trick/test I can try?



Fred - on that warning does it anywhere state, "Beginning physical memory dump"???? If so, that is a hard drive problem, not memory.

Try taking the memory sticks out and reseat them. Make sure they are both SDRAM. I'm 99% sure they are, just make sure. It show be printed somewhere on the RAM itself. If they are both SDRAM, reseat them and reboot. If the problem persists them yes, it may be a parity issue between RAM manufacturers. This should not happen (theoretically SDRAM is SDRAM).


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## daveb (Feb 24, 2007)

fredtgreco said:


> Short of replacing the memory (obvious solution) is tehre any other trick/test I can try?



You might want to consider this program: http://www.memtest86.com/


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## tewilder (Feb 24, 2007)

NaphtaliPress said:


> I had something weird happen just now. My PC gave me a bluescreen with no warning. The screen said the PC encountered some kind of hardware problem , and said if this was the first time to see such a thing to reboot, or if not, to follow some instructions. It was the first time but I couldn't do a keyboard reboot, and so tried the on off button, at which point the fan or something rev'd up and got way louder than it normally runs. So I unpluged from the power; after plugging back in I hit the on button and the PC booted as normal. Seems to be working fine. I did a backup real quick since it'd been a few days. I've got a Dell sytem running XP. Any one ever see anything like this?



When you get that blue screen it will tell you what thread was running when it happened, e.g. the kernel, the file system manager, etc. Sometimes that is key information.


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## NaphtaliPress (Feb 24, 2007)

Thanks; I don't recall that it did but I kind of was in shock when it happened. Would this be recorded anywhere?


tewilder said:


> When you get that blue screen it will tell you what thread was running when it happened, e.g. the kernel, the file system manager, etc. Sometimes that is key information.


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