Topic: Constant BSOD

[Ghandi]

So my computer apparently hates me now. I get a BSOD on a constant basis. For the most part it's just your standard BSOD. My computer will have little freezes before it happens. It will freeze for a few seconds, then go back to normal. Then it will freeze for bit. Then it will crash.

It seems to be pretty random. It just happened about 5 times in half an hour, but it only happened a few times yesterday.

My computer was just reformatted. It has almost nothing on it. I have very little running in the background, and nothing that isn't necessary. No spyware. I guess it's possible that I have a virus but I'm doubting it. I'm guessing it's a memory issue or something.

Any ideas?

[PyroMenace]

Usually system instability is due to a memory problem. When is the last time you dusted off the inside of your system? I would also recommend reinserted the memory and video.

[Ghandi]

Yeah, I'm also starting to think that it's dust. My laptop does get hot. It's just hard to clean because it's a laptop.

[Cobra951]

Can you read the BSOD message, or does the system reboot?  You can change that behavior in Windows, somewhere.  I forget.  You may be able to get some idea of what's causing it from the blue-screen text.

[scottws]

Best options to start:  Install newest drivers of everything.  Blowing it out with a can of compressed air is a good idea as well.  Laptops get very hot very easily.

[Ghandi]

My harddrive was dying. It finally gave out again, with the same message as I posted in another thread.

Anyways, $150 and a new harddrive and cd/dvd drive later and my laptop is running like a dream. Thanks for the help everyone.

[scottws]

BSOD for a hard drive dying?  That's weird.  Typically with a hard drive you get very slow performance, "Operating system not found" messages on boot sometimes, and file and file system corruption.

[Ghandi]

I got all of those things as well.

I can't say that I expressed my complete anger with the system in this thread. I try to deal in generalities and go from there with tech issues.

[Pugnate]

Yea bad unidentified sectors on a HD often cause BSODs. Other common culprits are faulty memory modules, and power supplies.

Drivers can be an issue as well. I was getting constant BSODs, until Vista automatically investigated the issue, and told me that my wifi driver was creating the issue. It then pointed me in direction of the latest driver, and lo behold! Problem gone.

[scottws]

Yea bad unidentified sectors on a HD often cause BSODs. Other common culprits are faulty memory modules, and power supplies.

Drivers can be an issue as well. I was getting constant BSODs, until Vista automatically investigated the issue, and told me that my wifi driver was creating the issue. It then pointed me in direction of the latest driver, and lo behold! Problem gone.

If someone told me they were getting constant BSODs and that's about it (see this thread), one of the last things I would think would be a failing hard drive.  Failing hard drives may cause BSODs, but there would be other more common and prominent symptoms that would accompany the BSODs, which I've already mentioned.  For a freezing/BSOD-only issue, I think drivers first, then overheating memory or other chip components second, then bad capacitors third, then bad or insufficient PSU fourth.