It may be time for some hardware diagnostic work. One of the first signs of an overheating computer is the unexplained crash, which often manifests as a blue screen.Īs I said, though, everything from memory to add-on cards to the motherboard itself could all cause issues here. One of the most common is a blocked, stuck, or broken ventilation fan, which is now allowing your computer to overheat. Unfortunately, it could be just about any hardware component of your system at fault.
If you’re positive nothing’s changed, you’ve been using your system like always, and these problems just started happening out of the blue, then it’s very likely that you’re experiencing a hardware malfunction of some sort. Make sure your security software is as up to date as possible, and perform a full scan, in addition to the regular checks that the software might perform. Over the years, Windows has become much more resilient, but malware can still occasionally cause blue screens, even in the most recent versions of Windows. I’d also make sure that Windows is as up-to-date as possible, once again by visiting Windows Update to check for both “important” and “optional” updates. If you’ve just installed new software, I’d be very tempted to immediately uninstall it and see if the problem goes away. It’s rare these days, but occasionally software can cause blue screens as well. (Spoiler: don’t use driver update utilities.) See How, and when, should I update drivers? for more information on driver updates. Check with your computer manufacturer’s support site, or the support site for the specific hardware you recently added to your computer, for specific driver information as well.Ĭonversely, if you’ve just updated drivers, that would also be something to be very suspicious of. Check Windows Update, specifically for “Optional” updates, as driver updates are often classified as optional. Make sure you’re running the latest drivers for that device. If you’ve just installed new hardware, then it’s likely to be related to the problem.
While the hardware can sometimes be bad, the real culprit is typically outdated, or just buggy, drivers. The most common causes for the fabled “blue screen of death” fall into four general buckets.
I’ll throw out some guidelines, so perhaps you can narrow down the diagnosis. To really diagnose, we’d need a lot more information about the system it’s happening on, the software and hardware installed, and what was happening at the time the problem happened. Unfortunately, with only that to go on, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of possible answers.
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