From common PC users to the Beijing Olympic extravaganza, the Blue Screen of Death, the dreaded error screen caused by a critical system error, can strike anyone, anywhere. Even Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates encountered the blue screen during a demonstration of Windows 98.

Also known as stop error, Blue Screen of Doom and BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) is generated by the operating system, most notably Microsoft Windows, when it has suddenly terminated with an error. It leaves the system locked up with a diagnostic information display image of white text on a blue background.

The blue screen may include some hexadecimal values from 00 to 11 (0 to 17 decimal) which can be used to ascertain the causes of the error.



Figure 1.1: A Blue Screen of Death error message.
 


Figure 1.2: The projector displaying Microsoft Blue Screen of Death during the opening ceremony of Beijing Olympics 2008.

This behavior sometimes gets resolved with a simple reboot and you may never have to worry about it again but sometimes it may be something serious that will not go away simply. Almost any type of hardware or software can cause a PC to display the blue screen error but the most common causes are:

• Overheating of components
• Hardware running beyond its specification limits
• Incompatible DLLs
• Bugs in the kernel of the operating system
• Poorly written device drivers
• Damaged hardware
• Erring memory
• Power supply issues

Stop error messages generally take following forms:

1. Software errors. Computers running in Windows XP environment may display the stop message if the Software or device drivers installed in the machine have certain errors or problems.

2. Hardware errors. A hardware stop error will occur if:

• A hardware device malfunctions, or
• A hardware device is removed during the operation of Windows, or
• The Hardware does not fully support the operations that XP expects it to support, or
• Outdated BIOS information on older computers

3. Startup errors. Corrupted system files, hardware and driver errors can all cause Windows XP to come down crashing with a Blue Screen message without correctly booting into Windows.

4. Installation errors. Installation of Windows XP requires adequate carefulness for if there is a problem with your computer's hardware configuration or the media you are using to install XP, a stop error will likely occur.

5. Intermittent errors. Intermittent errors crop up consistently but quite randomly and they are the most irritating type of stop message. Defective system memory, an overheating processor, dead or dying hard drive or faulty software and device drivers cause this sort of blue screen message.