For those who missed it, this first part for this article can be found here.

So now that we have covered what a BSOD is and what it means, we can delve into what causes it and what can be done about it.

There is a variety of reasons a BSOD occurs. Namely:

• Hardware incompatibility (conflict): This usually follows shortly after adding a new device to your computer, such as a printer. Resources already in use might be demanded by the new device, creating a conflict.
• Software incompatibility/error: Under this we can include drivers, altogether faulty programs that make “illegal” demands from the computer, or perhaps a program not meant for the operating system installed in your computer.
• Hardware failure: This is a broad sub-category. It includes defective RAM, an overheating component, a component that is no longer working, or about to fail (such as a dying power supply). From my experience the ones in this sub-category are perhaps the hardest to narrow down.
• Malicious software (malware): Malicious code injected in your computer might, intentionally or unintentionally, cause a BSOD. An example of creating a BSOD on purpose is, your computer gets infected and you try to start your computer in safe-mode, but as soon as the computer starts in said mode, it crashes due to the malware trying to avoid removal. With the infections running around rampant these days, whenever a computer starts, without any explanation getting BSODs out of the, well, blue, and especially if combined with any of the other signs of an infected computer, one should get the computer thoroughly checked for malware.

So what can be done about it? as you might have guessed, a BSOD needs to be addressed on an individual basis, depending on the content of the diagnostic file created at the time it happened, and that is the first lesson to learn about how to resolve them. Because of the nature of these articles, I won’t include detailed information on how to use a debugger program to load the diagnostic files, much less how to interpret the output of the files. But if you are an intermediate user or above, there are internet forums where you can get help on doing that. Otherwise contact an expert – for example, me 🙂 – and have him/her guide you on how to resolve your computer’s crashes.