Buzz
Is your PC frozen, locked up, or even restarting automatically? It could be a sign of the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. When facing PC freezes, the first step is to determine the specific cause of the error.
The following steps will help you narrow down the search and identify the cause of your PC freezing or locking. For instance, these tools display specific drivers on the device, allowing you to check if a device or hardware driver is malfunctioning. Regardless of the method, you'll receive suggestions to begin troubleshooting the issue.
Explore the steps in this guide where Mytour guides you on diagnosing errors in Windows computers when they freeze or lock up. Additionally, if your computer refuses to start, refer to the troubleshooting steps for non-booting computers provided by Mytour in a previous guide.
Check Reliability Monitor
Windows Reliability Monitor offers a user-friendly interface, swiftly displaying recent system and application incidents. This tool is integrated into the Windows operating system, starting from Windows Vista, and is present in all higher Windows versions.
To open Reliability Monitor, first click on Start, then type reliability into the Search box. In the search results list, click on View reliability history.
The Reliability Monitor window organizes events by date, with columns on the right displaying the most recent dates. You can review event history over the past few weeks or switch to a weekly view. Each day's columns show events recorded on that day.
In case of a Windows PC freeze or lockup, you'll notice a red circle with an X indicating a failure. Click on that day's column, and you'll find additional information displayed at the bottom of the window. Here, you can not only search for significant events but also discover other useful information.
For instance, the history section will reveal the date you installed software, allowing you to see if any issues occurred after installing a specific application.
If you encounter an interesting event, double-click on it to open a window with detailed information. In the example below, you can see that Windows faced an issue during startup due to a faulty hard drive.
Additionally, you can utilize the Check for solutions to all problems link at the bottom of the window for extra assistance. However, based on the experience of many users, this feature is not always helpful and rarely provides practical solutions. In the best-case scenario, it may recommend installing hardware driver updates.
Reliability Monitor proves genuinely helpful in cases where you encounter Windows PC freezes or other errors, aiding you in narrowing down the search to find the root cause of the issue.
You might wonder if Reliability Monitor fetches data from similar event logs as the Event Viewer uses. And this is correct; you can also use the Event Viewer to retrieve the same information.
Examine detailed blue screen errors
When Windows encounters a blue screen error, it overflows memory into a local file, sometimes containing useful information to troubleshoot those errors.
To check this, Mytour advises you to use the free tool BlueScreenView by NirSoft. This tool displays a list of saved dump files. Click on any dump file to view the information it contains. Particularly, the details in the Bug Check String and Bug Check Code columns are quite useful. These columns display the same message shown on your screen when the blue screen error occurs. Searching online for solutions and information to fix issues based on the displayed messages or error codes will help you resolve the problem.
The list of drivers at the bottom of the window can also be helpful. For example, a blue screen error may be related to a specific driver file, such as a graphics driver. Here you can find issues related to specific drivers or learn if a specific driver error is related to malfunctioning hardware. In any case, this list provides you with a specific direction to troubleshoot the error.
Why does the computer freeze?
These tools can assist you in pinpointing the issue. Holding specific error messages from the blue screen, at least you can search online to understand what's happening. It's a better starting point than looking for generic information about why a computer freezes or crashes.
If occasionally or rarely your Windows computer freezes or locks up, there's no need to worry too much. Nothing is perfect - just a minor glitch in Windows or a hardware driver error could be the cause of your computer freezing, and you may never see that error again.
If your computer frequently freezes or crashes, it's time to roll up your sleeves and start identifying the cause and fixing the issue.
Additionally, the built-in Memory Diagnostics tool in Windows can be helpful in these cases. Memory Diagnostics checks the memory to ensure everything is functioning correctly. If the memory is faulty, it could be the cause of system instability and blue screen errors.
While not providing specific solutions, these tools can help you narrow down the search for issues with more specific error messages or hardware drivers, giving you a starting point to troubleshoot the problem.
However, not every issue can be resolved with a few simple steps. If your computer may have hardware problems, there's no solution other than replacing or repairing that hardware.
When Windows is more stable, the system is less likely to freeze, and the blue screen usually indicates hardware issues.
Here's how to identify the causes of Windows computer freezing. Hopefully, after this article, you'll have more knowledge to independently discover the reasons for errors if your Windows computer freezes or crashes.
If you have any inquiries or questions that you'd like Mytour to address, feel free to drop them in the comment section below the article. Mytour will respond to your queries as soon as possible.
