Discussion on:

10 tips for coping with blue screen errors

Another Great tool I have utilized in the past was BlueScreenView by Nirsoft: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

That's taking Apple fanboy a little deep, don't you think? Even by your description of what happened, the spill was caused by negligence of the PEOPLE who were supposed to be monitoring stuff, who disabled a failing system rather than fixing it. Stuff breaks, even Apple products. I support iPhones and iPads, and there's enough demand for it to justify my existence. I know for a fact they're not friggin perfect, so to try and shift the blame for something as dreadfully serious as the BP spill away from the people who were responsible just to try and make Windows look bad is simply ludicrous. Grow up.

if you re-read robo_dev's post you'll see "in part due to ...."

If my airplane flies using a particular brand of engine, and those engines often blow their engine internals out their tailpipe, then that engine should be part of the discussion, no?

Not trying to shift any blame here. An embedded and hardened UNIX system would be the more appropriate OS for something critical.

Windows can be a perfectly fine OS if patched, hardened, and tested effectively.... should it be part of the alarm system for an oil drilling platform? No.

To be fair, there are two components to the alarm/monitoring systems used on something like an oil platform. There are the operational controls/alarms which do use embedded RTOS and the code it all baked into the hardware, typically PLCs. Then there are the informational systems, which gather the SCADA data from the hardware, and those commonly are Windows apps. ( see Stuxnet and SCADA issue with Iranian centrifuges).

That being the case, odds are that Windows really didn't have anything to do with it. If your hardware is borked, it kills the OS and shows you a BSOD. Build a Linux or MAC box and don't use the right hardware, it's going to BSOD too. Let it get too hot too often, it's gonna BSOD too. Let a mouse nest in the case? It's gonna BSOD too.
I happen to really like the IOS system and the iPhone and iPad, and can even see the appeal for OSX, so I'm not here to defend Windows or anyone else. I just think it's really unfair for someone to blame Windows or anyone else for something that's clearly the fault of the people in charge of maintaining the alarm system. If the system you have doesn't do the job, either fix it or get a new one. Either way, it's on the person, not the product.

That should only become part of the discussion if it is determined that the engine in faulty. If it is pilot error every time it happens, then why would you make the engines part of the discussion?
Perhaps they had a Windows server, because the company that wrote the software for the alarm system made it a Windows program, and not a UNIX.

And knowing what I know about the mechanics thereof, there's not really a lot a pilot can do to cause the guts to fly out the tailpipe without intentionally flying through a flock of birds.

I do not know how much you know, but I was an Aircraft Mechanic in the Air Force for over 5 years, working on AWACS and KC-135s, so you could say I have some specific knowledge on aircraft engines. There is plenty a pilot could do, as well as the mechanic, but that doesn't make the engines faulty, which was the point. Way to focus on the wrong thing. And just so you know, I have seen over 20 different aircraft with bird strikes in the engine, and nothing flew out of the "tailpipe" but blood and guts. And if you want to get really technical, nothing at all flew out of the tailpipe, as most power from an engine come from the bypass air, which does not go down the core. If a bird strike goes down the core of the egine, there are several stages of fan blades, as well as several compression stages. No solid object will make it out of the "tailpipe." When engines fail during bird strikes, it is caused by two different things. First, the fan blades get damaged, and can strike other fan blades in a different stage, which causes all kinds of problems, and the engine is toast. The other thing that can happen is in a strike down the core, one of the internal stage chambers can crack, which causes fuel to escape through the crack, which is what causes the engine to catch fire.
But back to the whole point of the original post, just because something fails over and over again, does not mean it is faulty. You have to look at what is causing those faults. So before blaming Microsoft for a BSOD, and syaing it is because Windows OS is garbage, you should look at what is causign them. Even when Windows Update installs something, and you get a BSOD, it is because there is a conflict with your hardware, or 3rd party software. There is only so much Microsoft can, or even should, do to idiot proof their OS.

My assertion was based on information received from a friend of mine (also a USAF engine mech, by the way) that a mechanically sound turbine engine should be able to respond to any control input without sustaining physical damage.

It's entirely possible I misunderstood him, though...

"Get a Mac" has been the annoying chant of apple junkies since the '90's. You couldn't post a tech Windows question anywhere without at least one bozo chiming in with his 'get a mac' line, usually accompanied by the 'macs never crash and are intuitive to use' baloney.

Oddly, when OSX came out and earlier OS's were quickly abandoned by Apple, coments arose all over the place about how great OSX was in comparison to earlier ones, which had all sorts of problems. Wait, I thought they were perfect....

Having gone to work for a company that was about 80% Macs in the mid-'90's, my first hand experience showed Macs to actually crash, lock up, and exibit other problems MORE often than even the Win95 machines. When I left the company in 2002, the office machines were roughly 90% PC, and running a lot better with much easier setup and troubleshooting than those little, cuddly Macs with their frowny-faced "I'm sorry I crashed" messages.

A relative just wasted $1800 that she couldn't afford on a Mac laptop, because the hard drive went out on her othewise-fine, 3-year old Toshiba. She was the victim of spoiled-college-brat "mommy, buy me a mac" pressure and the false notion that the same thing couldn't happen on her pricey Mac. At least she has the glowing logo now, to advertise her stupidity.

I bet they went to Best Buy to get that wonderful advice. Another strange thing left out of most of their rants is that OSx is built on the same kernel as Windows. OSx 10 was built on the same one as Windows Vista, and we know how great Vista was. But you will never hear that from an Apple Fanboy. Another thing you won't hear is how Apple would have gone out of business long ago if Bill Gates did not bail them out in the 90's by buying a large interest in the company. Somehow this gets swept under the rug. When Microsoft was being pursued by the Government, getting accused of being a monopoly, and was being threatened to be broken up into several smaller companies, as was done with AT&T with the creation of the "Baby Bells," in the 80's. So Gates bailed out Apple, so Microsoft would not be broken up. Look it up! And by the way, Steve Jobs did not come back to Apple, until just after Gates bailed them out. Coincidence?

...was always my first check as well. Then I ran into my current computer. It has an AMD quad-core. Evidently, this processor isn't so reliable. I was having constant boot loops caused by BSOD's. Going into my BIOS and disabling Core 3 resolved the problem for a long time. Then, I began having intermittent BSOD's yet again. Going into the BIOS and disabling Core 2 fixed them again. Seems the individual cores on the AMD Phenom x4 aren't all that stable. Paid for an x4, but getting to use a dual-core and not even sure for how long until yet another core becomes unstable. AMD has lost my business over this.

You may have a cooling problem. I would check to see if the CPU fan is running at full speed and whether the fins on the heat sink are clogged. Shutting down cores reduces the amount of heat that a CPU generates. There is a section in the BIOS setup that will give you the CPU temperature (but you probably already know that).

I recently worked on a system that was having issues. Yes, the fan was running on high and no the cooling fins weren't clogged. BUT! It turns out the heat sink had poor thermal contact with the CPU. The heat sink base was slightly warped. replacing it with a good aftermarket heat sink took running temps from 80C+ at idle to 43-45C under full load. Miraculously all the problems went away, as if by magic. The client had been told by two other techs to trash it.

I support Dell E6410 laptops for users (XP but moving to W7). Aside from external issues or a user changing a setting or not following SOP (standard operating procedures) I'd estimate more than 90% of the issues are due to hard drive failures.

Fortunately Dell (and likely any BIOS) has boot-up motherboard diagnostics (hit F12 right after the manufacturer's logo appears), and if your machine doesn't have extended diagnostics (ours have a diagnostics partition) you can likely get them from the manufacturer. They test many things including the memory.

As far as #11 to get a Mac - nah. They have the same issues, but harder to diagnose by the non-tech user. Hardware still has issues, but maybe less often. They are built well. (My son got a new MacBook Pro in August and a month or two later the HD crashed (still under the 1 year warranty). Fortunately we had a semi-recent backup, and now he uses Time-Machine regularly. (I do too, about once a week, and so does my wife. We each have our own backup machine.)) On a Mac it's just not BSOD. Some days I hit the power-on button and the thing does nothing. I have to remove the PS (power supply) and the battery, put the battery back in & reconnect the PS to get it to boot. The rest are SW issues but usually just killing a frozen app will let you continue. (You have to dig to find out what went wrong - but that's the same as Windoze.)

BTW, our laptops (200) have never had a memory (RAM) failure. [Next to the HD, keyboards have some or all keys not work, next would be cracked bezels (likely drop-impacts) followed by cracked screens (picked up by lid/screen, closed lid on pen/pencil).]

Finally, make sure you SHUT DOWN, not just reboot. The boot-up from shut down process more completely resets hardware. Reboot may just check the devices are there and do some minor re-initialization. If necessary, shut down and remove all power sources for a few minutes to let any energy in capacitors drain.

"Finally, make sure you SHUT DOWN, not just reboot."
I occassionally have a problem (not BSOD) that rebooting won't fix.
I have to turn my PC off for at least 60 seconds to fix the problem.

I have a 17.3" Hp Pavilion dv9-9723cl laptop w/Vista, 4GB of ram and a AMD Turion64x2 processor. It was a "refurbished" replacement by the

Costco Concierge Service for the CRASHED 2 year old 17.3" Averatec laptop w/XP that was purchased there. The "service people" couldn't find a

new motherboard, so they sent the HP as a replacement. It worked fabulously and fast!
BUT, after 2 years IT started PERIODICALLY saying it "couldn't find an operating system" upon boot-up. Shutdown ... wait ... reboot ...

sometimes seem to fix the issue. I also periodically cleaned up the system and registry.
Eventually even that didn't work! Bios harddrive check said the primary harddrive failed.
So... I bought "2" new drives (since it had a second "operable" drivebay) and used the second as "data" storage only!
WooHoo! After a year it started happening again ("couldn't find an operating system"). Again, Shutdown ... wait ... reboot ... sometimes seem to

fix the issue. And again, I periodically cleaned up the system and registry.
Again, eventually to no avail. Curiosity (after running the Bios harddrive check again, which said this harddrive also failed) then caused me to

to remove the "failed primary drive" and connect it thru "usb adapters" to my OLD ponderous DELL desktop. It read the drive, and files, with NO

problem. Opened files, with NO problem. So, I did the same with the first "failed harddrive". Same result!! Oh an error I saw only twice said in

part, the TPM may be damaged or missing! ???? Transaction Processing Module???
Looking thru the "failed" drive(s) system files, using the usb hookup, failed to produce anything appearing to resemble "TPM".
Installing another new drive did absolutely NOTHING. The system couldn't find it at all.
Comments????

Hi there, firstly TPM is Trusted Platform Module, which stores keys for your hard drive encryption using bitlocker(if enabled).
Secondly, considering the age of your system I see that the hard drive controllers are not reading the hard drive, your best bet would be to upgrade the BIOS of your system. Sometime static charge built up on the system could prevent the hard drive from being read, in such case do a power drain on your machine, to do this disconnect the power cabel and press the power button and hold it for 10 seconds and then connect back the power and boot normally.

Thanks for the response. Did all that (except BIOS upgrade - how does one upgrade if the unit won't boot), nothing! Neither of the "failed" drives will boot even 'tho I can read them with a usb hook-up. And it won't recognize the brand new "clean" drive either! Nothing in the bios helps either. ????

My thoughts...

It's not the disk drives, BIOS or software.
The symptom of the problem gradually worsening and for awhile recovering after power off for awhile points toward a component gradually failing.
With just the boot drive in place does it spin up when power is applied?
If not perhaps the power supply is failing since the disks are good.
In the BIOS does it show any info for the disk: manufacturer, size, etc?
A next step would be to boot from an HP diagnostics CD/DVD and see what it showed.

Now here is something you might try...
Put the laptop in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes then take it out and quickly power on and see what happens.

A troublesome Windows computer in the drilling shack was not a factor.

Read the minute by minute account of the events...

Deepwater Horizons Final Hours
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/us/26spill.html?pagewanted=all

www DOT engadget DOT com/2010/07/23/blue-screen-of-death-plagued-deepwater-horizon-oil-rig-months/

www DOT computerworld DOT com/s/article/9179595/Tech_worker_testifies_of_blue_screen_of_death_on_oil_rig_s_computer

Williams said that a computer control system in the drill shack would still record high gas levels or a fire, but it would not trigger warning sirens, according to numerous reports, including stories published by the New York Times and New Orleans' largest daily, the Times-Picayune.

Williams, who has filed a multi-million dollar federal lawsuit against Transocean, also said that five weeks before the April 20 explosion, he had been called to check a computer system that monitored and controlled drilling.

The machine had been locking up for months, Williams said, producing what he and others on the crew called a "blue screen of death." "It would just turn blue. You'd have no data coming through," Williams said today, according to the New York Times' story.

With the computer frozen, the driller would not have access to crucial data about what was going on in the well.

just reformat

Use Bluescreen view to check for driver or dll issues.

I see a lot of BSOD errors from corrupt or incompatible drivers. I usually included an uninstall of video, audio, and WiFi in my troubleshooting.

One other problem that I have found is that power supply unit can be faulty. I was surprised to not see that as a possible issue as it is more likely a culprit in my experience than memory.
Overheating is the second most common to my recollection.

On occasion I've had an external backup harddrive cause the BSOD. I haven't found a great solution, but I do leave it unplugged now unless I'm using it, since I also backup automatically to a cloud account.

Several years ago the support tech at Dell replaced my internal harddrive several times believing that was the problem. Back then it got so bad the external drives weren't usable, so I upgraded and that solved the problem at that time.

Shouldn't we partially blame the manufacturers as well? I mean it's Dell, Samsung, Sony, HP who are putting the pieces together. Then people compare it to a Mac. Hypothetically, what if there were only 4 devices that you could buy that had Windows? (tablet, Ultrabook, Laptop, Tower)...With hardware specifically selected. Windows could lockdown the file system so that you can only see your favorites and my documents and only let microsoft hand-pick programs you can install. Would it still fail - sure - But I believe Macs fail over time as well...

The majority of users and Professionals world wide have Microsoft products because of history and compatibility. If you can't sensibly add decent and usable suggestions to the mix then I suggest you go to the penguin blogs or the apple blogs or what ever blog where your expertise can do some good for those few users, unless you feel so-o-o lonely.

When I need to head on the road with my consulting business, I too have all those tools, plus take a look at the drivers. But I am seeing less and less BSOD's, so this article as a reiminder is great. Thanks! Mary

Here is a simple way of fixing the "Blue Screen of Death". I came across this solution when all else failed, and the name is SlimDriver. There is a free version available; however I do recommend the full version. The greatest number of blue screens that I have seen has been on the commercial grade PCs and Laptops by a company I worked for in the Netherlands. The technicians and IT department just kept trying the same old tricks that failed. 100 tries, 100 fails, and all they needed to use was this program I cam across. I have had ZERO failures in over a year. The program looks for the actual hardware piece, and then gets the most recent driver with fantastic results.
Sometimes testing is the only proof. The manufacturers of the computers only put them together, and use the basic drivers they are told to use as rewritten by their respective brands office. In most cases, the drivers are out of date. I bought an Acer Aspire 7750G two years ago, and I have only had one driver update to do, and not once have I seen the Blue Screen of Death. SlimDriver is well worth checking out.

i usually Google the BSOD code (e.g 0x000004e ), It usually doesn't tell me exactly what causes it but it does give me a hint. if i don't find the problem that way i try the above steps. if everything else fails i usually suspect the motherboard, but thankfully that doesn't happen often.

All I had to do was an schedule error check on the c drive to fix these kind of issues

If you find your machine BSODs on boot, try booting in Safe Mode. If it boots up OK, start to suspect your graphics card and check that its integral fan is operational. Even on hi spec cards, the fans are often low grade.

In my many years of dealing with blue screens, I frequently find that a flaky power supply can also cause an intermittent BSOD. Typically one of the rail voltages sags, or collapses momentarily under a heavy load, enough to cause a RAM or disk read/write error and a resulting BSOD. Try placing a known good PS next to the sick PC and disconnect the existing PS cables, but don't physically remove it just yet. Connect the known good power supply cables and then run a RAM test, or better yet a burn-in test to stress it. I like to use: Stability Tester, Burn-In Tester, or Passmark CPU Burn-In, for stressing power supplies. Anything that will heat up the CPU and motherboard chips. If the PC no longer experiences a BSOD, then replace the weak power supply.

Make sure the new power supply has a high enough power (Watt) rating to support all of the current devices installed. Also stay away from moderate size power supplies with multiple rails. Single rail power supplies work the best in the 400-650 Watt range suitable for most desktop PC's.

You see this problem frequently on under-powered big name desktops, where the owner has added a high-end gaming graphics card with no regard to the power supply rating. Frequently these big name brand units ship with small 300-400 Watt power supplies from the factory. Adding more RAM or a graphics card can push these weak power supplies past their limits.

I have also seen flaky hard drives cause a BSOD. A failing hard drive will produce a read/write error or suddenly go offline, due to bad sectors or head errors that will give a distinctive BSOD error code. I forget the code number off the top of my head, but you can Google it like the article says and it will tell you to run a disk check on the hard drive.

I have also seen memory errors caused by noisy power supplies that produce too much ripple in the DC output. You can view this on an Oscilloscope, or just try another power supply. As power supplies age the Electrolytic filter capacitors start to dry out and loose their capacitance. This causes the AC ripple to increase, especially under a heavy load. Avoid low-cost power supplies as this is one of the areas they like to scrimp on. Look for power supplies with a 5-year lifetime warranty.

I typically use a 450 Watt Bronze PS in my basic desktop builds. If it's a gaming rig, then I scale upwards according to the number and type of graphics cards the buyer wants installed. I typically go with a 650-750 Watt PS with a single high-end gaming graphics card and dual hard drives. With dual graphics cards I usually install an 800+ Watt PS.

For about 3 years now, I've been using Resplendences "WhoCrashed"

Besides being brilliant, it's light-weight and provides great narrative. I can't remember the last time I was in a Google witch-hunt to understand an ambiguous MS error.

I know that windows 7 and 8 will automatically schedule defragging, but make sure it is enabled and has been recently done. I've come across many a PC's that a simple defrag was what was needed.

'Whocrashed' from Resplendence (www.resplendence.com) is quite good for this. It has given me some useful info after a crash that has helped me track down the culprit on several occasions. There is a home and professional edition.

That's progress....it's gray with stripes. Spent an hour fixing that on one machine. ATI video drivers and VMware player just did not want to play well together.

Essential tool to deeply examine the dump files made by a BSOD event, otherwise everything suggested here is shooting in the dark. Tells you more than researching those long numbers on Google. I had a system in Manhattan, BSOD every day, ran viewer, spotted some leads and began to diagnose and ........... they went away. True, the last BSOD event was November 15 of last year. I still monitor but sometimes events are, rarely, self-healing. Go figure. Oh, and for some errors a good scotch and soda is a coping mechanism too.

I thought the BSOD went away with Windows 98. I guess I may have rarely seen it with WIndows XP, but never since Windows 7 came out. I certainly don't miss them. Windows 7 on a 64-bit pc is pretty darn solid from my experience. I certainly get clitches and issues, but I almost never need a hard reboot anymore. Programs may lock up, but the OS rarely does. Still, the tips are helpful to file away, just in case.

I use a program called "Who Crashed." It's free, and when software causes a Blue Screen,
it identifies the program. Very handy.

First, I've had one BSOD in maybe 5 years - unlike the days of Win 9x/ME.
#6 and #8 are generally together. Test the memory and if an issue replaced.
PSUs rarely would cause BSOD. If anything they would just shut down the computer. Always buy a PSU with more wattage than you need and buy something from a brand that you heard of.

I would say that more than 50% of BSOD's are from the Users not rebooting their computer for a long time. There are a lot of Users that think when they "Log off" that they are actually rebooting their computer. I always advise people to reboot their computer at least one time a week.

I have had a few issues with old video drivers and newer browsers/websites that stream video causing BSOD's also.

Very rarely does reseating hardware cause a BSOD. Hardware not properly seated will cause a PC to not boot and give a beep code.

Running the software on another computer usually doesn't work because chances are... you might not have another PC set up exactly the same just laying around.

Reproducing the error will not solve the problem but give you a better understanding of what is causing it.

If you open up a case and it is full of dust... I would definately clean it out with canned air and a hand-held vacuum. The processor might be overheating from the dust, but usually in this case, the computer will just immediatly power down when it gets too hot. You can also tell if a computer is overheating by listening to the fan speed. When it speeds up too fast it means that it is starting to get hot.

Don't remove your memory right away. If you have more than one stick, try removing and re-arranging the sticks. This will assist to pinpoint which stick is causing the error.

You can also run HD tests, boot tests, and memory tests from the BIOS.

If all else fails... I would strongly suggest calling your manufacturer ASAP to take advantage of any type of warranty. Most companies usually have free tech support as well.

You could also say goodby to Microsoft and say hello to either your choice of flavor of Linux, or go to a Mac OS-based system. Your stability issues will go away. However, if you choose to fire Microsoft, be aware you may have to budget for psychological/psychiatric counseling after suffering from depression from not seeing any more blue screens.

Okay, my comments may sound cynical and some corporate/government accounts do not--or cannot--have this option. But for those that have the leeway, you may wish to examine this route.

one of the major causes I have found is forced M$ updates which fail to fully install.
The first time I encountered this was on one of my own computers running an OEM install of XP.
Some update came though, but failed to completely load, causing the BSOD, I managed to force the system to uninstall about 10 updates until I got rid of the BSOD ... but then suddenly the registration timer pops ups stating I have 14 days to activate the OS !
Next re-start of the computer the timer maxed out and locked the computer. After trying almost everything possible to re-activate, I gave up and contacted M$ support ...I was on the line for over Two and a Half hours trying every combination of codes the tech could dig up, and in between, they kept asking if this OS had been installed on another computer previously, to which the reply was it was a factory install on that machine [ a Toshiba Notebook ] ... we eventually hit on an activation code which worked - and of course I wrote it down for future reference - which I did have to dig up another time ... ... ...

MS updates hose .NET so bad the drivers can't operate with the applications and just give up. It never fails for me that either recovering from a backup image or restoring back and re-installing all updates and holding off with .NET until the last, solves the problem. This is primarily on Vista/Win7 systems, but I'm working on an XP system that pretty much did the same thing. The intel built-in mobo video chip just could not take anything above .NET v 1.1. Finally had to buy an AGP card to quickly solve the problem. The OEM updates were no help at all.

I know your answer to this response is going to be "I tried that" but this has worked for me every time. When updates have failed for me, I noticed that some are required to install before others. If you select to install ALL of the updates, they might not update in the correct order. All you do is manually select and install one or a few at a time. If an update fails then don't select the update(s) until you are done installing the rest of the updates that work. Then after everything else is done... try the update(s) that failed at the end and I bet it works.

Before I start guessing and start ripping apart the hardware, I would turn to my trusted friend Windbg(debugging tools for windows), 8 out of 10 times I was able to resolve BSOD using Windbg.

BSOD, (******** overload) is a common problem which seems to be hitting a peak period just now in other parts of industry. Prevalent at first in the tech world, it has now spilled out and spread about like wild fire. The political world is becoming almost over saturated in BSOD. Doctors are concerned. more later...

If the frequency of occurrence of BSOD goes higher then it may cause a permanent loss of data. Whether its Windows or a Mac but, a clone of hard drive is always a great rescue in severe data loss scenario.

The pro techs are gonna know a lot more than I, but generally I've found it's one of four things:

1. "What's changed?" . . . usually the BSOD happens after someone installs new software or hardware.

2. Hardware . . . skunky video cards, network cards, sound cards, memory, whatever, who knows. Power supplies for sure.

3. Corrupt drivers and/or system files. A total PITA, but tracing those culprits is a long and thankless task (as we all know).

4. Motherboard . . . gotta single this one out as particularly nasty and pesky because when all else fails, the 'board is pretty well the only guilty party left once everything else is ruled out.

Step -1: Disable "Automatically restart on system errors" so you can actually SEE the BSoD text
Step 0: Digital camera, flash off, macro on; take pics of screen and content

Then I'd research the error text and context as per Step 0 (search-accurate text is easier if clients send pics rather than type out what they remember) on a working PC.

I wouldn't "try to reproduce the error", because every BSoD causes a bad exit, and therefore potentially loses files due to interrupted writes and file system damage. If those searches don't find anything specific, my generic steps would be:

Hard drive out of PC, into known-good PC
- Bart boot, HD Tune, SMAT detail
- if even slightly bad, file copy off, then BING and image C:, then surface test
- ChkDsk /F, check free space
- formal malware scans, etc.
Rest of PC
- eyeball capacitors, fans, etc.
- 24hrs+ in MemTest with boot disc ejected to spot restarts

Then when hardware is known to be good...
- Safe Cmd OK?
- Safe Cmd OK?
- MSConfig disable all startups and non-MS services, offline
- if OK, add back one by one on "test to break" basis
- if still OK, add back peripherals and external storage, one by one
- if still OK, check firewall is on, then go online
- if still OK, return to client for evaluation

Some further notes...

2) Logs to check include antivirus cleaning, ChkDsk/AutoChk "fixing", updates, "registry cleaners" (if any, I'd avoid), reliability monitor, Programs and Features sorted by installation date, and intra-application updates. I don't routinely update BIOS or other firmware and drivers, as this code should be far enough from the edge to avoid exploits, and yet is close enough to the bare metal to cause BSoDs and STOP crashes.

3) The article you linked, shows a different kind of blue screens compared to what we see in consumerland - we don't get nearly as much obvious detail. A reference I use is at Aumha.org, i.e. http://www.aumha.org/a/stop.php There is a risk to searching for error codes and file names on the Internet, as malware is often offered via 'fits-all' SEO pages that generally go "To Fix {your.searched.error}, Download This!"

4) You have Vista to thank for Reliability Monitor! That was the version of Windows that first gave this to us, as well as the first of an ongoing set of file operation dialog improvements. It amuses me to see Reliability Monitor highlghted as a "new feature" of Windows 7, and again with Windows 8 - though 8 does enhance program compatability and file operations dialogs.

5) Overheating isn't always a processor thing; in addition to CPU and GPU, PSU and hard drives can overheat (bad sectors), as can the motherboard. So I add a PSU-driven front case fan to blow over the hard drive, and motherboard-driven fan to dump air out the rest of the case. Bad capacitors can cause localized power glitches fast enough to BSoD rather than reset the system, and that too may be related to heat.

6) Because I routinely split hard drive and rest-of-PC to work on separately, I've had long durations of MemTest to compare with the testing period before first detected error. I've evolved "long enough" test periods from 6, 8, 12, 18 to 24 hours, as thus far I have had only one PC show the first error after 24 hours (just over 25 hours it was) while too many doing so after the shorter "good enough" test periods. Note that MemTest may not test everything, e.g. graphics or DMA access, full memory range, all processor cores etc. so read the ReadMes. I'm less keen on Microsoft's tester, as it attempts to load Windows to show results (!).

It's not only RAM test errors you are looking for; spontaneous resets, lock-ups, graphic trash etc. are also signs the hardware is unfit for OSs that write to storage. A reset can be missed if it restarts the memory testing, so I put in a different boot disc after MemTest starts.

8) Bear in mind that every time you touch things, wiggle in slots, etc. you run the risk of generating new errors through now-bad contacts or static damage, obliging the "best practice" practitioner to re-do the 24 hours MemTest.

Finally, I wonder if SFC checks the internals of files, rather than simply asking for version info, and whether AutoChk/ChkDsk communicates with SFC etc. when it "fixes" file system errors in ways that are sure to corrupt the affected files (crosslinks, truncations, etc.).

I had an issue where after upgrading to Windows 8, my PC started crashing.

I've now tracked it down to an overheating Northbridge chip. This despite the PC being an unmodified recent Dell desktop, less than 2 years old, and didn't crash in Windows 7! I've bought a small fan and fitted it to the top of the Northbridge's heatsink, and the problem is, I think, solved!

I used a utility called 'speedfan' to help me understand what was happening. Why is temperature monitoring not built into Windows?

I've been successful in using the minidump file that is created when the computer blue screens. It requires a download of the WinDbg program to decipher it. It is almost as cryptic as the blue screen message, but it has pointed me in a more direct path to determine what the cause was.

Make sure to set the minidump file where you will remember it (it also shows the location on the blue screen). Then open that file in WinDdb.

This is one of the best utilities I have come accross for troubleshooting BSODs. Whoever wrote this app, I give my sincere thanks. http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

So where does find the Reliability Monitor?

Make a photo of BSOD display!