Frequent blue screens

Hi there I'm experiencing a problem & I don't know where to start. Ar seemingly random intervals my PC goes to a blue screen. This is the first line "A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer…" I then have to shut down and reboot. PC is a Dell Dimension 8300, 3 GHz CPU, 1.5 GB of RAM, Running Windows XP, Problems occur when using Chrome. Can anyone suggest the steps I should take? Thanks

Could be many things, but if you can download and run WhoCrashed, then post back with the results, then we can go from there.

To run it just launch it, then click the Analyze button, click OK when asked and you can scroll down to see the report, if it's short, e.g. 1 or 2 entries, copy and paste them here in your next reply, but if there are a lot of results, please save them to a file and upload that as it will be easier and tidier to get, you can select File - Export, this will let you save the report as a txt file, which you can upload here, if you can also say what (if anything) had been done just prior to this happening it will help, e.g. new hardware added, or driver installed etc. then we can get a better idea of what may be going on.

Here we go I pasted it all in here. It seemed to occur when I try to switch web sites or click on anything when Chrome is open. I think it was whenever Outlook was open and then when I rebooted after the blue screen outlook would always say it was recovering from an error. I hope the below info is useful, many thanks System Information (local) ——————————————————————————– computer name: GNP7N41 windows version: Windows XP Service Pack 3, 5.1, build: 2600 windows dir: C:\WINDOWS CPU: GenuineIntel Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU 3.00GHz Intel586, level: 15 1 logical processors, active mask: 1 RAM: 1609560064 total VM: 2147352576, free: 2050629632 ——————————————————————————– Crash Dump Analysis ——————————————————————————– Crash dump directory: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump Crash dumps are enabled on your computer. On Tue 1/29/2013 4:28:23 AM GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini012813-04.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0x156A02) Bugcheck code: 0x1000008E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFFFFFBF956A02, 0xFFFFFFFFAB215C00, 0x0) Error: KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED_M file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System company: Microsoft Corporation description: Multi-User Win32 Driver Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode program generated an exception which the error handler did not catch. This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time. On Tue 1/29/2013 3:41:28 AM GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini012813-03.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0x2EBC1) Bugcheck code: 0x10000050 (0xFFFFFFFFE310601C, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFFBF82EBC1, 0x1) Error: CUSTOM_ERROR file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System company: Microsoft Corporation description: Multi-User Win32 Driver The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time. On Tue 1/29/2013 2:47:03 AM GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini012813-02.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0x156A02) Bugcheck code: 0x1000008E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFFFFFBF956A02, 0xFFFFFFFFAB48FC00, 0x0) Error: KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED_M file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System company: Microsoft Corporation description: Multi-User Win32 Driver Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode program generated an exception which the error handler did not catch. This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time. On Mon 1/28/2013 3:50:08 PM GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini012813-01.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0x2EBC1) Bugcheck code: 0x10000050 (0xFFFFFFFFE419501C, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFFBF82EBC1, 0x1) Error: CUSTOM_ERROR file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System company: Microsoft Corporation description: Multi-User Win32 Driver The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time. On Sun 1/20/2013 11:52:51 PM GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini012013-01.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0x2EB4B) Bugcheck code: 0x1000008E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFFFFFBF82EB4B, 0xFFFFFFFFAAC89B70, 0x0) Error: KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED_M file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System company: Microsoft Corporation description: Multi-User Win32 Driver Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode program generated an exception which the error handler did not catch. This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time. On Sat 1/19/2013 6:36:34 PM GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini011913-02.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0x156A02) Bugcheck code: 0x1000008E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFFFFFBF956A02, 0xFFFFFFFFAAAC2C00, 0x0) Error: KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED_M file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System company: Microsoft Corporation description: Multi-User Win32 Driver Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode program generated an exception which the error handler did not catch. This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time. On Sat 1/19/2013 4:47:48 PM GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini011913-01.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0x2EBC1) Bugcheck code: 0x10000050 (0xFFFFFFFFE2A5301C, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFFBF82EBC1, 0x1) Error: CUSTOM_ERROR file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System company: Microsoft Corporation description: Multi-User Win32 Driver The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time. On Sat 1/12/2013 10:08:01 PM GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini011213-01.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0x2EBC1) Bugcheck code: 0x10000050 (0xFFFFFFFFE138701C, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFFBF82EBC1, 0x1) Error: CUSTOM_ERROR file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System company: Microsoft Corporation description: Multi-User Win32 Driver The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time. On Fri 1/11/2013 3:51:46 PM GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini011113-01.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0x2EBC1) Bugcheck code: 0x10000050 (0xFFFFFFFFE351801C, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFFBF82EBC1, 0x1) Error: CUSTOM_ERROR file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System company: Microsoft Corporation description: Multi-User Win32 Driver The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time. On Sat 12/22/2012 8:51:49 PM GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini122312-01.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0x2EBC1) Bugcheck code: 0x10000050 (0xFFFFFFFFE372F01C, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFFBF82EBC1, 0x1) Error: CUSTOM_ERROR file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System company: Microsoft Corporation description: Multi-User Win32 Driver The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time. On Fri 12/21/2012 2:56:52 AM GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini122012-01.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0x156A02) Bugcheck code: 0x1000008E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFFFFFBF956A02, 0xFFFFFFFFAA62EC00, 0x0) Error: KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED_M file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System company: Microsoft Corporation description: Multi-User Win32 Driver Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode program generated an exception which the error handler did not catch. This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time. On Tue 12/18/2012 2:31:33 AM GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini121712-02.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0x2EBC1) Bugcheck code: 0x10000050 (0xFFFFFFFFE478501C, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFFBF82EBC1, 0x1) Error: CUSTOM_ERROR file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System company: Microsoft Corporation description: Multi-User Win32 Driver The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time. On Tue 12/18/2012 2:22:07 AM GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini121712-01.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0x2ECD0) Bugcheck code: 0x10000050 (0xFFFFFFFFE44EB020, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFFBF82ECD0, 0x1) Error: CUSTOM_ERROR file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System company: Microsoft Corporation description: Multi-User Win32 Driver The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time. On Sat 12/8/2012 10:27:32 PM GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini120812-01.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0x1569A9) Bugcheck code: 0x1000008E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFFFFFBF9569A9, 0xFFFFFFFFAAAC2C00, 0x0) Error: KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED_M file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System company: Microsoft Corporation description: Multi-User Win32 Driver Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode program generated an exception which the error handler did not catch. This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time. On Thu 12/6/2012 4:30:27 AM GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini120512-01.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0x2EBC1) Bugcheck code: 0x10000050 (0xFFFFFFFFE176701C, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFFBF82EBC1, 0x1) Error: CUSTOM_ERROR file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System company: Microsoft Corporation description: Multi-User Win32 Driver The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time. ——————————————————————————– Conclusion ——————————————————————————– 20 crash dumps have been found and analyzed. Only 15 are included in this report. No offending third party drivers have been found. Consider configuring your system to produce a full memory dump for better analysis.

Right at first look it seems like there are 2 issues multiple times, and there seems to be 4 or so mains responses as to what to do, and comparing what you have said to other results I searched tend to show Chrome as being at the centre of it all, but it's not conclusive, you didn't mention what you had done (if anything) prior to this happening, did you install\uninstall, or update anything prior to these issues ?

Searches also suggest a possible ram (maybe virtual) being a problem, but as Chrome appears to be right in the middle of this, I suggest uninstalling it, use Revo to do this, and when the programs own uninstaller finishes (refuse any prompt to reboot if it appears, select later) check the Advanced option before scanning, it is on Moderate by default, this will dig deeper and remove more remnants, when finished reboot and when you return use junk file cleaners to remove temp files etc. I tend to use a few, as each gets bit's the others miss, Disk Cleaner, CCleaner (free version) and ATF-Cleaner.

Once you have done this, see if you get any more crashes\problems, obviously you will need to revert to ie for a while just to see if Chrome was the cause, albeit an indirect one, if all runs well for a few days then it would appear Chrome had some kind of hand in it, but try this and see if it makes a difference, if not repeat the previous crash report(s) and we can look to see if anything has changed, then we can figure what to try next if needed.

Thanks for the help. It seems cured. At least it hasn't re-occurred for several days. All I did was start Outlook in safe mode. Outlook subsequently starts quickly, closes quickly and I've had no blue screen. It seems that it wasn't Chrome. Anyway I'll see how it goes and I'll report back here in a few days

The issues returned so I did as you advised this morning. I'll use Firefox for the next week. So far so good. Thanks for the help

Hope it behaves for you.

It's several days after I uninstalled Chrome and started using Firefox. I've had no re-occurrences of blue screen freezes. Looks like it was Chrome so I'll stick with Firefox. Thanks for the help[ 8210Guy

You could always keep an eye out for a newer version, and see if that behaves, the current version is v24.0.1312.57, hopefully newer releases will behave for you, but glad your stable again, Thanks for the update.