Windows is much more stable than it used to be, and the Blue Screen of Death is now a thing of the past. However, nothing is perfect. If you’re experiencing random crashes or freezes, and you don’t know where to start, here is how to figure out what has gone wrong.
Check the Event Viewer
There are an unbelievable number of different things that have to work correctly for a computer to operate, and narrowing them down by guessing is going to be both frustrating and impractical.
The Windows Event viewer maintains a log of critical events that cause your PC to crash. The error logs aren’t always perfect, but it is a great place to start.
To open the Event Viewer, press Windows+X to open the Power User Menu, then select “Event Viewer.”
In general, most things that can cause your PC to crash will show “Critical” or “Error” in the level column. In other words, if you see something red, you should check it out.
One recent example from my own system was an error stemming from the source “nvlddmkm.”
Sometimes, if you’re lucky, the source will be something you can easily recognize, but as often as not, you’ll need to search the Internet to figure out the specifics. In this case, I found that nvlddmkm is associated with my NVIDIA GPU. That suggests that the GPU, or the drivers related to it, is the problem, and I should focus my attention there.
I also had a few critical errors with the source “Kernel-Power.” That means the PC actually lost power. In my case, it was because of a brief power outage. However, it can sometimes signal a problem with your power supply unit (PSU).
If you didn’t experience a power outage, and you’re getting Kernel-Power errors, I’d recommend double-checking all of the power connections running between your PSU and your motherboard and checking the main cable that connects your power supply to the wall.
It also doesn’t hurt to double-check the power supply switch either—I’ve encountered a PSU with a damaged switch that would momentarily interrupt power when it was bumped that caused this error.
Credit: ezphoto/Shutterstock.com
Reinstall Your Essential Drivers
If the Event Viewer tells you that a driver is likely the problem, or if something else gives you a hint that a driver is a problem, like audio or video glitches indicating audio or video driver issues, usually reinstalling them will do the trick.
I don’t normally recommend driver cleaners, since they aren’t usually necessary, but if your PC is crashing because of a driver issue, the extra step is probably worth it. I’ve found this to be especially true if you start getting driver issues immediately after upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11, or after a major hardware change.
Reinstall Troublesome Graphics or Audio Drivers
Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) is what I usually use to completely clean my GPU or audio drivers from my system.
Download DDU from the DDU website, then extract the contents of the ZIP anywhere. I plan on keeping the program around just in case, so I put it in “C:/DDU.”
Once it has been extracted, you need to boot into safe mode before you use it.
Open the Start Menu, then shift-click the Restart button to access the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE or the Advanced Boot Menu).
Once you’re there, navigate to Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Startup Settings, then select “Restart.” The next screen will present you with a bunch of boot options. Press the number that corresponds to “Safe Mode.” In my case, that is 4.
Once you boot into safe mode, fire up DDU, select the driver you want to remove using the drop-down menus on the right, and click “Clean and restart.”
Then all you need to do is visit the manufacturer’s website and download the latest drivers for your device. With any luck, that’ll take care of the issue.
Removing and Reinstalling Other Device Drivers
To reinstall other the drivers for most other devices, I’d recommend using Windows 11’s built-in Device Manager.
Open the Start Menu, then search for and launch device manager.
Once you’re there, scroll through the list of devices until you find the one you think is the problem, then right-click and select “Uninstall Device.”
The next time you restart your PC Windows will automatically try to redownload the correct drivers for that device. If your problem was a result of a corrupted driver, that will usually take care of it.
Check Your RAM for Problems
Out of all of the components I’ve had go bad in my computers over the years, faulty RAM is by far and away the most common.
Unfortunately, there are a ton of errors Windows can throw your way when your memory is at fault. Sometimes it is just a driver issue; other times, there is something physically wrong with the RAM. Some errors I’ve seen over the years include:
- MEMORY_MANAGEMENT
- IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
- PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
- BAD_POOL_HEADER
- BAD_POOL_CALLER
The first thing you should try is a memory test. Windows 11 comes packaged with a tool called Windows Memory Diagnostic that should get the job done.
Open up the Start Menu, search for windows memory diagnostic, then click on the first result.
You just need to choose whether you want to run the test immediately or wait until the next restart. If it isn’t urgent, I’d recommend waiting. Testing your RAM can take a while and your PC will be unusable for the duration of the test.
Once it is done, press Window+X and then select Event Viewer towards the top. Navigate to Windows Logs > System, and look for something in the source column related to MemoryDiagnostics. That report will tell you if it found any problems.
If it did, your only real option is to replace the problematic stick of RAM.
MemTest86 is a third-party tool that can sometimes pick up things the Windows test misses and is worth checking out if the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool fails to pick anything up.
Additionally, you can always remove sticks of RAM one at a time to see what happens. If the crashes stop when you remove one stick of RAM, you can be pretty confident you’ve found the culprit.
Check Your Drive Health
Though both mechanical and solid-state storage drives are fairly robust, they will age and eventually fail. If you’ve ruled out other explanations, it is worth checking your drives.
There are a few ways to know that a drive is starting to die.
How Do You Know a SSD Is Going Bad?
Solid-state drives won’t loudly announce they’re failing like a mechanical hard drive, which often produce jarring sounds. Usually, the first sign of trouble is unexplained failures, like crashes or random corruption.
However, CrystalDiskInfo can check the health of your drive to let you know if it has obvious issues.
Download CrystalDiskInfo from SourceForce, extract the contents of the ZIP file to any folder on your PC, and run the executable named “DiskInfo64.”
It’ll quickly poll your drives to get information about their health, how long they’ve been running, and other vitals.
In an ideal world, you want every drive to display “Good.” If you see Caution (or other negative warnings), you should back up any essential data—depending on what is causing that Caution message, your drive could be heading to the electronic grave sooner rather than later.
If everything comes back good, then your drive probably isn’t the problem.
How Do You Know a Mechanical Drive Is Failing?
Mechanical hard drives, as the name suggests, have several moving parts. There is a motor that physically spins the platters in the drive, and there is an arm that moves across the platters to read information. If either of those motors start to go, you may hear strange clicking or even chattering noises.
Take either sound as an urgent warning: you need to back up any data on the drives immediately.
Additionally, mechanical drives can develop bad sectors, which are areas of the platters (which actually store data) that are physically damaged. Bumps to the drive while it is active are especially likely to cause that sort of damage.
You can also use CrystalDiskInfo to analyze mechanical hard drives, though the information it displays will be different from solid-state drives.
If all of that fails, the next steps are a bit more involved. To narrow down a hardware issue, you’ll probably need to start removing and testing individual components on your PC. Alternatively, you could always just reinstall a clean copy of Windows. If the problem is due to faulty drivers or some kind of operating system corruption, that will solve the problem.
