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August 25th, 2019 16:00

Are there programs that help determine causes of Blue Screen Errors?

Are there any programs that will determine causes of Blue Screen Errors? I was getting Blue Screen errors that a google search showed might be caused by Norton Anti-virus? I uninstalled Norton Anti-virus and I am now running Windows Defender. I had no Blue Screen errors for 2 days, but now the errors have returned. 

4 Operator

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14K Posts

August 25th, 2019 17:00

Here's one application that might help: https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

Even if Norton turns out not to be responsible, I would consider leaving it off your system because third-party anti-virus applications can often be much more trouble than they're worth, and Windows Defender has gotten quite a bit better over the last few years, now comparing very well in malware detection in independent tests -- and it's free.  Microsoft also just started blocking systems that have Norton and Symantec products installed from receiving Windows updates because it turns out Symantec and Norton products now interfere with those updates after a change Microsoft made to how updates are signed.  The really aggravating part of this is that third-party AV shouldn't be doing anything with Windows updates at all because Windows itself performs a signature check and won't install updates that aren't valid, so third-party AV wasn't adding any value to begin with, and now they're causing users not to be able to receive Windows updates! Link: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-7-sha-2-updates-blocked-if-symantec-norton-avs-installed/

There are other stories of third-party AV causing systems to be unbootable after an Windows update was installed because they were hooked into the OS in a way that Microsoft didn't recommend or support, and when the Windows update changed something, that hook broke and took the whole system down with it.  Of course the users blame Microsoft because it appeared to be a Windows update, but the underlying cause was AV.  There are other cases of third-party AV creating security vulnerabilities on people's systems.  It turns out that when your application inserts itself basically everywhere in your system, then if it has a bug, it can be exploited from basically anywhere.  I think it was a Norton product a couple years ago that had a bug in its network traffic scanning component that meant that a remote attacker could take over your system simply by sending your PC a certain type of network traffic.  And that's all before considering the cases of third-party AV mistakenly blocking or otherwise interfering with legitimate activity on the PC that the user wants to occur.  I see reports of this nature frequently with respect to disk imaging solutions, for example, and sometimes the AV solution doesn't even give any indication that it's blocking or interfering with something, which of course makes troubleshooting that much more difficult.

I stopped using third-party AV when Microsoft released Security Essentials for XP and Windows 7, which later became Windows Defender with Windows 8 onward.  Third-party AV has always just seemed to be some combination of bloated, "noisy" with notifications, overaggressive in interfering with legitimate activity, threatening to system stability/functionality, and/or expensive -- and it doesn't seem to offer meaningfully better protection for all of those hassles anymore.

1.5K Posts

August 25th, 2019 19:00

You'll find some serious help on this 10 forum on BSOD https://www.tenforums.com/bsod-crashes-debugging/

19 Posts

August 26th, 2019 13:00

jphughan, thanks for your reply. I have Blue Screen Viewer on my system. While Blue Screen Viewer does read the memory dump files, I am looking for a program that would point me to the hardware/software that might be causing the blue screen. Maybe I am not correctly reading the results provided by Blue Screen Viewer. Thanks again, jphughan.

19 Posts

August 26th, 2019 14:00

Thanks for your reply, Clintlgm. I'll do a search and see if there is a post on my Blue Screen errors.

1.5K Posts

August 26th, 2019 14:00

Just join the forum and post your BSOD as per instructions you'll get answers pretty fast over there. At the beginning of the subforum, there is instruction on exactly how to post your BSOD issue.

19 Posts

August 26th, 2019 16:00

Clintlgm, I registered and posted my problem and uploaded the memory dump files.Thanks for letting me know 10 Forums. 

1.5K Posts

August 26th, 2019 17:00

Yes, that is one of the very best Windows 10 forums, some very switched on people there all the time.

3 Apprentice

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4.3K Posts

August 27th, 2019 07:00

You could always attaching it here.  There are also a couple of folks on the Microsoft community who read dump files.

105 Posts

August 27th, 2019 18:00

There are many reasons for the blue screen of a computer:
Reason one: computer overclocking caused computer blue screen
Reason two: The memory bar is poorly connected or the memory is damaged, causing the computer to have a blue screen.
Reason three: The hard disk is faulty and the computer has a blue screen.
Reason four: The installation software does not cause the computer blue screen
Reason five: Computer blue screen failure caused by virus in the computer
Reason six: the computer temperature is too high, causing the computer blue screen
Reason seven: computer blue screen caused by other reason

The reason for the blue screen failure of the computer is not obvious. First, check that the computer hardware temperature is normal. Clean the dust inside the computer mainframe. In particular, the memory strip must be cleaned carefully. The problem is not solved. Then use the anti-virus software to scan the computer in full. If the software method Can't solve it, you can try to see if it is a hardware failure, such as a memory stick, or a problem with the hard disk. Find the cause for the problem

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