How do I interpret BSOD in Vista

R

Rob94hawk

2[H]4U
Joined
Jul 20, 2002
Messages
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Yes Vista. I get BSOD occasionally. It's an old reliable socket 775 system that I built a long time ago that is only used for email/internet so there's no real reason to build new. However I would like to go SSD/Windows 10 but I would like to find the problem and see if it's worth fixing.

How & where to do I decipher BSOD's? Thanks.
 
Well, Vista was pretty bad. Installing Windows 10 on a fresh SSD will probably be your best bet.

However, in terms of the BSOD, look at the error code and module. It might say something like IRQ_LESS_OR_EQUAL or give you the module that is causing problems.

For example, if it is nv---.sys it is probably a Nvidia driver issue. Then you have two things to search for, but a lot of info online (especially on MS forums) will be unhelpful.

But you can sometimes get lucky a find a solution. Most times just updating all drivers can help, if not OS reinstall.
 
"old reliable" and "getting bsods"?!
yeah you take the error code plus the module name and add vista to the end and type it in google. if the code is always different its usually bad ram.
 
cybereality said:
Well, Vista was pretty bad. Installing Windows 10 on a fresh SSD will probably be your best bet.

However, in terms of the BSOD, look at the error code and module. It might say something like IRQ_LESS_OR_EQUAL or give you the module that is causing problems.

For example, if it is nv---.sys it is probably a Nvidia driver issue. Then you have two things to search for, but a lot of info online (especially on MS forums) will be unhelpful.

But you can sometimes get lucky a find a solution. Most times just updating all drivers can help, if not OS reinstall.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. I'm just concerned that it's a motherboard chipset issue. If it comes down to that I might as well just build a new rig. But if it just comes down to a driver issue then I might as well just go the Windows 10/SSD route and be done with it.
 
Boot of live Ubuntu media and see how the system runs. If you find it's coming up with kernel panic's every 5 mins than obviously it's a hardware fault...
 
TBH most blue screens are hardware faults. And a blue screen caused by a hardware faults gives misleading debug info that will send you on a wild goose chase. Before digging through any logs, make sure you don't have failing hardware.
 
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