Blue screen – should you be worried?

Have you heard your IT support people talking about a *blue screen of death*, but were afraid to ask what they meant for fear that the answer would be technical gobbledegook?  The aim of this blog is to demystify this phenomenon. 

First things first: what does it look like?  Unsurprisingly, your Windows computer display will turn blue with white writing on it with a message along the lines of “Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart” accompanied by an old-school sad smiley face ): .  Sometimes the blue screen of death (or BSOD as it is known for short) may flash up and disappear again so quickly that all you experience is your computer continuously restarting but never logging in – a start-up loop if you will.

Why does it happen?  The operating system (most commonly Windows 11 or Windows 10 these days) experiences an error or problem that it cannot deal with and thus cannot recover from.  The device stops working at this point to protect you from data loss and hardware damage.

Remember that your PC is encountering potential problem situations throughout the day but has generally been programmed to react appropriately to known error types.  The blue screen is a sign that there is no process in place to cope with the issue it has just discovered.  Your computer is telling you that it has an error situation for which it has no bespoke error message and admits defeat by displaying the blue screen.

What sort of thing can cause a blue screen?  The most common issues are connected to the hardware device, drivers, software or malware.  Apparently, it shouldn’t cause harm to the computer; after all, it’s designed to stop processes in their tracks before they can do damage.  If it happens when you are in the middle of typing up a long report, for example, you risk losing some data.  If it happens repeatedly, this could lead to data corruption.  Yet another reason to ensure that you have good backup measures in place.

How can you fix the blue screen error.  Not surprisingly perhaps, you might be able to resolve your BSOD by restarting your PC – yes, that old chestnut: try turning it off and on again!  Another useful tool in the IT kitbag is a program known as CHKDSK.  Sometimes the computer stops abruptly when it encounters a BSOD, but there are occasions when it has time to record information about the event in a dump file.  This can provide your IT technician with helpful clues on how this can be resolved.

If the blue screen insists on popping up continuously, it is time to call in the cavalry.  Don’t struggle on alone; ask your IT support team to troubleshoot the BSOD for you.  If your computer is monitored, they may have received an alert and already be on the case, investigating the possible causes and remedies.

At the end of the day, you don’t really need to understand blue screens.  If you have IT support professionals in your corner, you can leave the computing issues to them and focus on the income-generating activities for your business.

So there you have it: everything you ever needed to know about the blue screen of death, but were too afraid to ask!  Let me know if there is anything else in the IT world that puzzles you and I’ll do my best to find the answer.