Windows Inside & Out · Troubleshooting Windows · Lesson 5 of 5

Challenge: The Blue Screen Laptop

Help a friend whose laptop keeps crashing, using the calm routine.

Dana's laptop keeps crashing

Your friend Dana calls, worried. Her laptop keeps crashing several times a day. Each time, the screen goes blue with the words: Your device ran into a problem and needs to restart. Then it restarts by itself.

This is a stop error, often called a blue screen. Windows stops on purpose when something serious goes wrong, to protect your files. A faulty driver, new software or failing hardware is often the cause. On recent versions of Windows 11, this screen may be black instead of blue.

At the bottom of the screen is a stop code, a name for the error such as MEMORY_MANAGEMENT. Ask Dana to write it down next time, along with the time.

She says the crashes began about a week ago.

The new webcam

Dana remembers. Last Tuesday she plugged in a new webcam and installed the software from its box. The crashes started on Wednesday.

She also wrote down the stop code: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. The word DRIVER is a strong hint. A driver is the small program that lets Windows talk to a device.

Microsoft's own advice for repeated stop errors is to remove recently added hardware first and see if the crashes stop.

One more crash

The crashes mostly stop. But two days later, it happens once more. Dana has her notes ready: webcam removed, one crash since.

You decide to check Windows itself. You right-click Start, open Terminal (Admin), and run sfc /scannow.

After 20 minutes, SFC reports that it found damaged files but was unable to fix some of them.

Resetting as a last step

DISM and SFC both finish cleanly. Still, a week later, Dana gets another crash. You both decide it is time for Reset this PC with Keep my files.

Before you start, think about what could go wrong. Her laptop uses device encryption, and her photos matter a lot to her.

If the crashes continue even after a clean reset, the cause is probably hardware. Then it is time for a repair shop, with Dana's notes in hand.