How to read dumpfiles after a blue screen of death

Original Title: Blue Screen on IO Manager Driver Violation: which Log(s) - and tools to read them - do I need to check/use to detect exactly which driver(s) are at fault?

For my Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1 installation on a 2.5 yr old Sony Vaio Laptop, I'm getting an "occasional" Blue Screen of Death - i.e., it is popping up every 2 to 4 days.

I'm starting to suspect it might be related to overheating caused by my SSD installed several months ago, although that is purely a guess at this point.

I've got a STOP address I wrote down from the BSOD but am guessing that won't tell much; however, the BSOD tells me it did a crash dump.

Some Questions:

(1) Where / what would the name and path of the crash dump file(s) be in a "standard" Win 7 installation be?

(2) Are there any additional logging options i can turn on to capture more (or at least more "human-readable") log info besides this default crash log when this crash occurs?

(3) Any place in Event manager to look for this info?

(4) Any particular Microsoft or other tools to recommend to read / interpret / search-for-pertinent-info-in the findings in the dump file (I don't want to have to try and translate hex codes and/or scroll thru reams and reams of pages in a huge dump file looking for the "important/salient" info)?

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Rohit Chettri

Hi,

You can boot into Advanced Boot options and choose Disable Automatic Restart on system Failure to get the error message. Disable automatic restart on system failure prevents Windows from automatically restarting if an error causes Windows to fail.

Refer the following link:

Advanced startup options (including safe mode)

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Advanced-startup-options-including-safe-mode

What information appears in event logs (Event Viewer)?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/What-information-appears-in-event-logs-Event-Viewer

The log file will be %systemroot%\Minidump which is normally C:\windows\Minidump

If the files don't exist then setup your system to record them;-

a. Go to Start and type in sysdm.cpl and press Enter

b. Click on the Advanced tab

c. Click on the Startup and Recovery Settings button

d. Ensure that Automatically restart is unchecked

e. Under the Write Debugging Information header select Small memory dump (256 kB) in the dropdown box

f. Ensure that the Small Dump Directory is listed as %systemroot%\Minidump << where your .dmp files can be found later

Click OK twice to exit the dialogs, then reboot for the changes to take effect.

You may refer the link provided for more information about dump files:

How to read the small memory dump files that Windows creates for debugging

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315263

You can also download the debugging tool from the link mentioned below and check.

Download and Install Debugging Tools for Windows

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463009.aspx

I would also suggest you to perform the steps from the article and check if the issue persists.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Resolving-stop-blue-screen-errors-in-Windows-7

Hope this helps and keep us posted.

Rohit Chettri
Forum Moderator

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SusanFowkes

thankyou, very good softwares configuration, i will try that, I have been getting a memory dump every couple of days also

How to read dumpfiles after a blue screen of death

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