Help!! Blue screen of death has appeared

[ailsagirl]

I have Windows 10 and this morning, when I turned on my computer, there it was. The message says, "your device ran into a problem and needs to restart. We're just collecting some error info, and then we'll restart for you."
100% complete

Should I just do nothing and wait?

Thanks in advance!

[SleeplessinSoCal]

1. I would restart it myself.

Shut it down and restart. Sounds fishy.

[ailsagirl]

3. Brilliant!! I was afraid to do anything...

but it restarted like a charm.

Thank you!!

[LuvLoogie]

7. Just in case. Make sure you have a back up of your files/photos/music, etc.

Maybe you have a friend who would know how to make an image of your hard drive after they verify that it isn't corrupted.
You have about a year an a half until Microsoft ends support for Windows 10.

If your current system is not Windows 11 compatible, budget for a good refurbished machine that will run Windows 11. You can get a decent Core i5 10th generation machine for a few hundred bucks. If you get one still running Windows 10, You can migrate everything over, then do the automatic upgrade to 11. But that would require some utilities and know how.

Just a couple things to keep in mind and help you plan ahead.

[Best_man23]

8. Agree, depending on the age of the computer

Find a good replacement currently running Windows 10 with capability to "upgrade" to Windows 11. Don't upgrade to Windows 11 if you can hold off doing so. Frankly, I'm not a big fan of Windows 11. Mrs Best has it on her work computer and it gives her issues all the time.

What I'm hoping is Windows 12 (slated for release in early 2025) will be a signficant improvement over Windows 11 so when Win10 hits end of support, I'll migrate all my machines to 12 (or finally pull the trigger and go 100% Linux).

[SleeplessinSoCal]

12. So glad it worked.

[ailsagirl]

15. Me too

[canetoad]

2. Yep, I agree with Sleepless

And I'm not even sure the BSOD is even a thing anymore, with recent versions of Windows.

Do a hard restart and let us know what happens. Might be a virus or trojan.

[TwilightZone]

5. BSODs are still a thing.

Including in Windows 11.

[Wonder Why]

9. Purposely programmed in. Microsoft is like Trump. The victims come back for more punishment.

[LeftInTX]

16. I still get them. I have an older desktop publishing program.

It isn't compatible with Windows 10, so I had to adjust settings. Every once in a while, I get a BSOD with a driver message while running the program.

I think I've had several others not related to the program.

[TwilightZone]

4. It will usually reboot at the end of the process.

If it's been sitting at 100% for a long time, you could do a manual reboot. Hold the power button down for a few seconds until the computer turns off, wait about 15 seconds, then turn it back on. Hopefully, it will boot normally.

Once you're back in Windows, Windows 10 has a built-in troubleshooter for BSOD errors.

Here's more info:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/resolving-blue-screen-errors-in-windows-60b01860-58f2-be66-7516-5c45a66ae3c6

They're often caused by device driver issues. If you recently updated a driver, try rolling back to the prior version through Device Manager.

Here's a tutorial:

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-roll-back-a-driver-in-windows-2619217

[PJMcK]

6. A funny story

Glad you got your machine up and running.

Sometime ago, I had a MacBook Pro on my office desk. One night, the cleaning lady came in and bumped the desk knocking over a cup of coffee. It all went into the laptop. The machine literally screamed as it was dying! Fortunately, I was able to get it cleaned and repaired. It was very funny at a moment of terror.

[bahboo]

10. well...the coffee was probably pretty hot....

[ailsagirl]

13. OMG!!

I would have panicked, for sure!! 😱
Glad everything turned out OK 😎

[Boxerfan]

11. Did you have an update when it happened?

There are 2 updates that won't fit in the older PC's windows files.

I had to go back to a restore point .

There are tools in the PC settings- Go to update & security & Find the troubleshoot icon. That allowed me to update 1 safely but the other update failed but did no harm. Worth a try-AND-always have a current restore point.

[ailsagirl]

14. For me, it's a dangerous thing to troubleshoot

More than once, my good intentions made things worse. I had Windows 7 before this, and I loved it. I was forced to upgrade to 10 and I recalled (before the forced upgrade) hearing so many people trashing Win 10. Now I know why. I was told that Win 11 was "just as bad" as 10. 😣