A Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), also called a STOP Error, will appear when an issue is so serious that Windows must stop completely.

A Blue Screen of Death is usually hardware or driver related. Most BSODs show a STOP code that can be used to help figure out the root cause of the Blue Screen of Death.

The most important BSOD troubleshooting step you can take is to ask yourself what you just did!

Did you install a new program or a piece of hardware, update a driver, install a Windows update, etc.? If so, there’s a very good chance that the change you made caused the BSOD.

Undo the change you made and test again for the STOP error. Depending on what it was that changed, some solutions might include :

Starting up using Last Known Good Configuration to undo recent registry and driver changes.

Using System Restore to undo recent system changes.

Rolling Back the device driver to a version prior to your driver update.

Check that there’s enough free space left on the drive Windows is installed on. BSOD and other serious issues, like data corruption, can occur if there’s not enough free space on your primary partition used for the Windows operating system.

Microsoft recommends that you maintain at least 100 MB of free space. I usually advise Windows users to keep at least 15% of a drive’s capacity free at all times.

Scan your computer for viruses. Some viruses can cause a BSOD, especially ones that infect the Master Boot Record (MBR) or boot sector.

Make sure your virus scanning software is completely up to date and that it’s configured to scan the MBR and boot sector.

Update drivers for your hardware. Most BSOD are hardware or driver related, so updated drivers could fix the cause of the STOP error.

Check the System and Application logs in Event Viewer for errors or warnings that might provide more clues on the cause of the BSOD. See how to start Event Viewer if you need help.

Return BIOS settings to their default levels. An overclocked or misconfigured BIOS can cause all sorts of random issues, including BSODs.