Navarr's Tech Side The Technical Side of my Life

Making Windows 7 Blue Screen [How To]

The most difficult problem I’ve encountered with Windows 7 is making it Blue Screen on me.  You’d think after so many different versions, Microsoft would’ve made it much easier to crash your computer – but it seems like they’re doing just the contrary!  What do these fools think they’re up to?

Either way, I’ve made my Windows 7 (RC) box Blue Screen on me twice – so I’ll share with you how I did it.  Make sure to leave your own Blue Screen of Death stories in the comments below.

BSoD #1 – ATI TV Wonder

My first BSoD is brought to you by the ATI TV Wonder HD 600 USB PC TV Tuner, and yes – it is a very long name for a product.  Aren’t you thankful I didn’t put “Diamond” in front of it?

Over all, this was an excellent product that I’m VERY happy I purchased from woot.com at a price far below its stock value.  It was pretty much plug-and-play (I didn’t run the CD at first because, well, my Sony DVD drive has crapped out on my Laptop and will only read DVDs now.  What the hell, Sony?)  What was interesting about this device (and ultimately lead to the BSoD) was that Skype recognized it as a video source (read: Webcam) and decided I might want to use it.  I thought that was fairly cool, but didn’t dabble any more into it (until later, right before my crash).  So, while I had this thing plugged in and made Windows Media Center scan for channels, I decided “Well, I’m bored – I wonder what happens if I open this thing up in Skype too?  I got my answer with some weird looking static, and then a Blue Screen.  Congrats,  Navarr!  This was your first ever Blue Screen with Windows 7 (RC even!).  And that was the last of that.

BSoD #2 – Lexar 4GB ExpressCard SSD

This is another small device I found for cheap on the internet, and purchased immediately because – well, it could be used with the Windows 7 ReadyBoost and I wasn’t using my Express Card slot on my laptop – I didn’t have any use for it. 

It normally works pretty well.  I’m not sure if the problem I’ve been encountering is Windows, My Computer, the Card, or it simply becoming loose but every now and then it will unmount and remount – so it may just be loose.

Either way, this happening over and over again while the device was dedicated to ReadyBoost has, of course, damaged the file system.  After doing this enough times, eventually my computer Blue Screened on me – once.  It hasn’t seemed to happen again.  I’ve since repaired the file system and got it working again, but I’m not sure how long it’ll stay.

Final

So those are my BSoD Horror Stories for Windows 7.  Do you have any of your own?  Has Windows 7 ever crashed for you?  Tell me all about it in the comments!