BSOD on the Wife's Computer

by Dave
(Canada)

Every now and again, I have to deal with a BSOD at home, this time it was the wife's computer. To diagnose it, I follow the same steps I mention on the page BSOD error.

First, I try and determine if it's a single error. Since her Computer is overclocked, heat can easily cause this, and it's just about the time I clean her computer so this is where I started.

After the computer was cleaned up, I booted the computer, of course it comes to the screen asking what to do next, boot into safe mode, or continue to start the computer normally. Since I believe it's a heat problem, I select start normally.

The computer boots up normally, and then shortly after, I get another BSOD. This time I take down the error which is a 0x00000121 which after researching reveals it's a driver error. Well since I haven't updated any drivers in about a month, I know a driver won't be the problem, whoever, it does get me on the trail that this is a hardware failure.

Now with my error in hand, the computer restarts and I notice something crucial, I have all kinds of artifacts all over my computer screen. This usually means the video card is toast. I proceed to turn off the computer and install the spare.

With the spare installed, I get an artifact free boot up. I play on her computer for a while, do some more updates while I'm there, and after 1 hour, no more BSOD.

As it sits now, it's been about 24 hours of non stop operation, and no more BSOD from a computer that was giving them about every 5 min. I think it's fixed.

In the trash with that card, maybe I'll just take it as a sign, and do a video upgrade, it was about that time again anyway.