driver and the system BIOS are fully up-to-date, check with the manufacturer for recent driver updates.
- As a last resort, try exchanging the video card.
Reinstalling Windows is not likely to prevent this error from reoccurring.
The Windows Debugger is one of the primary tools used by Microsoft software developers and support staff to analyze and resolve errors that result in memory dumps, and it's available for you.
The Windows Debugger is a powerful tool with many useful applications, but for this article, we are only interested in its ability to analyze memory dump files generated by blue screen errors to determine the cause of the error.
Before you can use the tool, keep in mind the following:
- The Windows Debugger is not a native Windows tool. You must download and install the application (15 MB) from the Microsoft web site. Administrator access is required to install the tool.
- The Debugger requires some minor customization before use.
- The Debugger can take anywhere from 30 seconds to two minutes to fully analyze a memory dump.
To use the tool, follow these steps:
- Download and install the Windows Debugger from the Microsoft Web Site .
If you use Google to search for "windows debugger," the first link returned will be the Windows Debugger home page.
- Once installation completes click Start, click All Programs, click Debugging Tools for Windows, then click WinDbg to open the Windows Debugger.
- Configure the symbol path used by the debugger to turn addresses in the memory dump file into meaningful location names: expand the File menu, select Symbol File Path, type "SRV*c:\debug_symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols" in the dialog box then click OK.
- Open a minidump file: expand the File menu, select Open Crash Dump, select the desired dump file and click Open.
The system usually stores minidump files in either: C:\WINNT\Minidump\ or C:\Windows\Minidump\. The files will be named miniMMDDYY-NN.dmp, where MMis the month, DD is the day, and YY is the year in which the dump file was created. 