A blank, blue screen on a computer is never a welcome sight. It means something has crashed the computer so badly that immediate steps must be taken to recover the system.
A Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), aka a STOP Error, appears when an issue is so serious that Windows must stop loading. It’s usually hardware or driver related; most will show a STOP code to help you figure out the root cause.
If the blue screen flashes and your computer reboots automatically you’ll need to disable the ‘automatic restart on system failure’ setting. Below are general Blue Screen of Death troubleshooting steps.
Please see our List of Blue Screen Error Codes for individual STOP code troubleshooting steps. Come back here if we don’t have a troubleshooting guide for your specific STOP code or if you have no idea