Windows 10: My computer just bluescreened, but I restarted it and now it 'appears' to be fine. What...

Today, when I unplugged my laptop from my docking station, a blue screen flashed, and my computer restarted. The screen said something about drivers not being equal, or something like that. My computer appears to be working properly now, but this is not the first time my computer has given me the blue screen. About two months ago, this same computer suddenly went blue screen and we couldn't fix it. We ended up getting a new hard drive, reflashed it and started over. After we did this, my computer started working again. --> I am very worried that my computer will stop working again. I'm lucky that my computer booted back up this time, but I'm worried that this will happen again. So, what should I do to figure out if there is something wrong with my computer, and prevent it from blue screening again, or possibly dying? I'm a college student, and I really can't have my computer die on me now. Everything is backed thankfully, but I'm worried this will happen again. Any help is appreciated.


Thanks,

Will

:)

 

How to troubleshoot an error that appears only at Restart or Sign out?

I get an error pop-up error message not every, but almost every time I Restart or Sign out. It's the screen with blue background and on top of Restart or Sign out text an error window says:

Explorer.exe - Application error. The instruction at 0x000… referenced memory at 0x000... The memory could not be written.

Sometimes the error code is just zeros, sometimes random numbers. I have tried so much already to troubleshoot this. For example these did not help in any way:

• MemTest86+ (no problems)
• Disabling any Services, Autoruns/ShellExView entries
• Low resolution mode
• BIOS settings are fine, no overclocking etc.
• DISM.exe and sfc
• etc.

However, these do make the error go away:

• End process for explorer.exe before Restart or Sign out
• Safe Mode
• Creating a new user profile (almost the same as clean installing Windows, many full days of work)
• Uninstalling NVIDIA graphics driver (then the card is unusable, of course)
• Disabling Device Manager / Display Adapters / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080

I already contacted NVIDIA and the graphics driver is not the culprit. Something has gone wrong with the user profile as the same driver works just fine in a new profile (and there's nothing wrong with the driver anyway, it's just the Restart or Sign out process that has a problem).

What can I do to fix this? One useful thing would be to have a step-by-step procedure for the Sign out. So that it'd ask before continuing to the next step and list what it's doing. Or if I could just disable whatever it does when the error appears.

 

Windows 10 boots fine but bluescreen when using restart function

Hi, Desiree - thanks for the reply! The only step I have taken is to re-download and install the Dell BIOS. But same problem exists. I have not taken any other troubleshooting steps yet because the computer works fine as long as I just turn it off/on and
don't use the "restart" function. I have searched the internet for solutions, but have not found anyone with this same issue. So I have been using it without using "restart" function but I know eventually I will need the restart function so I would like to
solve it.

I just tried "restart" so I could get you a screenshot and here it is (NOTE: I get out of bluescreen by going into "advanced options" of automatic repair and selecting "turn off" - then I just turn computer back on and it works fine):

 

Windows Updated(16299.309).KB4088776 Restart is required to complete.

Hi dalchina. Good news, I followed your suggestion and reinstalled the update and now it appears as "installed correctly" *Biggrin Maybe it was not necessary to run the Windows Update Troubleshooter or maybe if necessary. But using it I do not think it could have worsened something. The installation was very fast, unlike the first time it showed step 1 and step 2 completed.

Thanks for the suggestions and for the time to respond Best regards.


And thanks for the tip of that program, I'll have it on my list.