Can anybody help me interpret this blue screen of death?

It said :

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

If this is the first time you've seen this Stop errors screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to be sure you have adequate disk space. If a driver is identified in the stop message, disable the driver or check with the manufacturer for driver updates. Try changing video adapters.

Check with your hardware vendor for BIOS updates. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select Advanced Start Options, and then select Safe Mode.

Technical Information:
*** STOP: 0X0000008E (0XC0000005,0XBF8137B9, 0XAF342878, 0X00000000)

***win32k.sys--Address BF8137B9 base at BF800000, Datestamp 52f43e77

Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete.
Contact your system administrator or technical support group for further assistance.


[Boldfacing added by me.]



That was it. It happened when I went to Adobe's site to update Shockwave Player. I started the update, but I got impatient because I couldn't see that anything was happening. So then I initiated a Shockwave update from UpdateStar. And that's when this blue screen came up.

I hit the power button. I always go to Safe Mode after shutting down with the power button. I did that this time, and everything went fine. So I restarted into normal mode. On that session, Firefox seemed to load tabs very slowly, so I did another restart. everything seems to be going OK since then. But I am concerned about addressing what caused this blue screen. I am supposing the line I boldfaced is the most important one. Can anybody interpret it for me?



Operating System
Windows XP Home Edition 32-bit SP3
CPU
Intel Pentium 4
Northwood 0.13um Technology
RAM
2.00GB DDR @ 166MHz (2.5-3-3-7)
Motherboard
Dell Computer Corp. 0G1548 (Microprocessor)
Graphics
Default Monitor (1280x1024@60Hz)
Intel 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller (Dell)
Storage
74GB Seagate ST380011A (ATA) 28 °C
3GB Lexar USB Flash Drive USB Device (USB)
119GB PNY USB 2.0 FD USB Device (USB)
Optical Drives
SAMSUNG CD-R/RW SW-252S
Audio
Unimodem Half-Duplex Audio Device
Anti-Virus
advanced System Care Ultimate

 

Hello conceptualclarity...

How are you? I guess I start by remembering blue screens are actually a friend in disguise when one happens. Basically, something threatened core functionality I suppose, and the blue screen was triggered.

I am guessing that it was overloading at the processor that caused your problem and nothing to be concerned over as far as the OS installation or hardware are concerned. Technically, MS would say it's one of these:

Hard disk damage
General hardware configuration problems with the BIOS, the memory, the hard disk, or with other devices
Incompatible device driver
Incompatible software

But under the circumstances I would say it was just a matter of the overcrowding created by running the two tasks simultaneously, when one of them was already frozen. I think Windows may have interpreted this as a sign of one of the above. You can read here MS' take on this:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945658

Personally, I would forget about it, unless it happens again or repeatedly...

 

Hey conceptualclarity, AtlBo seems to be correct. I experienced a BSOD when I was running Wisecare 365 and Spyware Terminator started a scheduled scan. Just too much conflict at one time and Windows went into panic mode to protect its self.

 

Thanks, Nick T and AtlBo.

I would like to get back in touch wih you, AtlBo. I have been put through a rather exceptional crisis by relatives in recent months, and that has slowed me down. Maybe I'll start writing on the Lazarus thread again some.

I got an interesting suggestion at http://www.techsupportforum.com/for...terpret-this-blue-screen-of-death-831817.html. I followed up on it at http://www.techsupportforum.com/for...s-0x0000008e-blue-screen-of-death-831897.html. We'll see if anything comes of it. It's nice to find there is actually a BSOD forum.

Speaking of Lazarus, I have made good use of that extension here.

 

Any time CC...

I finally got a W7 PC I can tinker with. It's only got 1 GB of RAM and an old dual core, but the motherboard can be upgraded all the way to a quad core Q6600, which is crazy. I can also have as much as 4 GB of RAM. It has a 650w Rosehill power supply for some reason, which is great. I will add a nice graphics card when I get an opportunity. I have my standard setup on it software-wise, and it's running very well. I am glad to have finally gotten a chance to test that setup on a W7 PC...

 

I am new to blue screens, and they bother me. My old hard drive died in February when I used Task Manager to execute a shutdown. It got almost shut down when I got a BSOD after which I could never get it to boot again.

With this hard drive I had a BSOD in April in the same circumstance of shutdown almost executed. I went into Safe Mode but couldn't get past the page of drivers. So I took it to the shop and was shocked that it was a week before they got it fixed. They said they determined it was a software issue and not a hardware issue, and they never really explained what it was.

I experienced yet a third BSOD with shutdown almost accomplished. Since then I have undertaken to manually shut down all non-Windows processes I can before I ever give the shutdown command. A few times the system has been really cranky and disinclined to shut down. When that happens I start killing the svchost.exes. That seems to help, and going after a couple of other Windows processes if need be will assure shutdown.

After the BSOD of May 1 reported here, I had another one Wednesday night. It happened when I hit Send on an email probably while a right-click scan of a download was going on. That doesn't seem like such great provocation. On my old system I got fatal freezes. I seldom get them with this hard drive; instead I get BSODs. This time the message was different :

"

I have no new hardware.

Today I downloaded a Screenshot Captor update, a MalwareBytes free update, ESET Online Scan, Process Lasso both 64 and 32 bit, and the shareware Amazing Dr. Recovery (in case I can ever use it for file recovery), all to my flash drive except PL 32 bit.

I don't know a thing about BIOS, much less configuring it.

I haven't updated a driver lately. I have notice of a couple of drivers needing updating. One is Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller (Product category: Internet > Network Monitoring).

My Seagate hard drive has 43.96 of 74.5 free. I think the biggest chunk of the used space is System Restore.

 

Any chance that you could zip the dump and attach for perusal?