BSOD on windows 7

Question

Please help, I don't have any idea how to interpret what's written on blue screen view. How do I determine from this what cause the blue screen of death.

Answer 1

Well, I think I cannot clearly tell you where exactly it came from. But it seems that the problem occurs in hal.dll which already points us to ha hardware-related problem. The bug check code (0x00000124) also indicates hardware-related issues.

I have found some detailed information about 0x00000124 bugcheck code here.

I personally would recommend first doing a memory check:

• Download Memtest86+
• Burn it on a bootable CD or put it on floppy
• Boot from it
• Let it run for at least 4 hours and check whether there are any erros

If errors are found it's likely to be a memory or motherboard issue or incompatibility. In such cases you might try to run with less memory modules (e.g. just 1 instead of 2 if your machine uses two modules).

You did not write anything about your hardware or it's age. It's ofthen the case that older hardware suffers from silently dying capacitors. Open up your machine and look for broken capacitors. If you don't know what a capacitor is look for cylindrical devices on your mainboard. Typically many of them are located around the CPU socket. Electrolyte capacitors usually have some X-styled grove on top of them. Capacitors should be flat on top. If they are "swelled" then they are likely broken. Some of them might also "leak" some fluid. If you see leaked or swelled ones they are for sure broken which usually results in unstable systems. Unfortunately if your capacitors are not leaked or swelled they might still be broken. The only thing you can say for sure is that if they look broken they are broken for sure ;).

The same applies for the power supply. Some capacitors within the power supply might be broken too rendering the voltage supply unstable which could have various impact on system stability. Caution: Do not open the power supply if you're not familiar with such devices. High voltage even after several hours/days after unplugging might still be present. So be careful.

Here's a picture of a broken capacitor:

Even if you think your capacitors on the mainboard are OK you might still try replacing the power supply at least temporarily in order to assure that this is not the source of your problems.

If you think your hardware is OK and memtest did not return any memory errors after long-period run then you might have a look at your software. Broken drivers might be a source of such errors too - however usually a BSOD then reports the broken driver module, not a generic 0x00000124 error. Try running manual Windows Update applying all optional updates too (often driver updates are pending in optional Windows updates). Try visiting the homepage of all your hardware component vendors and look for updated drivers.

Well, you might try removing all non-crucial hardware components from your machine. Including unneded drives, USB sticks, eSATA drives, add-on cards like soundcards, TV cards and the likely. Just leaving a minimal system with your Mainboard, minimum memory configuration, CPU, graphics card and HDD. If the error does not occur again try re-adding one component only and test stability for a while unless the error happens again so you can identify the broken component or it's associated driver.

Answer 2

One other reason for hal.dll to throw an error used to be if you installed your system under an ACPI BIOS, and then switched your BIOS to "disable ACPI" by enabling legacy APM support. Of course there aren't 64 bit systems that use APM, though. But it also could be there is some processor-related option (maybe related to the Execute Disable bit, TPM, or virtualization) in your BIOS that has changed for some reason since you installed Windows.