Why did Windows freeze on a blank blue screen?

cns00 · April 22

I was installing a game on my laptop which has Windows 10 and then suddenly the laptop froze and I got a blank blue screen. it's like a blue screen of death but without any text.

I force shutdown the laptop and then I switched it on. It wanted to do chkdsk on c: which is an nvme ssd. I clicked on cancel. I checked the nvme ssd health. it was healthy.

I did chkdsk for c: in the disk properties. Some errors were found and I was asked to restart the laptop to fix the errors so I restarted. It fixed some stuff and then windows started. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u_GPdm6R3bKzu3qSHw_j_qN11SrpNsl6/ is the chkdsk log. In the log in Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ... it processed some .txt files. those .txt files are from a game which was already installed and it's not from the game that I was installing. That's weird. Also there were orphaned files and they could be from the game that I was installing. The Windows file system was repaired. Thus I think that the Windows file system got corrupted because I did force shutdown when the game was installing.

I ran dism /online /cleanup-image /RestoreHealth. It completed successfully. Next I did SFC /ScanNow. Some minor files were repaired.

Windows can get stuck on a blank blue screen but it's when you are logging into windows. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUcCZ8jf32Y. Can Windows also freeze on the blank blue screen while you are using the pc and not just when you are signing in? Is what happened because of a Windows issue or a hardware issue?

UnhingedIT · April 23

dism /online /cleanup-image /RestoreHealth

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

SFC /ScanNow

The holy trinity of useless commands and the mantra of windows support forum gurus.

If you have bluescreens better check them with https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

Its a great tool to check bluescreen errors and point you to the right direction, also there's "Event Viewer"

In my practice there are 3 major suspects for bluescreens.

- shitty drivers

- dying HDD/SSD

- corrupted Windows

Check if the game didn't installed some shitty drivers (some old games installs outdated drivers for outdated tech. like PhysX cards and more)

Also check your HDD/SSD with tools like crystaldisk, hdtune, etc. (remember there are only 2 types of disk. one that is dead and one that is dying)

Check windows updates...

If all else fails backup and reinstall...

cns00 · April 24

On 4/23/2024 at 11:47 AM, UnhingedIT said:

dism /online /cleanup-image /RestoreHealth

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

SFC /ScanNow

The holy trinity of useless commands and the mantra of windows support forum gurus.

I did dism restorehealth and sfc after the problem happened. There were no issues.

On 4/23/2024 at 11:47 AM, UnhingedIT said:

If you have bluescreens better check them with https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

Its a great tool to check bluescreen errors and point you to the right direction, also there's "Event Viewer"

I didn't get a normal BSOD and I got a blank blue screen with no text. I checked the event viewer. It just said that the laptop shutdown unexpectedly.

On 4/23/2024 at 11:47 AM, UnhingedIT said:

In my practice there are 3 major suspects for bluescreens.

- shitty drivers

- dying HDD/SSD

- corrupted Windows

Everything was normal and I didn't update anything. I have an NVME SSD and an HDD in my laptop. Both are healthy. I put Nvidia driver 537.58 on Oct 2023 and there had been no problems for 6 months.

On 4/23/2024 at 11:47 AM, UnhingedIT said:

Check if the game didn't installed some shitty drivers

The game didn't install any drivers and it's just my bad luck that Windows froze with a blank blue screen while I was installing the game. I installed the same game twice on my laptop and I installed it once on my other laptop after the problem happened. There was no issues.

I spent yesterday morning doing memory tests because I thought that I had corrupted ram. I did 4 passes in memtest86, I did 1 pass in the Windows memory tester and I tested the memory by using Alienware diagnostics. My memory is ok and no errors were found. Thus I don't think that I have bad hardware.

Thus either what happened is a freak unexpected accident which is either caused by the Nvidia driver or some Windows bug.

The Nvidia driver can suddenly misbehave. For example when I was on the previous Nvidia driver it crashed once and it restarted just after Windows started after I switched on the laptop. I updated the Nvidia driver to 537.58 after the issue happened. Also see https://reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/155a692/blank_blue_screen_after_gpu_driver_updates/. One guy got a blank blue screen after he updated his Nvidia driver. Yesterday I updated the Nvidia driver to 551.86.

Also see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUcCZ8jf32Y. You can get a blank blue screen instead of the log in screen because of a Windows bug.

Both blank blue screens have happened when you switch on the pc. Mine happened while I was using the pc.

Finally, please see https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/computer-randomly-freezing-to-blank-blue-screen.1955867/ and read what johnbl wrote. He said a deadlock happened and I think that's what happened to me.

What do you think?