A windows user will always agree to my point that we too often encounter many error message, PC crashing and Blue screen of death while working on our Windows based PC. You are doing an important work and suddenly you see Fatal error: The system has become unstable. And there is no way for you to go back to your application without restart and loosing all the work you did. But a little understanding of the underlying operation of Windows and applying it in keeping your computer fit will let you get rid off those unwanted situations. Here I will discuss about a couple of reasons why we encounter errors and how to get prevent those errors:

Hardware conflict

The number one reason why Windows crashes is hardware conflict. Each hardware device communicates to other devices through an interrupt request channel (IRQ). This IRQ should be unique for each device.

For example, a printer usually connects internally on IRQ 7. The keyboard usually uses IRQ 1 and the floppy disk drive IRQ 6. Each device will try to hog a single IRQ for itself. If there are a lot of devices, or if they are not installed properly, two of them may end up sharing the same IRQ number. When the user tries to use both devices at the same time, a crash can happen.

It is possible to check if the PC has a hardware conflict by going to Device manager and we can alos check the IRQ for any device.

Click on Start >Settings>Control Panel>System>Device Manager or from Run command you can open it by

Start > Run and type devmgmt.msc and click on OK.

Often if a device has a problem a yellow ‘!’ appears next to its description in the Device Manager. Sometimes a device might share an IRQ with something described as ‘IRQ holder for PCI steering’. This can be ignored. The best way to fix this problem is to remove the problem device and reinstall it.

The problem with IRQ numbers is not of its making. It is a legacy problem going back to the first PC designs using the IBM 8086 chip. Initially there were only eight IRQs. Today there are 16 IRQs in a PC. It is easy to run out of them. There are plans to increase the number of IRQs in future designs. Windows is better at allocating IRQ numbers than any BIOS. If possible set the IRQ numbers to Auto in the BIOS. This will allow Windows to allocate the IRQ numbers (make sure the BIOS setting for Plug and Play OS is switched to ‘yes’ to allow Windows to do this.).

Bad RAM

A corrupt RAM (Random-Access Memory) might bring on the blue screen of death(BSOD) with a message saying Fatal Exception Error. A fatal error indicates a serious hardware problem. Sometimes it may mean a part is damaged and will need replacing.

But a fatal error caused by Ram might be caused by a mismatch of chips. For example, mixing a 533Mhz RAM with a 667MHz, will usually force the computer to run all the Ram at the slower speed. This will often crash the machine if the Ram is overworked.

For this it is advisable to use RAM with similar speed and capacity. Most of the time resetting the RAM by removing it out of the slot will fix the issue.

Parity error messages also refer to Ram. Modern Ram chips are either parity (ECC) or non parity (non-ECC). It is best not to mix the two types, as this can be a cause of trouble.

Hard disk drives

When we start using the hard drive due to large number of read and write operation the performance of the drive reduces and bad sectors are generated. Moreover when data is saved on hard drive they are saved in smaller chunks and spread as fragments throughout the drive. It gradually reduces the performance of the drive and PC freezes. It is a good idea to defragment the hard disk every week or so.

Disk defragmentation can be accessed from System tools or from properties of any hard drive partition.

Go to Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Defragmenter or

Start > My computer (Computer) > Right click on any partition > Properties > Tools > Defragment now

This will start the procedure. You will be unable to write data to the hard drive (to save it) while the disk is defragmenting.

Hard disks will slow down and crash if they are too full. Do some housekeeping on your hard drive every few months and free some space on it. Open the Windows folder on the C drive and find the Temporary Internet Files folder. Deleting the contents (not the folder) can free a lot of space.

Empty the Recycle Bin every week to free more space. Hard disk drives should be scanned every week for errors or bad sectors. To check for disk errors and fix them you can go to

Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > ScanDisk or

Start > My computer (Computer) > Right click on any partition > Properties > Tools > error checking

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