If you are having frequent blue screens of death (or BSOD in short) when your Windows PC suddenly halts working and displays a blue screen with an error message that only a Microsoft engineer can understand, then perhaps your memory modules are responsible. Even though it could also be because of unusually high temperature, the most common reason is invariably the RAM modules. If you want to test the RAM modules, then you can use the Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool that comes with Windows 7 and above versions. Here is how:
- After pressing the power button with an intention to turn on your PC, quickly press the F8 key on your keyboard repeatedly many times until you see a menu. If you have a dual boot configuration, then the boot manager menu appears automatically.
- In both the cases, you will find an entry in the menu called Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool listed somewhere on this screen. Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to highlight this entry and press Enter.
- Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool may take some time to finish depending on the hardware of your PC, the number of modules and the memory capacity of each of these RAM modules installed in your PC.
- By default, the diagnostics tool starts to run in the Standard mode. But if it is taking too long, then you can press the F1 key to open options and choose the Basic mode. The Extended mode is for much more thorough scanning of the RAM but will take very long time to complete.
- If everything turns out okay in the results, then your RAM modules are working fine. Otherwise, you can either try to clean the RAM module contacts and re-seat them or buy new compatible RAM memory modules.
Conclusion: Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool is a very easy way to find out if the PC problems are being caused by faulty memory modules. This can save your time spent on fixing the PC problems from within Windows.