Blue screen with a sad face
My computer keeps showing a blue screen and restarting. How do I stop it?
Written by The CommonFixes team · fact checked by CommonFixes review desk
Last updated
Short answer
A blue screen is Windows stopping itself before something damages your files. Nine times out of ten the cause is a driver, a failing memory stick, or a hard drive with bad spots. The quickest thing to try first: write down the stop code — Take a photo of the blue page. The words in capital letters at the bottom, such as CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED or DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION, tell you which part failed and make every later step faster. Most people are done in about 20 minutes.
Full walkthrough below: 6 steps for Windows, rated medium.
Sounds like this
- •Blue page with a frowning face
- •A stop code such as MEMORY_MANAGEMENT
- •Sudden restarts
Why it happens
A blue screen is Windows stopping itself before something damages your files. Nine times out of ten the cause is a driver, a failing memory stick, or a hard drive with bad spots.
Work through these in order
0% done- 1
Write down the stop code
Take a photo of the blue page. The words in capital letters at the bottom, such as CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED or DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION, tell you which part failed and make every later step faster.
- 2
Unplug everything you added recently
Remove printers, docks, extra drives, game controllers and USB hubs. Start with only the charger and see whether the crashes stop. A cheap accessory with a poor driver causes a surprising number of blue screens.
- 3
Install every pending update
Open Settings, then Windows Update, and install everything including the optional driver updates. Microsoft and the makers of graphics cards push fixes for known crash codes here.
- 4
Test the memory
Press the Windows key, type Windows Memory Diagnostic, and choose to restart and check. The test takes a few minutes. If it reports problems, one memory stick needs replacing, which is an inexpensive part.
- 5
Repair damaged system files
Right click the Start button, open Terminal as administrator, and run sfc /scannow. When it finishes, run DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth, then restart the computer.
- 6
Roll back the graphics driver
If crashes began after a graphics update, press Windows and X, open Device Manager, expand Display adapters, right click your card, choose Properties, then Driver, then Roll Back Driver.
If none of that worked
If blue screens keep coming at random with different codes, the drive or memory is failing. Copy your files to another drive today, before the next crash.
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Who wrote this and how we checked it
The CommonFixes team
Writer and researcher
We are a small group of people who spend our days repairing laptops and desktops for family, friends and small offices. Every guide here starts with a problem someone actually brought to us, and we only write down the steps that put the machine right.
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CommonFixes review desk
Technical editor
Before a guide goes live, a second person walks through it on a real machine and checks each instruction against the maker's own support pages. Anything we cannot confirm is removed rather than guessed at.
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This guide was last updated on 10 August 2026. If a step no longer matches what you see on screen, tell us on the contact page and we will test it again.
A gentle reminder: back up anything you cannot afford to lose before major repairs. If a step ever feels risky, stop and ask a technician. There is no shame in that.