Blue screen of death, how to fix?

Run Memtest on your ram most common culprit for BSOD's http://memtest.org/

Yes there is no other fix for bad ram except changing it with a good kit. So next step would be RMA or claim warranty.

Solving the Blue Screen of Death. (yet keeping memtest for when you need it)

When I would turn on the computer, every time I would get the “Blue Screen of Death” caused by the memtest.exe. This denied the use of the computer since it would keep repeating itself all night or every time I started the computer. I have an HP running Windows 7. So to get to where I could make changes, at the blue screen I would hit ESC a couple of times and when it did a restart I would hit F9 to get to the boot menu and come in from that way. This allowed me to do the following to kill the memtest blue screen.

First open the control panel. Go to folder options. Click on view. Go down through the list and check “show hidden files” and any other options that hide files. Make sure when you are finished with getting rid of memtest.exe that you go back and recheck the boxes so these important files are again hidden so they cannot be accidentally deleted.

Next involves getting permission granted to the Administrator rather than just “trustedinstaller”
`To find MEMTEST.EXE. Click on C drive and see the directory list. Click on Windows for the windows list. Find the file named “Boot” and click it. Find the sub file in boot named PCAT. Go to the bottom of the PCAT list and find memtest.exe. Right click on memtest and look at the properties

After Finding Memtest.exe, Right click to get list. Click properties this opens “Memtest.exe properties”. Click Security

Once you have security clicked. Open Permission for memtest.exe. Click Administrator in the upper box. Click all of the permissions in the lower box to “ALLOW” . click OK

Sometimes you have to shut down and restart the computer for the permissions to take effect.
After getting the permission for FULL for the administrator, I created a file in :C” drive called
“Destroy me later MEMTEST” and moved the Memtest from the boot PCAT folders to this one. It is totally out of the boot area this way. I have it if I need it, but can destroy it later.

Even though I moved it, I went back to the “Boot-PCAT” folder, found it again and then deleted it to make sure that it was no longer there. Beware, there may be a hid den copy somewhere if it starts again.


On the Internet – search for Windows 7 – How to Delete Files Protected by TrustedInstaller and find it in the site “ Help Desk Geek” this will walk you through the permission changes. It worked for me! Mike