How to find out the culprit of a bad-pool-caller BSoD?

M

Michael Moser

Whenever I want to do a shutdown I get an immediate "BAD POOL CALLER"
blue screen. This happens so immediate (practically the very moment I
hit the shutdown key), that I have a hard time to believe, that there is
some program or HW driver involved at all (that's what MS' site suggest
on this subject). I rather suspect, that this might even be Explorer
itself causing this, but of course, one can't de-install it to proof
that point. :-(

By now I have almost got accustomed to it (after all Windows has never
shut down so quick before ;-) ) and so far I haven't noticed any other
bad sideeffect, but on the other I find that a bit, well, simply not as
it should be!

Is there any way to log, catch, and then debug and find out, which app
or driver or whatever is causing this?

Michael
 
S

Smoker

Michael Moser said:
Whenever I want to do a shutdown I get an immediate "BAD POOL CALLER" blue
screen. This happens so immediate (practically the very moment I hit the
shutdown key), that I have a hard time to believe, that there is some
program or HW driver involved at all (that's what MS' site suggest on this
subject). I rather suspect, that this might even be Explorer itself
causing this, but of course, one can't de-install it to proof that point.
:-(

By now I have almost got accustomed to it (after all Windows has never
shut down so quick before ;-) ) and so far I haven't noticed any other bad
sideeffect, but on the other I find that a bit, well, simply not as it
should be!

Is there any way to log, catch, and then debug and find out, which app or
driver or whatever is causing this?
Do you know how to check what software is starting when you boot your
machine? You may have some needless crap lurking in the background that may
not be good software in the first place. What anti-virus program do you use?
 
P

Poprivet

Michael said:
Whenever I want to do a shutdown I get an immediate "BAD POOL CALLER"
blue screen. This happens so immediate (practically the very moment I
hit the shutdown key), that I have a hard time to believe, that there
is some program or HW driver involved at all (that's what MS' site
suggest on this subject). I rather suspect, that this might even be
Explorer itself causing this, but of course, one can't de-install it
to proof that point. :-(

By now I have almost got accustomed to it (after all Windows has never
shut down so quick before ;-) ) and so far I haven't noticed any other
bad sideeffect, but on the other I find that a bit, well, simply not
as it should be!

Is there any way to log, catch, and then debug and find out, which app
or driver or whatever is causing this?

Michael

If you boot to Safe Mode, can you shut down OK from there? If so, that will
minimize the possibilities.

Otherwise, try using MSConfig to do some troubleshooting. If you can't
figure it out, come on back and ask for help using that.

Pop`
 
M

Michael Moser

Smoker said:
Do you know how to check what software is starting when you boot your
machine? You may have some needless crap lurking in the background
that may not be good software in the first place.

Yes I know how to inspect and handle startups. I regularly check using
msconfig, esp. after installing some SW and in total I disabled about a
third of all entries and several services I don't need, the rest I left
since I wanted them.
..
What anti-virus program do you use?

Symantec AV, don't think it that. BSoDs happen if disabled.

I observed, that if I log off first and then shut down from the
login-panel things work fine. It's only when I shut down directly and
lately I even had a few cases, where the system actually shut down
properly without BSoD. Must be the combination of things and whether
some service has actually been started and/or used that causes this
eventually.

If one could only analyze the generated dump file in some decent manner.
But running the Windows debugger or VisualStudio on it, didn't bring up
anything useful.

Michael
 
M

Michael Moser

Poprivet said:
If you boot to Safe Mode, can you shut down OK from there? If so,
that will minimize the possibilities.

Otherwise, try using MSConfig to do some troubleshooting. If you
can't figure it out, come on back and ask for help using that.

As I wrote in my other reply: some good hints how to analyze a dump file
might help.

Michael
 
M

Michael Moser

Hi Will,

thanks - THAT was the kind of hint or pointer that I was hoping for!
Next time I'll try to follow the description I found via your link to
see whether I can find out something about the source of these BSoDs.

Thanks and regards,
Michael
 
W

Will Denny

You're welcome.

--


Will Denny
MS-MVP Shell/User
Please reply to the Newsgroup


Please reply to the Newgroups
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Similar Threads


Top