If your computer is acting unpredictably, locking up, andencountering blue screens of death, then you’re most likely the victimof a faulty driver. There are two ways to do this: One is good ol’device manager, and the other is something new in Vista called DriverVerifier Manager.
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**Now before you shrug this article off, the second part of this article goes into something that is only available in Windows Vista.
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, f: }8 _: r x5 l: zMost people are already familiar with using the device manager toidentify a troubling driver, but I will go over it just in case. =
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Using the Device Manager to identify a troubling driver:+ K+ Q0 o+ S6 f. m& A8 t3 o
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0 K' D6 U3 q% c& N4 x* mOpen the Start Menu and type in device manager in the search box. It will take you directly to the device manager.
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You will know that you have a driver problem for a particular deviceif a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark is shown beside one ofthe icons above. To resolve the driver problem, open the specificcategory and right clicking the device. A new window will open up.Click on the driver tab to access those options.
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Here you can roll back, update, or uninstall the driver. I recommendfollowing this order to solve your driver problems. If you roll backand the problems resolve, you’ll know that the previous driver works.However, if you update and the new driver continues to cause problems,your only choice will be to roll back to your previous troublingdriver. If you have already tried this, you can try using the DriverVerifier Manager.
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Using the Driver Verifier Manager to identify a troubling driver:3 h0 U8 o2 K! r, [2 C
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The Driver Verifier Manager (DFV) is a great tool fortroubleshooting driver problems by identifying the troubling driver.Although DFV does not actually fix the driver, it still is a reallyuseful tool because it helps you identify the troubling driver so youcan choose to delete or update the driver. Before you attempt to usethis tool, please be sure that your are really having driver problems.The tool will prevent your computer from starting by identifying thetroubling driver. I say this
only because it may be a lengthy process for you but if you are having troubles, it will definitely be worth it.
) T3 ]8 S, J4 ]/ N4 C. HTo open the Driver Verifier Manager, open the Start Menu, type
verifier in the search box and press Enter.
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\+ V3 |/ z I1 [7 O2 x) [You’ll want to choose
Create Standard Settings. Then press Next.
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The most common culprit for weird computer behaviour is caused by anunsigned driver. If you believe otherwise, you can select a differentoption. If you’re not sure, it’s best to just select
Automatically select unsigned drivers.
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9 Z. Q# @: z- y( N; LNow you can see a list of all the unsigned drivers being used. Notethat this list may contain drivers used by your hardware, anti-virusprograms, CD-burning software, or other low-level system utilities. Youcan be pretty sure that the troubling driver is one of these. At thisstage, you can do one or all of the following:
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- If you installed one of these drivers from a third-party website orencountered the “Unsigned Driver” notice when installing from a CD, youcan run Windows Update and see if Windows has found a driver for you.You can access Windows Update by typing Windows Update in the StartMenu search. Then try installing the new driver from Windows Update andsee if that fixes the problem.6 v% g( d$ Q) }
Do not click Finish when done. Click Cancel. - Leave this list open, and attempt to update the drivers listed oruninstall the drivers you believe is causing you trouble. Make sure youknow what you are uninstalling. If you are unsure, you can always useGoogle. For example, Nvidia is a graphics company so by uninstallingthis driver, I can expect to be unable to play games and have a verybad looking display until I reinstall. I don’t recommend uninstallinganything you don’t know, but updating should be fine. Do not click Finish when done. Click Cancel.
- Click Finish and restart your computer. If your computer stops witha blue screen, this means the problem driver has been identified. Theerror message should include the offending driver and error code. Writethis down. Since your computer will not be able to start anymore, turnoff your computer and turn it back on, but this time making sure topress F8 during startup. Boot into safe mode (with networking if youwant to go online) and uninstall the driver. After this, you candisable Driver Verifier by typing verifier /reset in the Start Menu Search. For more info on how to uninstall the drive, you’ll have to go back to the beginning of the article. Insteadof looking for the yellow triangle, you can proceed straight to thetroubling driver. (You may have to do some Googling to figure out whichdriver uses the troubling driver.)
Hopefully this resolves a lot of the errors you guys have been posting in the comments about blue screens.
