win debug error

[originaljgf]

System working fine this morning, checked email, forums ,couple of games, etc.; walked off for breakfast and shower, returned to find RegRun (anti-malware) pop-up on screen, odd because this only runs at start-up. Checked Task Manager to find system up only 40 minutes (should have shown about three hours), checked events and found "the computer has restarted from a bug check". Having never encountered this message before (been cursing computers since the days of TTY terminals and acoustic couplers), I'm off to the internet for research; seems a common event message, with the usual solutions - "update drivers", "run memory test", etc.

But I found a dump file from the time of the restart, though no idea how to open it (again, never had to previously). Eventually installed debug (dbg_x86.msi from MS site) and it refuses to cooperate, complaining that something is "not a valid win 32 application" (screenshot attached).

System is old Inspiron 1720 with Win7 Ultimate 32bit; I've had it three years and this is only spontaneous reboot in that time. (Originally had Vista, Win10 when I got it, immediately replaced with Win7.)

 

[torchwood]

hi, to view the contents,

The procedure:

* Copy the contents of \Windows\Minidump to another (temporary) location somewhere on your machine.


making sure minidumps are enabled:

Go to Start, in the Search Box type: sysdm.cpl, press Enter.
Under the Advanced tab, click on the Startup and Recovery Settings... button.
Ensure that Automatically restart is unchecked.
Under the Write Debugging Information header select Small memory dump (256 kB) in the dropdown box (the 256kb varies).
Ensure that the Small Dump Directory is listed as %systemroot%\Minidump.
OK your way out.
Reboot if changes have been made.

 

[originaljgf]

Thanks for the input. Disabled Auto Restart and changed "Kernel Memory Dump" to Small Memory Dump (in my case it was128k). Will see how it goes. In the interim I installed a small utility - WhoCrashed, which easily displayed the dmp files and I found my bug check crash was due to vid driver issue.