Thw windows event log is a good place to go if you wan't to feels depressed and stressed out for mostly no reason. Unless you actually know exactly what you're doing, or you're computer is acting up and you need something to google, dont go there. It's like the equivalent of trying to self diagnose an illness, there's always something wrong, the thing is not everything is neccecairly dangerous.
This is probably the most usefully informative text guide I have ever watched. You just potentially made me be able to diagnose any problems that I've ever experienced with Windows. Thank you so much!!
even if you choose to ignore an error, it is always best to know why the error exists, sometimes the error is actually a lie (amazingly often the error is a lie), but knowing why is important in pc repair, your customer will not be happy if they have the same problem in three weeks.
Thank you for this. It seems i had an unnecessary service trying to operate in the background, but was unable to do so because i had disabled other parts of Windows that it required. No more errors in my log :)
This area of Windows is a favourite for scammers in call centres. They call up unsuspecting non-technical people, remote onto their PC and open up the error log.. Then say "look these are problems, viruses in your computer" ... "Just fifty dollars to fix it yes?"
Thanks for this! I recently had to spend 3 weeks troubleshooting for blue screens on my rig, and spent a tonne of time on the event viewer, and taught myself a lot during that time, but its nice to have this as a favourite to go back to. For any interested, to find the blue screen I ended up replacing everything (even the mobo) and still had BS. The culprit in the end? Turns out my i5 was faulty after only 10 months. The more you know.
Tek Syndicate Great video! My favorite vids are the ones where I learn IT releated stuff especially about windows! I know about the event viewer but there were some things about it that I didnt know and now I do which helps me not only at home but at work as well! Oh, and I also think its great that Windell doesnt try and hide his face anymore. IDK why but it just seems better for the video :)
GreywolfStudios74 Agreed. When someone seems to be hiding something, there is a feeling that you can't entirely trust them, whether it is justified or not. It always seemed to be one of their "things" that Wendell was hidden behind a bank of monitors, but it becomes tiresome. Is he hiding from the law? Was his face chewed up in a farming accident? Is it Mel Gibson in a new career? I am relieved that they decided to end the subterfuge. It is a lot more practical for making different kinds of videos, and it is much more enjoyable to watch when the viewer isn't distracted with wondering why he is hidden. There is a place for shooting the shit, so to speak, with a nice cold one, but Wendell's videos are much more focused on what I am interested in. Hopefully we will see an increase in output.
Tek Syndicate Yes. Thanks for this Wendell. I usually find that Windows event logs lines are so cryptic that it takes far too long (longer than it should) with Google to decrypt all the numeric information which looks scary, and ultimately isn't at all. But well done for illustrating the process. On mini-dumps, I've used debugging symbols to trace what was causing BSODs in *my* software. When the software is someone elses', I don't find that the Microsoft debugging tools tell me any more than I can get with the smaller, and IMHO easier Bluescreen View, from Nirsoft. I've introduced my team to it, and they seem to like it. Aside from anything else, it can show the Bluescreen, as XP would have done. They know what those looked like, and had some idea what the common errors where about, where the dump files are pretty alien to them. (or to anyone who hasn't done much software development on low-level Microsoft APIs) So, I'd recommend that for anyone who is new to this, or wants a tool on a USB flash drive, rather than pulling the dumps off onto the flash drive, or SMB admin share to view at the tech office.
The man said the words "just windows being windows" - the Level of things we put up with from windows - if it wasn't for games, we would have parted ways a while back
It's where to look when you're running Windows servers. It's also pretty useful for coders, you can just dump your loggings there and have some kind of automation to look for your logs and perform monthly archive or something.
If you're on 7 and you can't install the debugging tools, uninstall both C++ 2010 Redist packages, then install the debugging tools and then reinstall the current redistributables.
There's also, for the lazy, or phone support or whatever other reason you may find, whocrashed. It does most of the work for you...at least on a bsod, probably better only really when it's a software/driver problem. It helped me to find a webcam driver problem, and some other driver or software issue in the past(since I knew of the event viewer and dump files, bit not how to read them).
Thanks for the informative video! I will need this to share with others to give them the proper headstart to diagnosing their own system software and hardware. Steam forum is littered with uneducated PC users and most are downright malice and impatient when they encounter an errors. They often blame developers for their poorly managed system and some do treat PC like it's a console waiting for the patch expecting it will resolve their simple issue. I myself had issue as well with my video card before. The game would often restart or hang when executing DX11 games especially during crossfire setup. I went to event log and looked into the problem. I did the standard reseating the PCIe and swapping GPU. I found out that OEM for the GPU used two different brands of memory. One was faulty and other was stable. Needless to say, I returned the GPU and got the proper GPU with same VRAM manufacturer
David Cooltions Don't think so at all they just need to amp up the amount of video releases I know editing and getting the content ect takes time but they do need to hurry up.
Reinstalled Win7 a couple of months ago. It took 3 tries to get a proper installation with all updates without having Windows somehow crapping out somewhere in the process. Now that it's installed and working, since February my event log is FILLED with errors and warnings, I'm talking 697 Errors, 925 Warnings and 10 Criticals (BSOD's) from all kinds of sources. Yay Windows. Oh, and none of them are related to the ones discussed in this video btw.
Stefan Falls The event log is what I referenced in my initial post. I haven't really dug in to it to find a root cause (I get errors from all kinds of sources) because I think I'll just try to reinstall once again instead. I like messing around with computers, but I prefer spending my time on working with them, not trying to get them to work.
***** That's bullshit and you know it... There have been Windows versions where BSOD were unavoidable, including the "oh so glorious Windows XP" in it's first year. XP SP0 was so unpredictable, and had so many compability issues, that even 98SE, and Me seemed to be the more stable options. Also, driver updates were many times the reason that lead to system issues. And BIOS updates for consumer hardware in the 90s and early 00s? Yeah, good luck... But hey, maybe you hopped from Win95 straight to NT, didn't switch to XP until SP2 was out, and just recently made the switch to 7. Although, even then it's highly unlikely you've never had a BSOD.
***** could b true if he stuck with simple basic hardware, blue screen will happen on occasion with higher end stuff more often. I never experienced one on my e-machine from high school
ChrisD4335 There was a time when unplugging an USB printer (which I'd consider pretty basic hardware) at the wrong time could turn your OS into a wet fart. Keep in mind, we're talking about the past 20, not just 10 years.
It wasn't the same to reach that program through my copy of Win 7. A simple search of "computer management" brought me to it though easy enough. I couldn't find any errors or warnings for some odd crashes I've had though. It certainly made me aware of the ever present driver issue for my graphics tablet though... Wacom never addressed that, so sad.
Great video! Now, exactly how heavily can this affect performance? YeALSO, when bluescreens hit, we are fixing the exact issues reported, correct? Cause then i got some more annoying problems with my current MOBO i am running. The bastard make certain applications crash when i go in and out of them. GPU/PCI express related i can only imagine. But i am a noob at this tho.
Yellow thats probably windows itself not closing programs correctly, id look at any recent windows update, or if you dont mind it. a fresh install will probably fix that.
Paul Smith It was a general question made before anything bad has gone down yet. Older gamers are well aware that re-installing Windows solve performance issues to some degree.
Cody Brown Can, but is not. I have done enough tests to know what and what is not causing certain issues. Regardless, this is not exactly about a problem, but a "what if" case-scenario.
This is also what the Indian "windows suport" calls you and uses it to make you fear your machine is broken... Microsoft will never call you to offer you assistance.... you must contact them!
Does each and every Error trigger a BSOD or can some be caught and handled (I'm talking about errors that were not able to be corrected as opposed to the warnings you got which were corrected errors)?
Informative and easily explained with all these PCI Stuff. I've one Question open: Why is there always a DCOM Error and is there a Fix for those? Because these Errors are always on the System.
Very stimulating for the mind, just fix an error for Workstation service being disable. All I did is just re-enable it and error is gone. Still wish I could disable it without generating the errors for I never use it. If I need something from any computer or need to use a printer I just hook it up with a wired. I know it's a bit of a pain but I have done that like twice in three months. For printing out rebates forms.
Daily reminder to not buy shit from Razer :) My mouse actually just crashed my computer like 3 times and the motherboard said it was power surges. Dont endanger your expensive computer for a flashy mouse, buy a good mouse.
