[Desertfish]

OK… Some of you might already have had a look at the post I made in this thread (http://www.computer-juice.com/forums...lopment-18674/). The masochists amongst you might actually have read it and learned that I recently had my very first experience at debugging BSOD’s and freezes. So what…? Well, although I’m not an IT expert, I have been messing about with PC’s for the past 9 years. I've even done a 2 year stint at IT helpdesks before moving to the Telecommunications industry. During all those years, I have built, maintained and troubleshot several systems of my own and have been helping out friends with their computer related problems. Each time I have been able to rely on simple elimination steps in order to identify the faulty hardware. (Alex wrote an excellent guide on those steps which can be found here: http://www.computer-juice.com/forums...-how-fix-5270/). A few days ago however, I found myself forced in getting a stab at debugging simply because a problem I’m currently experiencing with my latest built/upgrade. I myself and an MSCE certified friend who has bags more experience then I do, had been pondering over the problem for a good few days and the only conclusion we could draw was that the problem didn’t make sense at all.

Now here’s where the problem gets even worse: The only debugging I’ve done so far in my life involved bottles of pesticide. I don’t own a code-breaking degree earned at Bletchley Park. In fact, I don’t know the first thing about programming languages. Debug commands seem like Mandarin or Cantonese to me and scripts might as well be written in Arabic… So when I was looking for basic info on debugging, I immediately got lost in code or commands that seemed to appear out of thin air and meant absolutely nothing to me. The “Debugging for Numpties” guide I was so desperately looking for on t’interweb did not seem to exist in any shape or form so I ended up piecing parts together from different sources (that and a lot of trial and error). So if a “Numpties” guide doesn’t exist, who better to write it than a Numpty himself?

So here goes… My very own DIY guide on how to use WinDbg to debug a crash file (or dump-file) generated by Windows each time your system freezes or produces a BSOD. Since I hardly have any experience with the subject, I will only be scratching the surface of the top of the iceberg. Still, the information provided should be more then enough to help you finding out why the heck your system is doing things its not supposed to do. The whole procedure is not exactly rocket science, but there are a lot of bits to explain. So I divided the guide up in 3 parts:

• Part 1: Getting All the Bits You Need
• Part 2: Setting up WinDbg
• Part 3: Having a Stab at Debugging.

Part 1 will explain where to get all the bits you need, where to find the dumpfiles, the different kinds of dumpfiles Windows can create and how to change the settings in Windows to get the kind of dumpfile you want.

Part 2 will deal with the setup of WinDbg so you can perform a simple debug with 2 clicks and typing one command (seriously)

Part 3 will go into the debugging itself using a real life example. I’ll also be using this example to illustrate how I nailed the problem with my PC. I promise that at this stage, you will agree that without the debug, I would never have found the real cause of the problem…

[Bubba]

What is a numpty?

[serverguy]

Originally Posted by Bubba

What is a numpty?

lol.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...ition&ct=title

Would you understand if I said it was similar to a muppet?

[Bubba]

LOL no. It must be a European thing, it hasn't crossed the pond yet....... well, belay that, I guess it DID just cross the pond.

Oh, nice guide desert fish, I failed to add that last time.

[Desertfish]

Thanks.

Still I'm struggling for time to get the last 2 parts finished. Loads of screenshots in there plus Overclock hasn't been forthcoming in getting me motherboard replaced (which eventually turned out to be the problem). I guess they can't just take everything at face value when a customer tells them that they have a faulty product so they are enquiring about all the troubleshooting I have done. Quite a few emails have gone back and forwarth. But I haven't had a replay from them in over week on the last email I send... Maybe I made them fall asleep with that one.

Anyway, done a bit more debugging since I wrote the first two parts and I want to incorporate the lessons I learned there as well. Has been a great experience. Just a shame it took me about a month to get my computer running properly. I thought a motherboard and CPU upgrade would be a no hassle thing... Yeah right...(duh!)