Key Screen Details to Examine

It is possible, in some cases, to determine the cause of a STOP screen by closely examining STOP screen data before rebooting. Under Windows NT 4.0, the screen divides into the five logical sections. (Processor Register Dump from Windows NT 3.1 is not included in current versions of Windows NT.)

The failing module can sometimes be identified by comparing the data in BugCheck Information with that in Driver Information and Stack Dump.

The Bugcheck Information shown is:

*** STOP:  0x0000000A (0x00000000,0x0000001A,0x00000000,0xFC873D6C)
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL*** Address fc873d6c has base at fc870000 - i8042prt.SYS
CPUID:GenuineIntel 5.1.5 irql:1f   SYSVER 0Xf0000421

Notice that the first four digits of the code address shown (0xFC873D6C) are FC87. This identifies the base, which is shown as FC870000. In this case the description specifies that the address is located in i8042prt.sys:

*** Address fc873d6c has base at fc870000 - i8042prt.SYS

If this description is not given, you can obtain it by searching Driver Information to find a match on the following line:

Section 3:  Driver Information
Dll Base  Date Stamp - Name               Dll Base  Date Stamp - Name
fc860000  2faae8a1 - Beep.SYS             fc870000  31167860 - i8042prt.SYS

The 0xFC870000 base matches the i8042prt.sys driver (the keyboard driver). Also, the stack dump can sometimes identify the failing driver, as it does in this case:

Section 4:  Kernel Build Number and Stack Dump
Address    dword dump    Build [1057]                - Name
8014004c fc873d6c fc873d6c ff05e051 00000000 ff05e04b 0000002f - i8042prt.SYS <-
8014007c 801400c4 801400c4 00000000 00000023 00000023 00000037 - ntoskrnl.exe

Often, this points to kernel code 0x80140000 because a trap handler in the kernel processes the failure. The BugCheck data and stack trace in these cases points to the kernel trap handler code. You can always compare this address information to narrow the list of problem driver components. In this case, the i8042prt.sys driver is a candidate for close scrutiny. Be sure this driver is the most current version available. Also, it is important to write down the first four lines of trap information for future reference (in case another trap occurs) and to provide this information to your technical support person as part of the problem description details.