Fix: 0x000000F4 Blue Screen STOP Error

The error “Stop code: 0x0x000000F4” forces your operating system to enter a failure state and go into a blue screen of death. This error is primarily caused because of hard drive or driver corruptions. These corruptions are very common in the computing world and may happen to anyone and anytime.

The workarounds for this BSOD include checking your hard drive for bad sectors, checking drivers for corrupt/outdated files, and checking your hardware physically. We will go through the solutions one by one starting with the easiest ones first. Take a look.

Note: If you are unable to access your computer because of the error condition coming again and again, try launching it in safe mode and follow the solutions from there.

Solution 1: Checking for Driver issues

According to extensive user surveys and responses, we came to the conclusion that most of the time, this BSOD occurs when you have incorrect drivers installed against your hardware in your computer. These drivers include graphic, hard drive, and display drivers.

Now there are two options. Either you can update the driver automatically (windows update) or you can update them manually by first navigating to the manufacturer’s website and downloading the latest driver to an accessible location according to your operating system type.

1. Press Windows + R, type “devmgmt.msc” in the dialogue box and press Enter.
2. Once in the device manager, open the hardware which you think might be causing the problem, right-click it and select Update driver software.

3. Now like mentioned before, you have two options. Either you can automatically update the drivers or you can manually try updating them. In case of manual, do note that you have to manually head over to the manufacturer’s site and download the drivers from there to an accessible location. Once you have downloaded them, only then proceed with the next step.

4. Click on the browse button and navigate where you downloaded the driver files. After selecting, Windows will automatically install the drivers.

Restart your computer and check if this solves the problem. Here it is advised that you update all the drivers and if the latest ones don’t work for you, you can always try installing an older driver and see if they do the trick.

If you still get an error, you can try using the driver verifier to check for any discrepancies in the driver which you are not noticing yourself.

1. Open the search bar, type “command” in the dialogue box, right-click on command prompt and select Run as administrator.

2. Once in elevated command prompt, execute the command “verifier”.

3. A new verifier window will come up. Select the option Create standard settings and then Automatically select all drivers installed on this computer.

4. Now reboot your computer and check if the stop error code still appears.

Note: There was particular emphasis on bad drivers of the hard drives. Make sure that the drivers are updated to the latest build and also make sure that your Windows has the latest updates installed.

Solution 2: Clean-booting your computer

Another workaround to solve the error code is to try Clean Booting. This boot allows your PC to turn on with a minimal set of drivers and programs. Only the essential ones are enabled while all the other services are disabled. If the error doesn’t occur in this mode, you should enable the processes back on only with small chunks and check if the error returns. If it doesn’t, you can turn on another chunk and check. This way you will be able to diagnose which process is causing the problem.

1. Press Windows + R to launch the Run application. Type “msconfig” in the dialogue box and press Enter.
2. Click on the General tab and only check the option Load system services.

3. Now navigate to the Services tab present at the top of the screen. Check the line which says “Hide all Microsoft services”. Once you click this, all Microsoft related services will be disabled leaving behind all the third-party services (you can also disable all Microsoft related processes too and check more extensively if there are no third-party services causing the problem).
4. Now click the “Disable all” button present at the near bottom at the left side of the window. All the third-party services will now be disabled.

5. Select the Startup tab and click on Disable all. This will disable all the startup items on your computer.

6. Restart your computer. The computer will be restart with only a minimal set of drivers. If the BSOD doesn’t occur, try enabling the services back again in chunks. This way you will be able to diagnose which one is causing the problem.

Note: Don’t forget to disable your antivirus software as well. They are known to cause problems.

Solution 3: Checking hardware physically

If both the above methods don’t work, you should check your hardware components physically. This solution might be vague but we cannot point to one specific hardware as all computer’s configuration is different.

What you are looking for are cables connecting the hard drive or the hard drive itself. Make sure all the components are installed correctly with the ‘click’ sound whenever you insert the RAM. Check for the power supply of all modules and also make sure that your hard drive is in a working state. Overall, make sure that all your hardware components are working and are not improperly connected.

In addition to the above solutions, you can also try:

• Running a System File Checker (SFC) to check for any bad files present.
• Make sure that you are running the latest version of Windows on your computer.
• Also, perform a memory check on your RAM and check for bad sectors on your hard drive.
• If all the above methods fail, feel free to install a clean version of Windows after backing up your data.