Instructor: In this lesson,
we are going to talk about crash screens.
Now a crash screen is essentially a screen
that's going to show an error
whenever your operating system has some sort of
a significant issue.
You'll often hear these crash screens
called three different things,
depending on which operating system you're using.
If you're using Windows,
you might have heard of this called a BSOD,
or Blue Screen of Death.
If you're using MAC,
you'll hear this known as the Pinwheel of Death.
And if you're using Linux, this is known as a Kernel Panic.
Let's take a quick look at each of these
because they have some important information
that you can use when you're troubleshooting a system.
First, we have Windows and inside of Windows,
anytime there's a serious fault,
you're going to get a Blue Screen of Death or BSOD.
Now, a Blue Screen of Death is going to indicate
that there's some kind of problem
with the underlying hardware and Windows can't solve that.
And so it basically panics and it just crashes.
When it crashes, it puts some information to the screen.
In the old days, this was a blue screen with white text
that had lots of technical data on it.
But over time,
Microsoft realized this was kind of scary for users.
And so they actually changed
this very technical looking screen
into something that's a little bit more friendly Looking.
In Windows 10 and 11,
you're going to get a blue screen with a sad face on it,
and this is going to say something like,
"Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart.
We're just collecting some error info
and then we'll restart for you."
And then there'll be a count up from zero to 100%.
Underneath this, there's going to be a QR code
that you can scan with your smartphone
and be able to get more information
about that specific error that Windows has experienced.
In addition to this, you could go to windows.com/stopcode
and get some information about the error
that you just experienced.
Now, when it comes to stop codes inside of Windows
there are lots of different reasons
that you could have an error or a crash that occurs.
This can include things like a critical process that died,
a system threat exception that wasn't handled properly,
an IRQ not less than or equal to,
a video TDR timeout detected,
a page fault in nonpaged areas,
system service exceptions and DPC watchdog violations.
Now for the exam, you do not need to know
all of the different types of stop codes
that exist within Windows.
And the ones I listed here are just a few of them,
there's actually a lot more.
Instead, what you need to know is that
if you hear the term, Blue Screen of Death or BSOD,
we're talking about a crash screen
or error screen inside of Windows
and that error code is also called a stop code
because the system stops operating
and presents that error code so you can look it up
and get additional information.
Most of the time,
I've found that these Blue Screens of Death are caused
because of some kind of underlying hardware issue,
and most commonly, this has to do with the system memory.
If there's parts of your memory
that are now becoming faulty over time,
this can cause these errors
and the entire system can panic and crash.
Now, the second operating system we're going to talk about
is macOS, also known as OS X.
Now, OS X is made by Apple and it runs on Apple hardware
such as their desktops and laptops.
When there is a crash inside of Apple,
instead of giving you a crash screen
or a Blue Screen of Death like Windows does,
it instead creates what people call
the Spinning Beach Ball
or more commonly, the Pinwheel of Death.
The reason for this is,
is there's a multicolored circle that spins around
anytime the system becomes unresponsive
and it's waiting for something to happen.
Generally, you'll see the Spinning Beach Ball,
also known as the Pinwheel of Death,
anytime the macOS system or OS X
is suffering some sort of catastrophic process failure,
and essentially, that application or process
just becomes fully unresponsive.
Now, the third major operating system
out there is known as Linux.
And in Linux, we don't have a Blue Screen of Death
or a spinning Pinwheel of Death.
Instead, we have what's known as a Kernel Panic.
When this occurs,
you're going to get a black screen with white text on it
that's going to give you a lot of detailed information.
The reason for this is that Linux tends to be used
by people who are more technically adept,
such as system administrators or technicians.
Now, inside of Linux, the core of the operating system
is known as the kernel
and this runs everything else inside of Linux.
So when the system becomes unresponsive or crashes,
we call this a Kernel Panic.
Now, if there is a Kernel Panic,
the system will actually output that to the display
and give you what's known as an exit code,
which is also another form of stop code
like we've been talking about with Windows and OS X.
In Linux, these exit codes are written as zero X
and then eight digits all written in hexadecimal format.
These hexadecimal numbers can be anywhere
from zero to nine, and A through F,
representing the numbers from zero to 16,
or four bits in binary, also known as a nibble.
So as a technician, you need to be aware
of these different stop codes,
not to have them memorized,
but just to understand that when a system panics or crashes
you're going to get either a Blue Screen of Death
if you're using Windows,
the spinning Pinwheel of Death if you're using MAC or OS X,
or a Kernel Panic if you're using Linux.
By using the code that's given by Windows or Linux,
you'll be able to look that up online
and get more information about what is causing that error.
Now, unlike Windows or Linux,
MAC does not give you an actual code and instead,
you're just getting this spinning Pinwheel of Death
while you're waiting for that system
to become responsive again,
or you go in and force quit that process
to be able to free up those resources
and restore the system to functionality.
Now, here in Core One, we are not focused
on different operating systems,
so we're not going to dive into
how to actually do that right now.
And instead, you just need to be aware of the fact
that these stop codes exist
and you can use them to look up
and get more information about your different errors.