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Question

Crash Dump

Dec 28, 2012 4:30AM PST

I have a Dell Latitude D630. It goes to the "blue screen" and "crash dumps", every day and sometimes several times a day. What is causing this? The Operating system is Windows 7. Do I just buy a new laptop or what?

Discussion is locked

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Clarification Request
have you ever cleaned it out
Dec 28, 2012 4:33AM PST

with canned air ?

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Canned air, for crash dump problem
Dec 28, 2012 10:29PM PST

No, I have not tried the canned air. Why should this help? I thought it might be a hard drive issue. Thanks for the info, I'll try the canned air on the fan area, right?

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yes
Dec 29, 2012 12:22AM PST

Bob Proffitt turned me onto this trick when I had problems with my laptop. All of the vents and cooling fans as well as the cooling fins get clogged up with dust and fuzz bunnies and air flow is restricted so the machine overheats and crashes. In older laptops you might even want to check out new thermal paste on the heat sink.. Hope this helps out....Digger

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Answer
Here're some things to check
Dec 28, 2012 4:33AM PST

It sounds like you could have a virus or other malware. Get your antivirus program up to date and boot into Safe Mode. Note that some viruses can hide themselves from your antivirus program in normal mode, so you really need to scan in Safe Mode. To get into Safe Mode when you first power up, hit F8 about once a second until you get the menu and select Safe Mode. Then run a full system scan.
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Microsoft has suggestions and offerings at
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/how-do-I-remove-a-computer-virus
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MS forum moderator Keith has some suggestions along this line at
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/windows-explorer-has-stopped-working/6ab02526-5071-4dcc-895f-d90202bad8b3
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If that fixes it, fine. If not, use System Restore to go back to a date prior to the beginning of the problem. To run System Restore, click Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore. Click the box that says Show more restore points.
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You can check for corrupted system files. Open an administrator command prompt and run SFC if the above doesn't help. Click START, then type CMD in the search box, right-click CMD.EXE and click Run as administrator. Then from the command prompt type sfc /scannow.
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Finally if all else fails, you can check the rather cryptic system event log. To do that click Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer. Once in Event Viewer click on the system log and scroll through the entries looking for those flagged "error" to see if you can find hints as to where the problem could be.
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When you get your system back in good working order, I urge you to back your system up to an external hard drive and make regular periodic updates to it.
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I hope this helps. Good luck.

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Crash Dump
Dec 29, 2012 2:21AM PST

Thank you will try all suggestions and let you know how it goes.