MEMORY_MANAGEMENT blue screen: how to find the cause

The usual causes

• A memory profile (XMP or EXPO) faster than this PC can hold. The speed on the box is what the memory was tested at; the processor’s memory controller and the motherboard have to manage it too, which is harder with four sticks than with two.
• Mixed memory: two kits bought separately, even of the same model, may not run together at their rated speed.
• A faulty stick.
• A driver that writes into memory it does not own. Then the crashes tend to vary from one to the next.
• An unstable processor, whose memory controller is part of it — Intel 13th and 14th gen without their microcode fix among them.

Test the memory

1. Windows Memory Diagnostic. Type Windows Memory Diagnostic in Start and choose to restart and check now. The result appears after Windows starts again; if it does not, it is in Event Viewer under Windows Logs, System, from MemoryDiagnostics-Results.
2. A longer test. MemTest86, free and run from a USB stick, can test for hours; leave it overnight. A single error means the memory is not stable at its current settings.
3. Under load. A stress test that writes memory and reads it back while the processor is hot catches errors a cool, idle test can miss.

How to fix it

1. Switch off XMP or EXPO in the BIOS for a few days. If the crashes stop, the profile is too fast for this PC: choose a slower one, or the next speed down.
2. Update the BIOS, which often improves memory compatibility.
3. Test the sticks one at a time, in the slot the motherboard manual names first, to find a faulty one.
4. Run the memory as one matched kit rather than two mixed ones, where you can.
5. If the memory passes everything, update the chipset, graphics, network and storage drivers, and repair Windows’ own files: run sfc /scannow in a terminal opened as administrator.
6. Read the dump: the file in C:\Windows\Minidump, opened in Microsoft’s free WinDbg with !analyze -v, names the module that was running — a driver, if one is to blame.