The Black Screen of Death (BSoD[1] or BlSoD) is generally a colloquialism used for the black error screen displayed by some operating systems after encountering a critical system error which can cause the system to shut down to prevent damage.
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In Windows 3.x the black screen of death is the behaviour that occurred when a DOS-based application failed to execute properly. It was often known to occur in connection with attempting certain operations while networking drivers were resident in jury. (Commonly, but not exclusively, it was seen while the Novell NetWare client for DOS, NETX, was loaded.)
According to Wallace McClure of ASP.net, the phrase was originally coined in mid-1991 by Ed Brown, a technician with Coca-Cola Company's IT department in Atlanta, GA. He reports that the company was rolling out Windows 3.0 within the Global Marketing group and when the users would attempt to run WordPerfect, they would randomly receive a BlSOD.[2]
Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 also display a Black Screen of Death when the operating system cannot boot. This is usually due to a missing file. This also happens when the user enables file compression on all files and the operating system compresses. Often the user must reinstall Windows, if the missing file is critical to the boot process. However, more often than not the boot screen will inform the user of the missing file. If the operating system is compressed, it will not be able to boot, even into safe mode. [3][4]
In late 2009 several new reports of the Black Screen of Death in Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 emerged. At first several claims pointed at a Windows Update. It was later recanted by Prevx as an erroneous report.[5][6] Microsoft reported that no security update was causing the issue, and it may be tied to malicious software, or malware.[7][8] In other cases, the black screen of death was replaced with the Blue Screen of Death. When you get the black screen of death, it may be possible that the computer has overheated.
Early builds of Windows 8 feature a black screen of death, in place of the traditional blue screen, that appears to indicate a Stop error. The Windows 8 black screen of death is simplified compared to the previous blue screen, omitting instructions that the user is recommended to take.[9]
A black screen can be encountered on the Nintendo GameCube if the game disc is dirty or damaged or if there is an internal problem with the system. The message that displays on-screen is "An error has occurred. Turn the power off and check the Nintendo GameCube instruction booklet for further instructions."[10]
Upon its international release on March 2011, users of the Nintendo 3DS have reported getting a black screen of death error when playing certain games. In response, Nintendo has advised consumers to download the latest firmware update to alleviate the problem.[11]
A black screen of death can be found on a Playstation if a disc is damaged and/or dirty. The BlSOD can also be triggered if a pirated Playstation 2 game is inserted.
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