Blue Screen of Life and Death: STOP 0x0000001e KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

The solution is to boot into Safe Mode, and uninstall the driver in question. Then, boot the computer as normally, and install the updated driver. This specific error was pointing to the AC '97 sound card, and the out of date driver that had been installed. The newest driver version is A4.06, and can be downloaded on CNET.


This was an error I saw many years ago on a Windows 2000 SP4 machine, but it can appear on any Windows NT-based error system. Usually, the driver or piece of hardware causing the error will be listed by name on the 3rd or 4th line of the error message. For instance, in the following error,


0x0000001E (0xC0000005, 0xBFCB53A0, 0x00000001, 0x6E5B7FD0)
kmode_exception_not_handled
address BFCB53A0 base at BFCA7000, datestamp 3e9cda69 - 
update.sys
physical memory dump.

The update.sys file is causing the issue, and needs to be replaced with a known working file.

More information for decoding KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT HANDLED "blue screen" errors can be found in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article.