Bad Pool Caller - Blue Screen of Death

Windows Blue Screens of Death (BSoDs) happen whenever your computer encounters something it doesn’t know how to process, so it shuts itself down to prevent any damage. Sometimes BSoDs happen once and you don’t see them again when you restart — however, this isnt always the case and a BSoD may show up repeatedly.

In this article we will look at issues causing a bad_pool_caller BSoD. What has happened is that a thread in the laptop's processor has made a bad pool request. This means that it’s asking to use resources that are unavailable, nonexistent, or in use by another thread. It could also mean that the pool header is corrupted — regardless of the particular error, it, like most BSoDs, is caused by driver issues.

Drivers are what makes your computer work. Every device connected to your computer, and nearly every component inside it has a software driver that determines how Windows interacts with your device. When driver issues are encountered- which is fairly common on new operating systems like Windows 8 — it can cause a lot of problems, but, fortunately, sometimes there is an easy fix.

Recently Connected and Installed Device

Try to determine which device was last connected or installed before an error appeared. Often this can be a new peripheral device. Go to Device Manager (in the Control Panel) and find the driver for the recently connected peripheral device driver. From there, you can get Windows to search for updates, you can disable it, or you can uninstall it entirely. You can also disconnect the problem device and perform a system restore to before the device was connected and supporting software was installed.

Recently Installed Program

If your drivers aren’t the problem, a recently installed program may be the issue. If you can determine what program you installed that started this, uninstall it or perform a system restore to before the program was installed, and, after a restart, you should be good to go.

System Restore

Any further issues that cannot be resolved may require your computer to be repaired.