You can use the Windows Event Viewer to find what's causing your PC problems, here's how (2024)

While using Windows 11 (or any other version), it's almost inevitable that you'll run into problems at some point, whether it's a simple app crash or the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. When these errors happen, they can be hard to understand, but thankfully, there's a tool built right into Windows, called Event Viewer, that can help with this.

The Windows Event Viewer lets you see logs for almost any major event on your PC, so if you have a problem, this is the place to go. It won't fix your issues, but it can help diagnose them, and you can then use the internet to help you figure out what's wrong.

How to use the Event Viewer to view information about Windows errors

The Windows Event Viewer has a fairly confusing UI at first glance, but you can get to what matters relatively easily. Here's how it works:Once

1. Open Event Viewer. You can use the Windows Search bar to find it.

   

2. Once in Event Viewer, you'll want to use the menu on the left. Most likely, what you're looking for is under Windows Logs, specifically the System or Application logs (the former is usually more important).

   

3. Here, use the pane on the right to choose Filter Current Log....

   

4. Check the Critical and Error checkboxes. You can also used the Logged and Event sources dropdown menus to further narrow down the results if you have a good idea of what's causing the issue. Click OK.

   

Now you can see all the major errors that happened on your system in that period. It's important to have both, even if you're facing a system crash, because many times, the Critical-level events are just referring to power loss on the PC, and they're preceded by an Error-level event that actually caused it to get to that point.

For each error, you can see the source of the error it as well as the event ID. You can use this ID to search for information online that can help you fix the issue.

For example, here we see event ID 56 from a source called Application Popup, and looking it up, the more commonly suggested fixes are installing the latest Windows updates (or rolling them back, if you installed one recently), installing BIOS updates, and reinstalling graphics drivers. In fact, graphics drivers are a fairly common cause for a lot of BSOD errors, so that's always worth considering.

In some cases, you can also use the Details tab in the bottom view to get some more information about the error. There are additional identifiers here that can be helpful in pinpointing the exact cause of your problems. You can actually copy all the details in one go by right-clicking the error in the top view and choosing Copy details as text.

Alternatively, you can save a copy of the event and send it to someone so they can view it in Event Viewer on their PC to help you diagnose the issue.

It's also worth keeping an eye out specifically for events with the BugCheck source. These events occur when your PC experiences a BSOD, and they generate a dump file that can be analyzed for more information. You can use an app like BlueScreenViewer to see these dump files and find that much more information and understand what's causing the errors you're seeing.

Troubleshoot your PC more easily

IT professionals and power users are probably well familiar with Windows Event Viewer, but if you didn't know about it, be sure to keep it in mind going forward, as it will surely help you fix any issues you may have. You can also add BlueScreenViewer to your arsenal to help you diagnose more specific errors.