Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) installation causing blue screen upon reboot

If you have installed SP3 onto your new HP, and are now experiencing a blue screen upon rebooting, you need to boot into safe mode by continuously hitting the F8 key upon starting your computer.  Then, click on the start menu, select “Run.”  Next, type in regedit and hit enter.  Look for this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Intelppm\Start

Upon doing this, you need to change the hex value for “Start” from 1 to 4.

Complete these steps, restart, and you should be able to get into your computer with no more blue screen.

14 Responses to “Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) installation causing blue screen upon reboot”


  1. 1 Kyle Hotchkiss

    Hey! you just saved my moms computer! awesome!

  2. 2 consult71

    THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Ryan is da man, worked perfectly. On a dell dim 8200.

  3. 3 Mitts

    This didn’t work for me. We have an alienware lp with a raid stripe set up.

  4. 4 Mitts

    Any ideas. When this did work for the current control set, I checked the other two control sets and made sure they also set to 4…Help would be appreciated.

  5. 5 Greg

    I have a dell isnpiron B130, i loaded service pack3, get the blue screen of death, and cannot get into safe mode, I get the blue screen there also! Any ideas?

  6. 6 Ted

    I have a Dell XPS400 and after loading sp3 I also got the blue screen with a STOP: 0×000000FC (0xBA5038E8,0×0AA71963,0xBA503848,0×00000001) error. The error also states there was an attempt to execute non-executable memory. I can’t boot in safe mode or by CD. Bad,Bad day.

  7. 7 Ray Honeycutt

    Ted, I’m experiencing exact same problem with Dell XPS 410. After loading SP3, got a Blue screen with 0×0000008E. After rebooting multiple times cannot get into safe mode. Now getting either 0×000000FC or 0×0000007E.
    My plan is to boot from Dell restore CD then try to do repair. Any other suggestions?

  8. 8 Mitts

    I had to remove SP3 from the laptop, now I am concerned about updates.

  9. 9 Pedro Hamez

    This worked for me! (HP Pavilion PC choking on SP3). Thanks for the solution.

  10. 10 Kyle Hotchkiss

    He makes it clear this is for HP computers. Eventually sp3 will be forced on your computer, but it is a lot faster!

  11. 11 Tim

    I work on computers and someone brought in their computer with the blue screen. I rolled back the system and then installed sp3 again to get the blue screen. All I have to say is that I love you for saving me more headache today. Thanks

  12. 12 Ka-Z

    Only for hp?

  13. 13 Sarah

    My pc was working fine until I was prompted to install an update from windows…which i did, it kept prompting for restarting the computer but i was in the middle of some work so ignored it. Later i shutdown my computer and when i started it again later, it wont start! its giving me a blue screen with the following error

    stop: 0×000000fe (0xc000001d, 0xf78da8ea, 0xf78da7f4, 0xf78da4f0)

    I cannot go into safe mode (when selecting safe mode it gives a list of commmands and computer hangs…leave it for a while and it goes back to the blue screen error….

    please help!

  14. 14 Sarah

    these are the two erros i got

    stop: 0×0000000fc (0xba5038e8, 0×0b327963, 0xba503848, 0×00000001)

    stop: 0×0000007e (0xc000001d, 0xf78da8ea, 0xf78da7f4, 0xf78da4f0)

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