STOP 0x000000C2
BAD_POOL_CALLER
A driver misused Windows' shared memory pool — freeing memory twice, freeing memory it never owned, or similar. This is a programming bug in a driver, not a hardware fault.
Likely causes, most common first
- A buggy third-party driver — security software, VPN and virtual-drive tools are frequent offenders
- A driver version incompatible with the current Windows build
- Rarely, memory corruption from faulty RAM
How to fix it
1. Update or remove the identified driver easy
- Update the named driver from the vendor's site (link in the driver card).
- If it belongs to a utility you can live without (VPN, virtual drive, tuning tool), uninstall it and watch for a week.
2. Review recently installed software easy
- Think about what was installed or updated just before the crashes started — especially antivirus, VPNs and system utilities — and remove it.
- Run Windows Update including optional driver updates.
- If nothing stands out, run Windows Memory Diagnostic to rule out RAM.
The four parameters on the blue screen
Windows shows four hex numbers with this stop code. Here's what each means — our analyzer decodes them automatically from your dump file.
| Parameter 1 | Type of pool violation |
| Parameter 2 | Meaning depends on the violation type |
| Parameter 3 | Meaning depends on the violation type |
| Parameter 4 | Meaning depends on the violation type |
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