How do I find the Reliability Monitor and Crash Dump files?

To access your Reliability Monitor, open the Start Menu and search for the term "Reliability" or "View Reliability History". 

Alternatively, you can hold the Windows key and press R to open the Run dialog and enter the following command:

perfmon /rel

Once you have opened the Reliability Monitor, you'll want to check for any recent Critical events which will be marked with a red caution symbol as shown below.

For our example, we can see that there is an application with a Critical Event.  Double-click the Critical Event and it will open details for the event.

In this case, the application was closed due to the AppHang reason.  This could indicate an issue with the program or a resource used by the program (i.e. the GPU driver or a memory problem).  If you are unsure as to the cause, reaching out to a tech minded community group (i.e. the Official NZXT Discord Server) may help in isolating and fixing the issue.

If you have an NZXT Gaming PC, these results from the Reliability Monitor can be included with your Support Ticket to help identify and resolve your issue.

If you have experienced a Stop Screen, also known as the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), this means your system has encountered an error bad enough to where the system could no longer safely run as-is and needs to be restarted.  These screens include a Stop Code as highlighted above, as well as additional information as to what may have caused the crash.  During this time the system will collect information and create a Dump File.

These Dump Files will be saved to your PC's System Root directory, which by default will be C:\Windows\.  If your system has encountered a BSOD, these dump files can be incredibly helpful in isolating the reason and finding a speedy fix with minimal guess work.

These files will be stored in either the Minidump or LiveKernelReports folders, depending on the severity of the crash.  Additionally, your system may keep a full crash dump of the most recent crash in the form of a file called MEMORY.DMP which is stored in the System Root folder itself.

How do I read Minidump files?

To read a Minidump file, you'll need access to a debugger tool such as WinDbg.

The steps for reading the file will vary depending on your debugger tool, so it is recommended to refer to the user's manual for your particular software.  Alternatively, you can provide the logs to a trusted member of your preferred technical support community and they may be able to identify the cause of the crash.

If you have an NZXT Gaming PC, providing these crash logs in your Support Ticket can help your support agent easily identify the issue and provide a swift resolution.  As these files can get rather large, it is highly recommended to first compress the copies of the dump files and then upload them to the cloud storage service of your choice such as Google Drive or Dropbox.  When using a cloud storage service, be sure that your file permissions are set to Public so our team can access them.