Windows Event Viewer is extraordinarily powerful, but its dense XML logs can feel overwhelming for non-sysadmins. What if you could see an intuitive visual timeline graph—graded on a scale of 1 to 10—showing every app crash, Windows Update, and blue screen on the exact day it occurred? That tool is already built into your PC: Reliability Monitor.
Step 1: Open Reliability Monitor
You can open the Reliability Monitor console directly via the Run dialog:
perfmon /rel
Press Win + R, type perfmon /rel, and hit Enter. The graph will load in 2–4 seconds.
Step 2: Understanding the Stability Index (1 to 10)
The top half of the window displays a timeline broken down by Days or Weeks:
- Score 10: Flawless stability. No crashes, hung processes, or driver faults recorded.
- Score 1: System in severe distress. Multiple daily BSODs or ungraceful reboots.
Beneath the score line are 5 event rows:
- Software Installs: Successful and failed software/driver updates (blue "i" icon).
- Application Failures: Apps that crashed or hung (red "X" icon).
- Windows Failures: Kernel crashes and Blue Screens (red "X" icon).
- Miscellaneous Failures: Disk write warnings or peripheral faults (yellow warning icon).
- Warnings: Minor update delays.
Step 3: Pinpoint Which Update Caused Your Crashes
The true magic of Reliability Monitor is correlation:
Click on the Red "X" Column
Click on the exact date when your stability index dropped.
Review the Bottom Details List
Look at the events that occurred immediately prior to the crash. Often you will see an automatic driver update or game patch installed just minutes before the crash occurred!
Step 4: View Technical Problem Details
Under the Action column in the bottom list, click "View technical details" next to any red failure event.
Windows gives you a clear technical summary:
Fault Module Name: ntdll.dll
Exception Code: 0xc0000005 (Access Violation)
Fault Offset: 0x00000000000214a0
0xc0000005 exception code indicates an Access Violation—a program attempted to read or write memory that wasn't allocated to it. If this happens across multiple different apps, it is strong evidence of failing physical RAM (Test RAM).
Step 5: Exporting Your Reliability History
If you are working with an IT technician or posting in our helpdesk, click "Save reliability history..." at the bottom of the window to export an XML report of your PC's health timeline.