Need some computer advice...

[American Hero]

Yesterday the screen on my laptop turned blue, it said something and then shutdown. After several minutes of trying to restart it and failing I gave up.

Today I was able to restart it in safemode and did a system restore setting it back a month, it seems to be working fine at the moment, although I am unable to run my antivirus programs because they somehow were damaged during this ordeal.

Does anyone have any advice on what I should do next to make sure my laptop is okay? Other than reinstalling my antivirus programs.

[Alzar]

Re: Need some computer advice...

a very similar thing happened to me, and i just reformatted and started over

now my computer doesn't blow anymore

your mileage will vary

[American Hero]

Re: Need some computer advice...

It was just so random now I'm scared it'll happen again.

[Sivart the Sloth Trencher]

Re: Need some computer advice...

You should have written down what the screen says. The blue screen of death can happen for all sorts of reasons, but I see it a lot if there's an issue with the BIOS or maybe a graphics card driver.

What were you doing when it crashed?

[American Hero]

Re: Need some computer advice...

I was just browsing online can't remember specifically what site, and I didn't even have time to read the entire message before the computer shut down but it said something like...

Windows has encountered a critical error and is shutting down to protect itself from further damage.

That's about as far as I could read before it shutdown.

I sent it home with the IT guy from work today, he said he'd take a look at it and install a better antivirus program, and fix anything else he could find. I'm hoping this will do the trick.

[the_jester]

Re: Need some computer advice...

if you are running vista it will do that becuase your graphics card need to reset it "ram" so to speak there is a patch you can download for it and after you get it you will never see it again.

but if not running vista. windows will blue screen on you for a bios or overload problem

[American Hero]

Re: Need some computer advice...

I'm running XP.

[JLaCroix]

Re: Need some computer advice...

Yesterday the screen on my laptop turned blue, it said something and then shutdown. After several minutes of trying to restart it and failing I gave up.

Today I was able to restart it in safemode and did a system restore setting it back a month, it seems to be working fine at the moment, although I am unable to run my antivirus programs because they somehow were damaged during this ordeal.

Does anyone have any advice on what I should do next to make sure my laptop is okay? Other than reinstalling my antivirus programs.

First of all, I do not recommend System Restore. It does work, sometimes, but not at the level expected. That is one of the first things I recommend removing. In it's place, a nice scheduled imaging solution such as Acronis works MUCH better. In your case, you're lucky it even had an effect. Most of the time it just complicates things further.

As for the Antivirus Programs, you wrote that plural, do you have more than one? What are you using?

You should be able to remove them and reinstall them.

To stabilize your machine, you should probably run a system file check. You need a Windows CD for that. Do you have yours?

You should have written down what the screen says. The blue screen of death can happen for all sorts of reasons, but I see it a lot if there's an issue with the BIOS or maybe a graphics card driver.

What were you doing when it crashed?

He couldn't write down the error because he said it shut down. By default Windows reboots the machine after a start error before you can read it. In the System Properties, Under Advanced, and then Startup and Recovery, you can disable the automatic restart.

[Sivart the Sloth Trencher]

Re: Need some computer advice...

Guess mine's just disabled, then.

I used to get the error for RAM a whole bunch.

[JLaCroix]

Re: Need some computer advice...

Guess mine's just disabled, then.

I used to get the error for RAM a whole bunch.

You mean the "memory could not be read" error?

[Sivart the Sloth Trencher]

Re: Need some computer advice...

Nope. Something about a couple of .sys files and whatnot. I looked it up and it was most certainly my computer trying to use more memory than it had access to. While playing Guild Wars, I should add.

[American Hero]

Re: Need some computer advice...

I use Symantec and Ad-Aware.

[JLaCroix]

Re: Need some computer advice...

Nope. Something about a couple of .sys files and whatnot. I looked it up and it was most certainly my computer trying to use more memory than it had access to. While playing Guild Wars, I should add.

Are you running XP?

I use Symantec and Ad-Aware.

Uninstall them, then reboot. Once the system comes back up, reinstall them. Next run the updaters for both programs until there is nothing left to install. Finally, after you reboot again run a system file check. Back up your data in case of future failures. After that you should be fine.

[Sivart the Sloth Trencher]

Re: Need some computer advice...

Yeah, but it's not really a problem anymore. I just doubled my RAM and later reformatted.

[JLaCroix]

Re: Need some computer advice...

Yeah, but it's not really a problem anymore. I just doubled my RAM and later reformatted.

You killed a fly with a machine gun. I could've helped you fix that.