What is the STOP code it gives on the blue screen?

And if the tech people fix it, is there anything your mother might be doing which could explain it? Is it whenever she plugs in or installs a certain external device, for example?

You can download RAM and HDD test utilities which will help prove or eliminate those things.

What exactly do the tech people do when they fix it for you?

im not sure what it sais when it goes BSoD, my mother is rather computer illiterate and doesnt pay attnetion to those things, i guess ill have to wait until it does it again to see what it sais exaclty

the tech guys waled me through some type of re booting, but it was a mixed problem when i called them (something to do with the power) and they didnt really address the blue screen of death in a way to fix it permenently, only to power it up and get it working again.

she telle me that it happens at random time, she's installed nothing new either.

ugh

That's fair enough - if there was more than one problem then they have to be attacked one at a time once the recovery is done.

I suspect they did a full recovery (as in reinstall back to factory settings), but you implied that it 'fixed' the problem. Did it? Did the problem go away for a while when they talked you through that?

The STOP code is important because it can point you in the direction of what is causing the problem. Just the first part of it, not the big block of stuff that comes after. It'll say something like STOP 0x000000xx.

I too have been plagued lately by random appearances of the BSOD. My technician tested my DDL memory ( 2 units of 256 rm) and they turned out to be faulty. They were replaced and I even added another unit with 516 mg (so now I have 1 gb of RAM). For a few days I had no problems and today it reappeared. I'd like to test out my RAM memory and would like suggestions as to which program to download.
Does anyone have a suggestion, based on experience?

membtest86 one of the best free testers .download iso image and burn iso image to disk using nero or if you don't have nero try this program.
http://www.memtest86.com/

no nero then try this ,iso burning info
http://www.petri.co.il/how_to_write_iso_files_to_cd.htm


burn iso with nero info .
http://www.wizardskeep.org/mainhall/tutor/neroiso.html

Thanks for a prompt and thorough response.
I have Nero and used it to burn the downloaded iso file (from www.memtest86.com) to a disk. Now I have it--but as a zip file.
What am I supposed to do: Unzip and put that also on the disk? Or can it run from the disk as an iso zip file (that doesn't seem likely to me).
Can I run the iso file (unzipped) from the disk at any time I insert it or do I run the disk at boot-up?
Thanks!

no ,unzip the iso on a working computer ,then use nero to burn the iso image to disk ,put the new burnt disk into the troubled computer,and reboot computer ,it will then boot to and run the memtest at startup

If something can be done wrong, leave it to me...to do wrong.
I tried to be economical and, after extracting the file, I burnt it onto the same disk that had the original zip file on it (after all--there was, and still is, plenty of room available). When I reboot and hope for it to work--it doesn'. When I look at the contents of the disk I get the zip file and "memtest". When I try to activate the program manually (dbl clk) it opens Nero again.
It just occured tome--could it be that I have to finalize the disk before it will operate automatically? Must I dedicate a single disk to the unzipped program and finalize it in order for it to activate automatically when I re-boot?
Thanks for your patience.

yes you must dedicate a single disk for the program ,yes i would finalize it too.
also you cant just copy the unzipped ISO to the disk ,it has to be done right ,following the nero iso burning instructions in the link i posted above