i just got a blue screen (of death? im not sure) that restarted my pc

I just got a blue screen - of death im not sure because a) i don't know how it actually looks like on this comp; and b) the blue screen last less the 1 sec before it restarted, so i don't know what it said.

This is the second time this has happened in 3 weeks. Is it a cause for concern? And how do i know what it said- is there a log lying around somewhere?

 

To see the system log go into control panel then to administrative tools then click on event viewer. Look at the system log and sort for event 102(BSOD)

To make sure that your computer doesn't automatically restart after a BSOD right click my computer then properties then advanced -> startup and recovery settings then uncheck automatically restart under system failure. That will allow you to read the BSOD message but you will have to do a hard restart yourself afterwards.

Hope this helps you...

 

You probably installed something recently that's conflicting. You can do a system restore and see if it's still happening.

 

If it's only the second time in three weeks then I would say it's necessarily something you did, definitely look at the log file, and make sure you setup the startup to NOT reboot after a BSOD (that's the most idiotic setting EVER).

Not sure about Vista but XP does have some BSOD's for random reasons

 

The only BSOD's I have ever had in Windows XP were because of a problem program, never random. The cause was identified in all cases and the BSOD problems were fixed.

Check your event logs and read the BSOD screen and tell us what it says.

 

I've gotten the blue screen twice in the past 3 weeks.. ive ended up doing a system restore both times and it worked like a charm