blue screen & shutdown on laptop..?

[looobylooo]

occasionally i can be doing whatever online on my laptop,
and all of a sudden, without warning, a mid blue coloured screen quickly flashes up, full of white writing, with no time to read what it says as the laptop immediately then shuts down and restarts again,
once back on, it gives me the option to 'start computer as normal' (or something along those lines, i forget the actual wording)

do you know why this happens, please?

thanks :o)

[daffy654]

Without the code number that is on the blue screen it would be almost impossible to say what is causing the problem. If you manage to ever get the code try Googling for "blue screen of death" followed by the code.

[ChuckFickens]

Once again a question with no details about what version of windows!

If you turn off restart after a critical error you'll have time to read the message. But in all honesty blue screens are almost always down to a problematic driver, so updating all your drivers to the latest versions is the first thing to do.

If that doesn't cure it than RAM problems are the next place to look, try reseating all the RAM chips and if the problem still happens then try running on just one stick of RAM at a time (assuming you have more than one fitted)

[looobylooo]

hi both, thank you very much for replying,

sorry for the missing info! being a bit of a thicky when it comes to computers, i wasnt aware i needed to say i was in vista. (the laptop is about 18 months/2 years old)
ok, yes, ive unchecked the restart box, so next time it happens i will be able to google the error code and hopefully know why its happening.

thank you.

[looobylooo]

*on vista, even.