I got a blue screen of death when I started up my Toshiba laptop from hibernation this morning.

The screen said something like "there has been an uncorrectable hardware error"

The computer reset itself, and managed to start up fine.

Is this computer on it's way out? Should I back up everything and expect this to happen again?

I hate this Toshiba.

Should've bought a Dell.

^true dat, although I have heard that they have been letting their quality slip recently.

I have an XPS that sometimes does a strange thing, it occasionally freezes while booting up and I have no clue why.

I dunno, my old Dell did that once every few months and it never went kaput.



Can't hurt. Prepare for the worst, and one of two things can happen: (a) you're ready, or ( you're over-prepared.

Many say one of the worst quality machines they ever built was the Inspiron 6000 series. I actually own one, and it has performed faultlessly since I bought it nearly four years ago. Quality slip my nuts.

...and my five-year-old Volkswagen has never had any significant electronics gremlin. Anecdotal evidence based on sample sizes of 1 are one thing; statistics are quite another. My understanding, and I could be wrong, is that Dell had slipped in rankings with people who compile statistics on these things.

Of course, Lenovo is the most reliable according to the statistics I looked up recently, and mine was a POS. Statistics are no guarantee.

It could be a single event and the computer will be fine, but I would never chance it. I'd take the opportunity to do another backup of any important data just in case.

Does it show a splash screen while booting? You now, the kind that says dell, or windows, so you cant see all the text whizzing by? If so, you should be able to change it so you can see the text. Once you do that, the next time it freezes, it should be stuck at a prompt that should give you some idea of what is causing the problems.

I had a BSOD on my PC at home. And guess what, it fucked me. Back your stuff up. Reformat and reinstall everything. Easy. Tedious but easy. Plus it shouldn't happen again(for a while). I hate Windows.

It's happening now all the time...like once a day I get the BSoD.

I think I'm just going to abandon Vista completely, format everything, install Windows 7 and pay for the upgrade when it comes out...like a good little consumer.

Do you have a link or something of the statistics? I believe you, I'm just curious to see them.

Installing Windows 7 won't change a thing if this is a hardware issue. What you need to do is think back and figure out the last "big thing" you did (hardware or software based) prior to the BSOD's. If you don't remember doing anything, you need to run stability tests in order to figure out what's actually causing the error. Writing down the exact error codes of the BSOD wouldn't hurt either, post them here if you can. Once you're in windows, you can open up Event Viewer (search for eventvwr.msc in the start menu) and take a look at system logs....the red X's are mainly what you're looking for, look through them and post the names of some common occurrences (if any are listed) that match up with times at which you know you had a BSOD (like the restart following the BSOD).

Once you (or we) identify the issue, there will be no reason to waste time backing up anything. "I've seen 'em all" and very *few* actually cause irreparable damage.

OR

Buy a MACBOOK.

I actually tried out Windows 7 and wasn't too impressed. I know it's just a beta...but it felt kinda clunky and um...thin, if that analogy makes any sense.

I'm currently re-installing Vista.

I haven't really done anything hardware wise to the computer in a very long time. About a year ago I substituted my 512mb ram sticks for a couple of 1gb's. More recently I got a couple of 2gb sticks from a friend and tried them out, but they didn't work, so I went back to the old ram. After the BSoDs started happening on a daily basis I took the old ram out again and put it back in thinking that maybe I didn't put the old ram back in properly the first time and it was loose.

I'll remember to start writing down the BSoD error numbers for you, assuming they return.

Thanks for taking the time to help.

Regarding your MACBOOK comment...I might have mentioned it in passing in another thread, but I think my next laptop will be a Macbook...I'm not really satisfied with the quality of this Toshiba, and really like the new Macs, especially since my work computer now is a Mac.

you're reading way too much into it. just restart and if it does it again .. then you can worry. All PCs do BSOD.

Usually I would try and troubleshoot what's causing the BSOD. Often times I've been able to fix the issue without resorting to reinstalling the OS. Many times it's a hardware issue, and restarting from hibernation could cause certain hardware to fail due to incompatibilities.

When does it happen, during startup or inmidst work? During startup doesn't have to be a reason to worry - my old Dell never liked to be set into hibernation and very often threw a BSOD when I restarted it. So I always shut it down properly.

Do you have any PCMCIA cards attached to it? Any other hardware? Yes, even a USB HD can cause strange effects, especially during startup.

It was happening, from what I could tell, when I moved the computer, which is what lead me to believe that the problem stemmed from a loose RAM chip.

The OS was getting old and buggy though....so I figured a re-install might speed things up a bit...and get rid of some crap I never use anymore.

Dude, I haven't seen a BSOD since my parents had a Win98 Machine.