blue screen of death
I'd try two things.
First, schedule a disk check on your system drive for the next time you reboot your machine. I can't recall if the process is any different between doing this on an XP machine (which I'm on now at work) or a Win 7 machine (which I have at home), but you should be able to find the option fairly simply by going to Computer, right-clicking on your C: drive and going to the Tools tab. Click on the Check Disk button, set all options on, and tell it to go next time you reboot. Then reboot, and leave the computer to do its thing.
Second, make sure your drivers, especially your video card drivers, are up to date. Just because the computer is new doesn't mean the manufacturers installed the latest drivers. If you don't know what video card is in your system, you can post the results of DxDiag or CoHHelper here and someone in the forums will point you in the right direction.
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http://support.microsoft.com/kb/329284
This behavior occurs because your computer processor detected and reported an unrecoverable hardware error to Windows XP. To do this, the processor used the Machine Check Exception (MCE) feature of Pentium processors or the Machine Check Architecture (MCA) feature of some Pentium Pro processors. The following factors may cause this error message:
System bus errors
Memory errors that may include parity or Error Correction Code (ECC) problems
Cache errors in the processor or hardware
Translation Lookaside Buffers (TLB) errors in the processor
Other CPU-vendor specific detected hardware problems
Vendor-specific detected hardware problems
Use the Windows Error Reporting tool
When this error occurs, use the Windows Error Reporting tool. With this tool, you can send the error report directly to Microsoft, and then the tool will report back if a fix or a workaround is available. To use this tool, follow these steps:
Click Send Error Report when you are prompted to send the error report to Microsoft.
If a fix or a workaround is available, click More Information after you send the error report to Microsoft. This helps you obtain the fix or information about how to work around the issue.
If a fix or a workaround is not available, you can contact Microsoft support try to help resolve this issue. For information about how to contact Microsoft support, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/
Did you disable the Dell services upon startup? I got the same issue, and it turned out to be a conflict between CoH and the backup program the manu included.
My brand new computer is having an intermittent problem. I've looked it up on the internet, with only vague information available. One Wiki page referred to the occurrence as "the blue screen of death." When the BSOD comes up, it states that Windows was unable to start due to a MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION. (Caps are from the BSOD, not me) The computer is an Alienware desktop with "Windows 7 Ultimate" on which I've had to disable the Aero style appearance theme to avoid the screen locking up. The only software that has caused an open message window are Adobe and a WindowsLive game that we got recently. Nothing else has uttered a peep. Does anyone know what I should do about this?
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