Blue Screen of Death question.

OK, I'm not sure if what I just experienced even was the infamous BSOD and I was wondering if anybody could enlighten me as to whether my laptop is doomed or not.
I was browsing the web when the screen flashed blue. It was only there for a few seconds (not long enough to even read what it said) and my laptop went off. I have since rebooted it and it seems to be running fine. I was left confused as I thought my laptop was fucked when it happened but everything looks alright.
 
Could anyone tell me if this differs from the regular BSOD scenario and/or if I should be worried about my pc pissing itself and dying in the near future?

Ok so it's a laptop?
 
Most likely it's overheating. Check the fan outlets and see if it's loaded with dust.

I'm having the same problem with my laptop - it hasn't crashed out yet but i have a core temp program that often tells me the temperature is around 90 - 100C while the fan goes crazy. I'm gonna vacuum the vents tomorrow and see if that helps.

what OS are you running?
 
As I understand it the Win Vista BSoD is actually a RSoD, so it might be something else...

" Ok so it's a laptop?  Most likely it's overheating. Check the fan outlets and see if it's loaded with dust. "

It's Windows 7 32-bit

Laptop Make and model?

Nope, my searches indicate that Win7 does in fact feature a BSoD. So I don't know what to tell you. THere are alot of factors that could lead to something like that, and its hard to diagnose without more specifics.

Can someone explain to the OP how to capture the BSOD screen? That way he can be more specific about the exact error.

I guess it wouldn't hurt to do a full format and reinstall of Windows.
 
 
Back everything up and give it a shot.

" @sodiumCyclops: That sounds a bit drastic.
 
@nintendoeats: I guess I can only wait and see, thanks. "

That happened to me, I tested each ram seperately, one of them crashed non stop and I replaced it. No more blue screen of death anymore. Of course that might not work for you, still it's something to think about.

" @sodiumCyclops: That sounds a bit drastic.
 
@nintendoeats: I guess I can only wait and see, thanks. "

• Red X are critical events and this is usually system and/or program errors.  
• Yellow "!" are warning which usually means application messages when a program failed to do something (most likely due to lack of system resources/CPU power) but did not crash.   
• Blue "!" are informational events when an application has been updated such as your antivirus app.

" Ok so it's a laptop?  Most likely it's overheating. Check the fan outlets and see if it's loaded with dust. "

Can someone explain to the OP how to capture the BSOD screen? That way he can be more specific about the exact error.

In system properties > Advanced > Startup and recovery settings > disable automatically restart

By doing that it should pause at the blue screen next time it happens, sometimes it tells you which dll is causing the blue screen and you can narrow down it to hardware or drivers that's causing it.