A few weeks back, my work computer mysteriously started to give me the blue-screen of death.  I run Windows XP Pro and have all sorts of development beta and CTP software running.  My first instinct was to think that one of these configurations was the culprit, running betas and CTP’s isn’t always a good idea because of stability issues but hey, it’s what I do.  So I get one of the Microsoft error dialog boxes stating that there was an error and would I like to send this to them.  Honestly, I always say no – don’t ask why.  So after blue-screening a few times, the dialog comes up and I finally click yes, send the error, so Microsoft can begin researching a fix.  Well, wouldn’t you know it, within a few seconds it came back telling me to go to Logitech’s site because they already had a fix (it’s for corrupted drivers with the wireless keyboard and mouse that I use).  WTF, all this time and there was already a fix out there and I didn’t know.  Good job you procrastinator!  So I download it and all is well now.

Now, around the same time, my home computer starts doing the same thing, blue-screening and prompting me with the error dialog.  My home system has the exact same Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse.  So, hey, it’s the same thing right?  After ignoring it for a few more weeks, I notice that the blue-screens are coming more often usually when my computer is idle.  To bring it back to life, I need to do a hard-reboot.  Well, yesterday I get home and go to my computer and guess what, have to reboot.  But once the computer is back up and running, it suddenly reboots on its own.  Now to further kick me in the balls, it freezes during boot up… fuck!  Now I begin to worry.  I have a website that I’m developing and all of the code is on that local drive, I haven’t backed it up in months [Insert dumbass comment here].  So I try to reboot again, this time it allows me to boot up in safe mode with networking, THANK YOU Microsoft!  It works.  I get in, zip up my files, and transfer them to the server I have in my closet (long story) and just then, my computer just turns off.  Ok, all I need to do is reboot in safe mode again, install the fix from Logitech and all my problems are solved, right?  Nope.

After doing just that, I rebooted normally and all was going well for a full 2 minutes before the computer died again.  Fucking blue-screen!  One thing that I noticed with the last few start ups is that during the initial loading of Windows, that error dialog box comes up.  Weird thing is I thought the Logitech fix solved that.  Again, I reboot and when the dialog box comes up I click on it and it says that there is a hardware problem.  Damn!  Now the error is vague stating that it could be any of the following: the motherboard, cpu, ram or one of the hard drives.  That’s every important piece of hardware in my machine!  So the thing that pissed me off the most about this entire message was the following line (not exact but close enough): “Please turn off your computer and contact the manufacturer for support”.  Now why does this piss me off?  Because I built the computer myself.  Now, who the hell do I contact?  I guess I’ll just send myself an email and hope that I have the right answer for myself.