I forgot to mention that I haven't downloaded anything (knowingly as least) before this error occurred; everything had been running fine up until this point. So far there hasn't been any noticeable effects of whatever caused the BSOD. And I wasn't doing anything overly strenuous prior to shutting off my computer (Writing a MS Word document and reading a Wikipedia article couldn't possibly do this?). This is actually my first BSOD that I never really saw...as paradoxical as that may sound.

 

memory failure, or other hardware error... video graphics, CPU fan... even an unused device failing such as a modem, sound card, dead cmos battery, cable that has come undone can cause this.

Suggest you go back to the most fundamental setup... one memory module, simple boot to a known good hard drive or preferably a cd or floppy drive... don't yet worry about a good screen The point is to make it as simple as possible to see if you can make it boot to something other than the blue screen. Then exchange the one memory module for the other... Keep notes as you go, as you are likely to forget all the attemps you have tried.

But also look for bulging capacitors on your motherboard... too much dirt and lint in your heat sink fins...

Good luck. Let us know what worked, and how you discovered the problem.

 

Did it happen once?
Is the computer bootable?