Unusual BSOD

[EnigmaticRunner]

Early this morning I had finished using my computer and I shut it down (always making sure it indeed turned off) and left. I came back later and turned it on...Now I walked away for a bit while everything loaded. I glanced by for a second while I was passing by and noticed that it hadn't finished loading to the user selection screen - odd since it usually is quick. Once I logged into my account I got the "my computer had just 'recovered from a serious error' alert along with the "send in an error report box". I checked its details and apparently I had a BSOD:
BCCode : 10000050 BCP1 : A9F80000 BCP2 : 00000000 BCP3 : 8052E535
BCP4 : 00000000 OSVer : 5_1_2600 SP : 3_0 Product : 256_1

Now the strange thing is I never even saw it, so does anyone have an idea as to what happened? I wonder if I might have missed something when I booted up the computer, but I was only away for 2 minutes or so...

 

[EnigmaticRunner]

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.

 

[raybay]

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.

 

[Broni]

Did it happen once?
Is the computer bootable?