Windows 8.1 ** Flickers from desktop to bluescreen

Hey everyone,
I have an ASUS X55A laptop running Win 8.1.
For some reason it was checking for updates but not installing them automatically so a couple of days ago it was updated with a lot of stuff.

As of yesterday I can't access anything on the desktop as it's flicking to blank blue screen and back again at a rapid rate.
It does the same thing in "safe mode" with the addition of the help window which opens but doesn't do anything.
At this point it's also showing application errors. It's a different error every time I restart and get back into it but they all say:
" Instruction at 0xXXXX referenced memory at 0xXXXX. Memory could not be written ".

I can access the troubleshooting options and so far I've tried :
System Restore - Unable to complete.
System Repair - Unable to repair.

I can open the command prompt and I've tried:
Disk check - No problems.
Win Mem check - No problems.
System File check and fix - No problems.
System restore - Unable to complete .......... again.

I'd rather not do anything that's going to wipe it unless it's a last resort, this laptop is my daughter's and she's got a lot of pics on it.

Can anyone suggest anything else I can try or even if there's anyway to establish if it's a software or hardware problem ?

Thanks.