Random Blue Screen OF DEATH!

Hi guys.

I've recently picked up a laptop from my girlfriend, it's brand new. She says it keeps blue screening on her randomly, and in fact it does.

It has Windows XP Media center, and is an Acer laptop.

Her laptop never came with an XP CD, instead it came up with 7 backup CDS which she didn't give me when she brought the laptop over.

I'm not really interested in formatting or reinstalling windows, I feel the laptop is too new for such a problem. The blue screen however is not in the traditional form, it blue screens and goes to an immediate restart. Does this mean it is not a hardware problem?

What would you do in my situation? I can get the CD's and reinstall or repair windows without a problem, but I hope there is a better solution.

One last thing! I noticed she was running in fat32, and I attempted to switch to NTFS, I've done it before. However, I get asked to enter a 'volume label' and I don't seem to know what it is asking. I'm trying to convert through command prompt using 'Convert c: /FS:NTFS'

Thanks.

EDIT: I noticed the blue screen says "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL"

 

Go into control panel > admin tools > and check the event viewer & see if Windows knows what is going on. I'd run a RAM test
and harddrive diagnostic with the ultimate bootcd
Just a few places to start looking..
Since your edit look:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/810980
"IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL is most certainly caused by faulty drivers or hardware"

 

This is usually a hardware fault - CPU overheating in general - so I would be taking it straight back to where it was bought and let them sort it out especailly as you say it is brand new.

 

If you don't want it to restart automatically when you get BSOD,

right click my computer>properties>advanced tab>start up and recovery>uncheck automatic restart and hit ok.

Then you can get a better look at the error message

 

Thanks for the quick replies.

I'm going to try to remove the mouseware program Microsoft suggests.

If it doesn't work, I'll advise her to return it.

 

I did the mem test, and..

http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=4384550

An error! So I seem to have found the issue? What can I do about it?

 

Take it back!!!