What are some reasons for getting "blue screens" on a PC?

get a mac.

Blue screen of death! Make sure you backup any important shit right away. My PC did this for a few days, then crashed. I lost every. damn. thing.

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RAM read/write faults and drivers. Those are the top two reasons for a BSoD.
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-Did you do any recent driver updates? (Revert to the old, or update to a newer driver.)
-Install new hardware? (try un-installing it for a while)
-Have old hardware that could be going bad? (hard-drive)
-RAM going bad? (try swapping it out if you have spares)
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Sometimes software can cause a BSoD, especially if it is tampering with system files (like window blinds, styleXP, etc) If you installed any recent new software you can try un-installing or disabling it from startup.
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Ultimately you could try a re-format…but why jump to that? I would first just do a file system repair. Tech guys humor me
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Hope that simple tut helps.
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mac is not an answer btw, read the question XD

If another person answer an easy help question with “get a mac” I swear I will go on a murderous rampage throughout the country.

What about a kernal panic, fanbois? Whatcha gonna do now?

Actually i work with Mac support, and i rarely see a kernel panic. Maybe once a month.

Thanks! I use a backup service called Mozy so at least I am covered there.

Special thanks to TheBox for such a comprehensive answer!

[mod says:] That’s quite enough of the “get a mac” comments. Stay on-topic please.

I got my first post removed! I’m kinda exited. Is it wrong of me to have that feeling?

Totally against the guidelines. ;)

Actually, getting a mac is a viable solution to a pc problem. I disagree that the getamac comments are off-topic.

@answerjill Good to hear your data is backed up, that relieves 80% of the stress. I’ll look into Mozy, sounds interesting to me, thank you.

btw mac=alternative… not a solution to this issue

Goodbye, Fluther.