Hi Scatts  ... ooh sounds serious. What OS do you have?

Perhaps type "crash dump" into the help section on your pc, an answer might come up?

Or do a system restore back to a date when everything was ok?

Sounds like there is a faulty driver or device which is malfunctioning. System restore may sort the problem out if it's caused by a faulty driver but not if it's a device.

Almost certainly something which needs the laptop being checked by a computer technician. The standard method of working out what the problem is to run the laptop in safe mode to see if it works OK. Then each device is disabled in turn to check if it's that which is causing the problem.

I found this on a microsoft page (which is for Vista users):

Please follow the steps mentioned below to resolve the issue:

1.      Start the computer in Safe Mode. Refer to the below mentioned link to start the computer in safe mode:

http://windows.microsoft.com/e...omputer-in-safe-mode

2.      Once you have started the computer in safe mode, follow the instructions below.

a.      Click on “Start”.

b.     Type “Devmgmt.msc” and hit enter.

c.      In the device manager windows, disable the following hardware device

1.      Video Cards

2.      Sound Card

3.      Network Card

4.      USB Devices and controller (Please don’t do this if the customer is using USB

5.      keyboard or Mouse or Wireless Keyboard or mouse

6.      CD and DVD

7.       Modems

8.      Ports (serial and parallel)

After doing this if you are able toBoot in Normal Mode try to enable the device. one by one and check out which device is causing the issue .Try to install the latest driver for that device or contact the hardware vendor

*resists the urge*

Noooo - you dare

Hi Rosie and Loro - that's very helpful thank you