Just had my first crash on this system....

Can anyone tell me how to investigate a sudden shut down, ( restart) of my system? Event viewer? I was on line reading news when my system gave me a blue screen, couldnt read everything fast enough... something to the fact it shut down to protect windows.....it was a full screen of dialogthen restarted. Hasnt ever happened before.. didnt click on any links or anything...seems to be running fine after restart.. but would like to know what the heck happened. I'm lost in event viewer so if anyone could help me out figuring out what went on here, I'd really appreciate it.

Sounds like one of your drivers are screwed up.
Like a sound card or video card.
I am a little lost in the Vista event veiwer myself.

Later...........Jimmy

Google BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) and find out more about it so you know where you are headed and what to do (or not to).

To get to the event viewer;

Left Click on Start Menu.
Right click on Computer and choose manage.
Click on the event viewer.
You now have loads of options to try and pin down what is happening.
Expand the error tab.
Look for things in the last 24 hours.

To turn off the Auto Restart on Blue Screen.
Click on Control Panel.
Click On System.
Click on Advanced System Settings.
On Startup and Recovery click on Settings.
Ensure the box with Automatically restart is not ticked.

Yhanks for the replies, I had found the autorestart and changed that.. but reading the event logs, trying to find the crash isnt so easy..I can see the crash on the reliability chart, but I am having a hell of a time finding the crash in event viewer. Thanks for the replies...

Hi, Blaydrnnnr, I wouldn't worry about it too much since it is an isolated incident. If it starts to happen more frequently, you then need to pay more attention that you may see a pattern for trouble shooting.

Now, I would just open up the case and clean it out thoroughly with at least 3 can of air. Pay special attention in cleaning out the HSF assembly and the graphic card. Check and make sure everything are securely intact and the fans spin smoothly.

Then forget about the blue screen thing until it happen again and enjoy the holiday

In addition, you may consider updating your graphic driver to 180.43 which will help your GPU work easier, that means stay cooler.

Driver Download

Even better, 180.60 version:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/GeForce-ForceWare-180.60-Vista-(64-bit)-download-2131.html#download

Cheers!