Ok clever IT people, can you help me out?

[Saltire]

Our desktop has jsut gone weird.

DS1 was watching somethign on youtube, eh said it made a funny noise then the screen went black, then the entire screen was filled with rows of writing ssaying
loaded: windows (followed by various letters and words)
Rows and rows of it, then "please wait" at the bottom. Then it re-started.

Last week it had the blue screen and error mesage, etc and said if this is the first time you've seen this message please re-start , which I did.

Any advice what it could be?

This si what I posted in chat, and the people on it suggested I come over here and ask

Without knowing exactly what went on, or what it said on the screen, I'd hazard a guess at hardware rather than software.
If it's random, and not the same message, it's probably not something you're doing that's causing it

Within that, it could be anything, but again, to hazard a guess, these things are often caused by memory problems. If you have someone vaguely geeky to hand, you might be able to remove some of the memory and see if the problem still occurs (Not for the faint hearted, but not too tricky)

Could be due to overheating?

(can get DP on to answer further! I have no idea but he has often referred to the 'blue screen of death' on the laptop when it's overheated...)

Thanks. I have no idea about pcs at all. i can shop, email and MN on them.

DadAndy - the words were in a long column right the way down the screen.

loaded: gobblidgook/skfh(goblidogook)/windows
loaded: gobblidgook/gheo/windows

or
loaded: gobldigook/window/moregobldigook

sort of thing. then at the very bottom it said please wait. I'd never seen it before.

Val - overheating? never heard of that one, but if it helps figure out what's going on tehn it might be worth a try

OK, i suspect the "gobbidgook" is the log messages generated when the PC boots in safe mode. It sounds like when the PC rebooted itself it went into safe mode.

Another reboot should put it back.

My first instincts is that it was overheating too. If its only happened the once I wouldn't worry about it too much. Computers sometimes crash. It happens.

If it persists, then pop the side off the computer and check for dust. If its full of dust then blow it all away using compressed air (get it from Maplins), a big breath or even use the stretchy nozzle from the hoover. Just don't touch the components with the hoover, just hover over it. Don't use a portable one like the handheld Dyson because the magnetic interference from it may not be good near the hard disk.

I'd agree with NiceGuy, you're probably seeing the messages that Windows shows when it loads up - ordinarily, you get the 'nice' Windows loading screen, but if it's booting in safe mode, it doesn't show that screen, so you see what's happening behind the screens

You want to be careful of using a common or garden hoover inside a PC, if the parts aren't secure, you can pull them out of their sockets

If the inside isn't dusty, or you've removed dust and it's still happening, you can try running it without the case on it to keep it cooler, and make sure that it's in a ventilated area.

If none of that solves it, it could well be something a little more serious, such as the hardware parts I mentioned. You can probably find a guide on the web on changing them if you fancy trying to do so