My system has become highly unstable lately. Suddenly I'll get a blue screen, with text like "irql error" or something like that. It's not the same error every time.. I suspect it might be the ram, but not really sure. Then the machine reboots by itself.
Just before it reboots I can see a text 'log created.....' but where is this log? Don't even know what name to look for. Tried just searching for *.log but that wasn't very helpful.-.

I'm not sure if it will help you any but you can disable the automatic reboot "feature". Just right-click on My Computer/select Properties/Advanced tab/Startup and Recovery Settings and uncheck the box next to Automatic restart.

might have written it to the system logs:
2nd button on my computer> manage

Normally blue screens aren't written there though

I think that it could rather help if you'd disable the automatic boot/restart windows feature, as then you'd be able to read what error exactly does the blue screen shout about.

Such critical errors in Windows can happen (or start happening) out of a sudden and be caused by anything, mostly though by some minor software-software, software-hardware or hardware-hardware incompatibility... I had a really unnoying autumn last year, when my WinXP suddenly started bombarding me with "IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" blue screen messages in the middle of everything I was doing. A search finally discovered the culprits being my Asus Mainboard (working its chipset off out there for over a year), GF FX5900XT Graphic card (whom I had for about half a year), my ADSL modem (likewise) and... the "Dawn of War" game, which somehow made a conflict between all those hardware components (which never before caused even one problem). All the time I was running one and the same clean copy of Windows XP PRO SP1, with all the updates (except for SP2 of course) and yet never before did it froze even once...

Anyway, if you manage to pinpoint the error message that your Windows is shouting at you, it should be much easier to find a solution. Even a simple Google search for it should reveal several forums with people, who either experience or were experiencing similar problems...

Heh, it suddenly got to me that it looks like I'm inviting you to an AA meeting

yeah, that "IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" is the error I'm getting, some of the times...

tried disabling it though.. guess I'll have to wait and see...

@John, its the rest of the error that's important. That's the equivalent of saying oh, its a fatal error I'm getting. Its the hex code and driver address that are important as they identify which piece of hardware and/or software is causing it.

ok... hehe.

Well I'm getting errors all over the place... it's REALLY fucked up... bah

Alot of the times it was some ati dll's but also things like Win32k.sys and registry errors.

I've tried all kinds of different shit, to no avail.

Now I've started to notice that it might happen when I have a disc in either of my dvd-rw's. so I might disconect one of them... but for now I'm sick and tired of all this shit..

format is a geeks best friend

Most errors are either graphics card, hdd or software.

The easiest way to solve software errors is to format and/or be more careful about what you install.