About once in every three shutdowns I get a blue screen message as follows - "Windows Protection Error. You need to restart your computer. System halted." The only way out is to hold the on/off button down until it closes, then when it is booted again it goes through the Scandisk routine. Nothing else seems to be affected - it is just an annoyance - or I hope that's all it is. Can anyone please help?

Check out www.newbie.org. In the index look under "first aid" and click on "crash aid" Lots of info.

The Blue screen is commonly known as "The Blue Screen of Death" If it keeps happening after you have tried to fix the problem, i would sugest saving all your used files to disk, and format the hard drive, reinstall windows and start again. I have done this a few times over the years and it has fixed it all the time!! Try to fix the problem first before formatting

Your CPU is overheating. Most Windows Protection Erros are caused by CPU temperature. You can check internal temperature of your PC right in your BIOS setup. You may need to invest in a better CPU cooling fan/heat sink or run your CPU and system memory (RAM)at a lower clock speed. Unlike older systems with jumpers on Motherboard to switch speeds, modern motherboard CPU speeds can be switched in BIOS.