For those of you not aware, I got tired of all my computer problems (BSODs, Firefox crashing, etc.) and decided maybe a complete wipe of my hard drive would help. It didn't. Of particular note, though, these BSODs I've gotten now follow up with actual potentially helpful info after I reboot. Maybe one of you more tech-savvy folks can tell me what any of this means:

I've had BSOD problems myself in the past. Turned out to be a bad RAM stick. If you have more than one, try taking them out one at a time to see if the problem persists. Not sure if that's what's causing yours, but it's easy to check.

~Rosser

Actually, it's not easy to check. This computer came with two RAM sticks. One of them died after the first year, and I replaced it. The other is bolted underneath the central cooling fan. I'm thankful that wasn't the one that died.

The error report generated for you is very specific to that instance of the problem occurring. It'll be very different for everyone. That said, it seems like that kind of report could pop up from either RAM or your video card. Having freshly formatted, I'm almost certain that it's not anything software related. I would say go grab the latest drivers for your video card at the very least. The ones you installed from the disc might be outdated.

It's the easiest fix I can suggest without changing out hardware.

Updating my graphics card drivers was one of the first things I did. (Second Life wouldn't run without the update.)

I forgot to mention, the other day, I got a BSOD after booting up my computer. I hadn't even booted up any programs, yet. So it is, in fact, completely random when it happens.

I looked over what you shared with me in the chat and see nothing wrong with the hardware configuration. It does sound like RAM failure which could be the RAM itself or the mobo's ability to access it. This is a difficult diagnosis to prove without swapping the RAM out entirely. If the BSOD's stop after a swap, it was the RAM. If not, it might be the mobo. Might be.

I'm fairly certain that if it were the hdd we would see the same error reports I saw on my laptop. And since it happens on the first boot up of the day we can basically rule out overheating.

Alisha(Who built my PC) also believes it could be the HD.
I disagree though, if it was, it would be crashing differently and loading strangely.
For example, from my own experience, when a harddrive is failing, programs will simply fail to load sometimes, accessing folders can take ages and you will get harddrives errors of some kind on startup usually.
Of course, most of these things can happen with RAM failure too, but normally it'll happen a little differently.
Dunno though, I'm pretty sure it's RAM.

I'm sure, to some degree, all of us agree a RAM test is needed Too bad Draygones RAM is inaccessible..

So, I finally decided to open up my computer and figure out exactly what I'm dealing with. As I remembered, the central cooling fan is just barely sitting on top of the old RAM chip. In fact, it's the rubber mesh holding the fan that sits on top of it. If I push at it hard enough, I could probably slip the old RAM chip out in front of it. But I'm afraid to push too hard, and wind up breaking something in the process.

The good news is, the fan is being held down by very basic screws. The bad news is, I could only locate one of the screws. I just looked up some arctic cooling fans, and while I can't find the exact one that I have, I found something similar:

http://www.coolerguys.com/840556021407.html

Looking at the pictures, the mount is similar, and just like my fan, one of the screws holding it down to the mount is in back. Unfortunately, it looks like the other screw is probably sitting under the fan. How the heck am I supposed to get to that?

some fans just clip into place when attached to heatsinks. See that tab on the one you linked? It is on the side view of the fan, on the edge, halfway up. That should just clip onto the metal heatsink.

You're right, the fan is clipped onto the heatsink. But I can't figure out how to pull it off. It doesn't lift off, and the clips are not shaped in any way that lets me get a grip on them.

If you look closely, each clip has a flat black kind of triangle shape. You might be able to see an arrow on it. This arrow points in the direction needed to fixate the clip in place. Rotating each for in the opposite direction of the arrow will free the heatsink. And then the reverse to fix it.

Also, while it's apart, you might want to not put a chip back in that slot just in case it's the slot that's bad and not the chip. It'll let you test two things at once. I'm assuming you have at least four slots and are only using two chips. So just make note of which slots are used and put chips in the unused slots.

I can't see what you're talking about. Rotate what? Are we talking about the same thing?

Maybe I'm mistaken on the kind of clips they are...

Reach for your monitor and grab onto its sides. That's how the fan casing is being held onto the heatsink. There's a notch in the middle of it that it's holding onto.