Area51: Win7 crashes

Windows 7 on Area51 keeps crashing when my son punishes the box with excessive CPU loads. Culprits include:

• Gary's Mod
• Saints Row
• GTA 4

You get the idea. Background tasks include Firefox running Youtube, Facebook, Yahoo, etc. Time to run the Basic Windows Troubleshooter!

Basic Windows Troubleshooter



Assess

First, can I find any information about what led to the crash?

• Reboot and log in as admin
• Review any crash data. See a sample report.
• Administrative Tools >  Event Viewer. Review Custom Views > Administrative Events, sorted by Date and Time.

Update

One of the easiest ways to stop crashes is to make sure everything is up to date, especially the OS and critical software.

Run Windows Update. Reboot as required to install all important updates.