Computer blue screening, and I don't know why

[Nikoyanukaez]

SPECS:
OS: Windows 7 home premium 64-bit
CPU: AMD Athlon™ II X2 270 Processor ~3.7GHz
Memory: 16,384MB RAM
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series (6770)

Problem - my computer has been blue screening. Bit of a timeline here.
First time it happened was about a month ago, and it happened 3 times over the course of 3 days. So in response, I scanned for viruses, none found. Next I updated my drivers, and it seemed to stop, until yesterday.
Last night it blue screened, and after shutting down, it refused to start up. So I went to bed and when I woke up, it worked again. It just blue screened for a second time. Again, refused to start up, so I waited about 10 minutes, and tried again. Still nothing, so I turned off the power supply, flipped the switch back on, and now it works again.
I realize that my processor is.. less than ideal. I intend to upgrade it soon, and my only theory thus far is that I'm overheating, but I'm not a computer expert.
Any help would be appreciated.

--I should add that this doesn't just happen while browsing the internet. It's always while in the middle of a fight in a game. Most games I play are somewhat processor intensive. (Assassin's creed 4, World of Warcraft.)

 

[Mysticalsam-1354750]

What is the blue-screen error ?
That can help solving the problem.
It can be related to hard disk or graphics or virtual memory.

 

[Nikoyanukaez]

What is the blue-screen error ?
That can help solving the problem.
It can be related to hard disk or graphics or virtual memory.

I actually haven't been paying much attention to the bluescreen itself, but I'll be sure to write down the error next time it happens.

 

[Nikoyanukaez]

Okay, just bluescreened again. The error was;

STOP: 0x00000124 (0x0000000000000000, 0xFFFFFA800DE82038, 0x00000000F6002000, 0x000000001D000136)

 

[Karadjgne]

try windows event viewer in administrative/tools. it will have a more accurate log of what would likely be the cause. Unfortunately bluescreens can be caused by just about anything.

 

[Mysticalsam-1354750]

A "stop 0x124" is fundamentally different to many other types of bluescreens because it stems from a hardware complaint.
Read More :
http://www.sevenforums.com/crash-lockup-debug-how/35349-stop-0x124-what-means-what-try.html

 

[Nikoyanukaez]

I followed the guide posted, and went through the steps and then tried playing a game. The game I've been using is TERA, because every time I play it (5 or 6 times this month), my computer bluescreens or just shuts off after 15 - 20 minutes of playing.
So first, I updated my drivers. Still bluescreened. Then, I loaded my defaults in the bios to get rid of any overclocking. That didn't work either. So finally, I unplugged everything, and opened up the computer, and I found quite a bit of dust, especially on the heatsink fan. Enough to be a sheet over the entire thing. So I cleaned that off with some canned air, closed the computer up, powered it back up and tried TERA. This time, I played about 45 minutes. No bluescreens yet, I just decided to log off. I don't know if this has fixed the problem, couldn't be sure unless I played the game much more. May have just improved it.

I did follow Karadjgne's suggestion, and went into the event viewer, and located the error. The description of the error is:
"The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: (followed by my bluescreen error.) A dump was saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 022114-22620-01."

 

[Karadjgne]

Run Chkdsk /f /r to detect and resolve any file system structural (NTFS) corruption. You must restart the system before the disk scan begins on a system partition. Almost sounds like you have a Registry conflict somewhere. Have you done any software installs/removals or registry cleanouts lately, probably just before all this started happening?

 

[Guest]

It could also be a ram issue. Try to verify your ram. You could use memtest for this. http://www.memtest.org/#downiso