This topic has a
lot of misinformation.
Let's start with the basics...
The Blue Screen of Death is Windows'
Kernel Panic (effective within the NT family, which includes Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, and others...). A kernel panic happens when the operating system kernel encounters an unrecoverable error. Examples of such errors include memory management corruption (from faulty RAM sticks), or some other hardware defect or a driver error (on Linux, kernel panics from faulty hardware/drivers are much less common due to the nature of sound servers and the X.org Server. If a video driver fails, X.org Server may crash or freeze, but you won't get a kernel panic).
Also: Do note that the Windows 95 family (which included 98 and ME) handled the BSoD differently. Here, it did not serve explicitly as a kernel panic but also showed up for non-fatal errors (such as unresponsible programs).
Your problem might stem from your graphics card getting overtaxed or something.
Uhh... "overtax"? How the heck do you "overtax" a graphics card? It's the same as "overtaxing" a CPU. It'll just take longer to carry out the desired operations. You can't crash a system by "overtaxing". Please. That's ridiculous. If anything, it's a buggy driver.
XP and beyond shouldn't even display it anymore. Normally, they just reboot when they crash.
They still display it. It's just that by default Windows has the retarded behavior of restarting the system after the memory dump is complete, instead of allowing users to actually read what the error says. This results in confusion. Turning off the automatic restart is easy enough. Right-click Computer, go to Properties, and under Vista/7 you must also navigate to Advanced system settings. Look under Startup and Recovery.
Ive got it. lost 3 computers that way
This is the improper reaction to any kind of kernel panic. A BSoD does
not mean, "throw me out," it means, "I'm running into issues. Please fix them."
If you get a BSOD that says
Address: 00x00000000
You sir, are fucked, good day, time to upgrade.
Hastily jumping to conclusions, are we?
Yes, when I used to use Windows, I had blue screens every once in a while. But thanks to Linux, I haven't had one for a year now, and I'm not gonna get one!
That's because... Linux doesn't use the BSoD for its kernel panic. And as described above, just because you may have better protection from kernel panics, doesn't mean you aren't going to experience crashes or lockups.
To the original poster: Please at least update your graphics drivers. And if you're on integrated graphics, I highly suggest you look into purchasing discrete graphics, as they are much, much better than integrated in almost every way.