Yesterday, my computer froze completely and I had to do a hard reboot. During the reboot, it entered power save (just after the Windows XP screen) and couldn't be woken up. When I did another hard reboot, there were minor flaws with the graphics, which suggests that the problem is related to the video card somehow.
Restarting in Last Known Good configuration didn't help. A System Restore didn't help. Cleaning out the inside and reseating the RAM and video cards (because the internet suggested it) didn't help. I did manage to boot up in Safe Mode (press F8 at the BIOS screen, before the Windows screen shows up) and tried to update my video drivers, and it blue-screened on reboot (the error message was Driver IRQL Not Less Or Equal). So I tried rolling back the video drivers and it blue-screened and crashed before I could even see the error.
So currently the temporary workarounds I know are: boot up in Safe Mode with Networking and you can get on the internet and access some stuff. It will get you through the day and help you google through your troubleshooting. You can also choose Enable VGA on boot-up (through the same F8 method as to get into Safe Mode) and you'll have access to everything, but ridiculously low resolution (640x480) and graphics quality. When you boot up, you get an alert saying that your graphics settings are very low and offering to raise them, but doing so causes it to enter power save again.
I do not have a permanent solution to this problem. Since my googling was finding stuff about motherboards that's way over my head, and since my computer is 6 years old and a desktop, I've just bought a new laptop. So don't hold your breath watching this space for a permanent solution (although if you have one, please post in the comments for anyone who's googling!)
The computer is a 6 year old Dell Dimension 4700 and the video card is an Nvidia GEforce 6800.
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