White screen of death?

A co-worker of mine just got her FIRST computer this week, a real newby. She's in her 50s, so we're going to have to be gentle with her. I am the resident geek so they all come to me with their problems, but this is a new one for me.

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A co-worker of mine just got her FIRST computer this week, a real newby. She's in her 50s, so we're going to have to be gentle with her. I am the resident geek so they all come to me with their problems, but this is a new one for me.
All I know about it is that it's an HP & she has XP on it.
She'll be surfing & the screen will just go white & freeze.
No cursor, no task bar, nothing.
She called tech support once & after waiting for an hour, they told her they'd never heard anything like it & just unplug it. Not even cold boot the thing by holding the off button down til it goes off, but pull the plug. Yeesh!
 
Her brother helped her buy it & I thought he would have gotten her started with it, but her cable connection wasn't installed until after he left to go back home so it hasn't had any updates or anything.
 
It sounds just like the old blue screen of death we used to get in previous versions of windows, but I have never had my puter freeze since I've gotten xp, so I'm a a loss.
Need some help here guys.
 
 

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Generally, when a computer freezes as you describe it, it is a driver problem. On the other hand, with it being a new HP, you don't know what she has installed on it that could be causing the problem that may not be a driver problem, but something else.
Does it only freeze like this when she is browsing on the web or does it freeze up with while using her word processor also?
What browser is she using?
What "firewall" or anti-virus does she have installed?
Did she install something from a webpage and she was fooled into putting something like comet cursor or gator on her machine?
Does it freeze up everytime she goes to the same webpage?
What kind of connection does she use to get to the internet?
Has she updated windows since she got the computer?
There are far too many questions to answer before something can be pinpointed.