I have a Windows laptop which was bought when win.7 was new, so it is some years old. When win.10 was launched, I upgraded it, and it has served me fine.

Now all of a sudden I have this screen fluttering with just stripes to be seen, apparently a multitude of whatever I have open, and the only way to get out of it is to force the machine closed with the on/off button. This has happened twice today, and for no apparent reason. This morning I was downloading a Photoshpop update, and just now I had turned around for a moment to fetch something.
It has to be said that the electricity here in the area was down for about three hours and came back about an hour and a half ago. The laptop was on during this.

Does anybody know why such a thing happens, or may happen?
And how to avoid it?
I love this laptop and am not keen to change it for a new one, but do you think it might be too old?
Good advice will be appreciated.

Sounds like your screen is failing. I replaced mine and it was doing similar things with similar age.

Screen or video card /driver... I have a laptop about the same age (going on 9 yrs old)... The reality is its time to replace... One day, it won't boot up.

And that day was today!

I had prepared everything (lots of images) for backup on DVDs, needed to buy some DVDs first, but then I just wanted to update the graphic card drivers... that was it. The error was this blue screen with the sideways smiley, and the message said 'unaccessible boot device'. I hope it's only the boot sector that is unaccessible, not the whole hard drive, so that I can connect the old HDD as a slave and get access to my user files.

So I went out to buy a new laptop today, and I'm in the process of setting it up. Right now I need to get hold of all my CC programmes.

Oh, man! Sorry to hear this was the day I hope you can recover everything you need.
But...I'm sure you will like your new laptop. As old as it is, I'm certain your new one will run much more quickly and efficiently.

I'm not far behind you...

Well, then make sure you back up in time!

Well, it ended well. I was able to rescue all my files from the old machine, and now I'm reformatting.

That's awesome news