2010 February | Computer Freezes

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Archive for February, 2010

Internet Freezes – Tips On How To Fix Your Computer Freezes While Browsing The Internet

February 26th, 2010 1 Comment

I have been receiving a load of inquires on why the internet freezes up while browsing the internet, thus resulting in your computer freezing.

Let’s start by saying that there are at least a 1,000 different reason why internet freezes could happen while browsing the web. This is a result of there being so many different browsers trying to render so many different types of web pages. This is also due to the lack of standards in regards to browsers and the different platforms of code that make up web pages.

Having said this, I wanted to take a bit of time to create a post that would give a few of the best troubleshooting techniques for some of the more popular reasons when your internet freezes up.

Know about Add-ons and Safe Mode (For Your Browser)

Browser Add-ons provide some really great features and can make for a better overall experience browsing the internet. However, they can also be the source of a lot of problems.

If your experiencing issue with your browser freezing while surfing the net you should troubleshoot by starting your browser in safe mode. This will allow you to surf with all add-ons disabled. Here is what you need to do:

For Internet Explorer

Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools
Select Internet Explorer (No Add-ons)

For FireFox

Go to Start > All Programs > Mozilla Firefox > Mozilla Firefox (Safe-Mode)

This will bring up an intial popup that looks like this:

Just put a check in the box next to ‘Disable all add-ons’.
Click ‘Continue in Safe Mode’

Go ahead and surf the net with your add-ons disabled. See if you can recreate the internet freezes. There is a really great chance you will have no issues at all.

So hopefully you had great success and no freezing while using your browser in safe mode. Now you have to take on the task of finding out exactly which add-on is causing the issue.

How to Manage Add-ons

Knowing how to manage your browser add-ons will allow you to narrow down exactly which add-on is causing your internet freezes. This is valuable information that will put an average computer user a notch above others. here you go:

Manage Internet Explorer Add-ons

Open Internet Explorer
Go to Tools > Manage Add-ons > Enable or Diable add-ons…
This will show the Manage add-ons window

There are two selections in the ‘Show’ drop-down box that I would be concerned about. They are:

Add-ons currently loaded in Internet Explorer
Downloaded Active X controls

Start by disabling all of the add-ons in each of the two lists mentioned above.

Here is how you disable an add-on:

Highlight the add-on you want to disable
In the ‘Settings’ portion of the window, select Disable
You can disable all of them one by one

After you have disabled all add-ons, go ahead and restart your browser and see if your internet freezes. Try to recreate the problem and see if your computer freezes.

If you are having no issues with your add-ons disabled, go ahead and start enabling them one by one using the same exact steps listed above. Be sure to test your browsing after enabling each one.

Eventually, you will find the add-on that is causing the problems. You should then be able to either uninstall or reinstall it put a final solution to the problem.

Manage Firefox Add-ons

Open Firefox
Go to Tools > Add-ons

This will bring up the Add-ons window. From here you have the option to Disable or Uninstall each add-0n you have installed.

Go ahead and disable all of your add-0ns and then test by browsing the net. If you have no issues with freezing, then take the same steps as above. Enable each add-on one by one, and make sure to test after enabling each one.

I know that has been a bit of a lengthy post, but once you get familiar with these steps, they are a breeze to manage.

If you regularly use the internet, then you are most certain going to experience ‘ internet freezes ‘ or ‘ computer freeze ‘ while surfing the net. I hope these tips will help you quickly find the source of your problem.

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Tags: Computer Freezes, internet freezes

Computer Won’t Boot Into Safe Mode – What Does The Computer Guy Do?

February 21st, 2010 2 Comments

Let’s set the scene. The goal of this post is to put you into the shoes of a computer tech when he encounters a computer that won’t boot into safe mode.

So you arrive at work and you sit down at your computer with a nice hot cup of brew in hand. Things have been going well for you lately and you are feeling like this is going to be another really productive day for you. You fire up your computer and start with your normal routine of checking your email and maybe some news on the internet. Then it happens. Your computer freezes up on you and you have no choice but to just hold in the power button on your computer and power it off. You go ahead and power on your machine again and see if it will boot up before you go calling your computer department. The results are not what you expect. During boot, your computer freezes up and just reboots. Ok, time to call your ‘computer guy’.

For the sake of conversation, let’s call the ‘computer guy’ John.

John arrives at your desk and may start by asking a few questions such as:

When did this start happening?
What programs were you using, or what specifically were you doing when your computer locked up?

After recreating the problem of the computer not booting correctly, John figures that the issue has to be one of these 4 things:

There could be a possible virus or spyware problem that you did not even notice
There could be a corrupt driver for a hardware component
The hard disk may be going bad
There could be corrupt system files not allowing the computer to boot

John then proceeds to boot the computer into safe mode. You can boot into safe mode by following these steps:

Make sure you computer is powered off
Turn your computer on and start hitting the F8 key
An Advanced Boot Menu will come up with an option to boot into safe mode

As the computer is booting into safe mode, there are a list of files that will scroll on the screen. However, John notices that the boot process is stuck on one of these files and the computer has stalled. A lot of times safe mode can get hung on files such as mup.sys and agp440.sys.

Well, this is not good. If the computer won’t boot into safe mode, then John will need to take another direction in order to try and fix the computer. At this point, John decides to run a test on the hard drive to make sure that it is not bad. Most new computers have these diagnostic tools built into them. They can be accessed via the BIOS or from the Advanced Boot Menu. The test results for the hard drive come back as ‘passed’. So at this point, we know that the hard drive is good.

The next step John will take is to run a repair on the Operating System as the problem is most likely due to a corrupt system file. This process can take about 30 to 40 minutes, but the success rate is pretty good.

After running the repair, John boots the computer into safe mode and YEAH, it worked!

Now comes the big test. Will the computer start in regular mode? Heck yes. He reboots and the computer safely boots into regular mode. At this point, John should run a full virus scan and also run a program such as Malwarebytes to make sure there is no trace of spyware or malware.

I hope this scenario will help you if your computer won’t boot into safe mode. Let me also state that these steps are not always the fix, but are the most logical steps to fixing this problem.

Feel free to post a question via a comment and I will do my best to help you out!

Cheers.

Posted in Computer Freezes

Tags: Computer Freezes, corrupt files, malware, safe mode, virus

The Ugly Truth About Spyware and How It Makes Your Computer Keep Freezing Up

February 16th, 2010 No Comments

Speaking as a person who has been in the IT field for a good many years, spyware is a nemesis that makes your computer keep freezing up and usually takes a professional to fix. According to Lavasoft, there are an estimated 100 – 150 million computers that are being controlled by hackers at any given time. A lot of folks have a misperception that these vicious programs are being programmed by some computer guru. This is not the case. In most cases, there are huge networks of individuals working together to wreak havoc on users computers.

A person can have their computer loaded up with all of the latest antivirus software and spyware intrusion detection software, but this still does not stop many forms of spyware that can still slip past these barriers with ease. In most cases, a bad piece of spyware is downloaded onto a computer via a website that has been infected or has been programmed to install this software. You may be browsing a perfectly legitimate website, but if that website has been compromised in any way, your machine can become a victim of spyware.

On a personal note, one night about a month ago and I was looking over my wife’s shoulder as she was browsing the internet. She happened to go to one of the local newspapers websites and was reading some different news stories. All of a sudden, her computer started freezing up and a popup appeared saying something to the tone of ‘You Have Been Infected, Please Click to Remove’. When you get a popup like this, you have a couple of different paths you can take:

If you click the popup, you can almost guarantee that your machine will be infected and in most cases become almost unusable. This results in spending good money to have a professional fix it.
In most cases, if you don’t click the popup, you won’t get infected if you do one of the two following steps:
- Start Task Manager and end your internet browser program. This will immediately close your browser and should prevent any worms or trojans from infecting your computer.
- Hold in the power button and shutdown your computer. Although not the best alternative, it could save you a ton of time and money. You really should never just hold in the power button and shut a computer down, but sometimes this really is the only or best option.

I would also recommend doing a System Restore after encountering any kind of vicious spyware attack. Even if you stopped your machine from being infected, it would still be a wise decision to go ahead and run a system restore to prevent future computer freezes. Also make sure to do a full Virus Scan on your machine.

Don’t let your computer become a victim of spyware. The key is to not only have great software to stop potential attacks, but to also be an educated on this subject and know what to do when these situations occur. In the end, you will be able to avoid having your computer keep freezing up.

Cheers.

Posted in Computer Freezes

Tags: computer keep freezing up, intrusion, spyware, trojan

Why Does My Computer Keep Freezing – Learn How to Stop Your Computer from Freezing Today

February 13th, 2010 1 Comment

It does happen from time to time and there is really no way around it. Your computer will freeze or lockup on you. Sometimes you may be able to recover it by doing a CTRL+ALT+DEL and ending the program that caused the freeze up, but there may be other times when there is no other option but to just shut your computer down. If this trend continues, then you may start asking yourself why does my computer keep freezing up?

As we have discussed, there are really two main areas that can cause computer freezes. They are hardware and software. A hardware freeze up is typically much harder on your computer than a software lockup. Both can be very hard to troubleshoot, so let’s go over a few things you can try if you are experiencing these issues.

If your computer is locking up hard or just shutting down completely then I think you should look at hardware as being the source. I would first make sure to check that it is not overheating. Open the side of the case and make sure that all fans are running, and that there is good air flow. Also, if you open your case and are almost choked by the amount of dust, then you may want to give it a good pm by cleaning out all of the dust. This is especially critical for the fans and the CPU heat sink. I have personally witnessed a good cleaning stop computer freezing many times.

Still asking yourself why does my computer keep freezing?

If your computer locks up on you and you still have any kind of functionality like the mouse will move or you can press CTRL+ALT+DEL, then it is time to start looking at software as being the source. Maybe your saying to yourself my internet explorer keeps freezing every time I open it. If so, then you need to think about running it in safe mode or without add-ons.

I usually try to follow 2 rules of thumb when trying to troubleshoot software that causes your computer to freeze up. They are:

If your computer is freezing up when you are not actively using a program or you are away from your machine, then the source of the problem is probably the Operating System. Or if your machine is freezing and you are also getting the blue screen of death, then I would tend to say it is either an OS or driver problem.
If you computer freezes up when you have a set of programs open, try to pinpoint which programs you are using when it happens. Typically when a program locks your computer up, you can open up task manager and end the program task that is causing the freeze up. This will keep your machine functioning, but you will lose any work that is unsaved.

I don’t want to leave out the registry as a cause of why my computer is freezing up all the time. A computer’s registry can become cluttered very quickly and can cause all kinds of errors, lockups and freezes. I do recommend a good registry cleaning by a trusted piece of software at least once a month, especially if you browse the net a lot and are always experimenting with new or different programs.

I hope that if you have been asking yourself why does my computer keep freezing that you now have some good ideas on how you can go about fixing it.

As always, feel free to leave a comment if you are having any kind of computer problem. We are here to help you!

Cheers.

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Tags: Computer Freezes

Computer Randomly Freezes – Tips on How to Fix This Issue – What I Did to Correct It

February 9th, 2010 7 Comments

No matter how long someone has been working with computers, troubleshooting the problem when a computer randomly freezes can be one of the hardest things to fix. There are so many factors that can play into this issue. Between hardware, software, cables and accessories you get a huge laundry list of things that can cause computer freezes.

IMPORTANT: The number one thing you can do when troubleshooting this issue, is to try and figure out exactly what is causing the computer to freeze. Here is what I mean:

Is it when you plug in the new external hard drive you just bought the other day
It freezes when you open your internet browser and point it to a specific website – it could be a feature that website requires such as Flash that is causing your computer to freeze
Is it when you start to play your favorite game – Does it happen for all games you play or just a specific one

You need to get really specific and try to pinpoint exactly when this is happening. By doing this, you will greatly reduce the number of factors that could be making your computer freeze.

I was recently experiencing this issue myself. I have a custom built computer with Windows Vista on it. It seemed that every time I would either play a video on the internet or do something that required a lot of CPU threads that my machine would freeze and eventually just reboot. It took me a bit of troubleshooting to finally narrow this down, but once I did I started to perform some things that I thought would fix this issue.

The first thing I thought of was an overheating issue. I thought that maybe the RAM was going bad due to overheating. When I would shut my computer down, I could barely even touch the RAM because it was so hot. I reseated the memory and tested by playing a video and sure enough, the computer still froze.

Finally: I unplugged everything from the back of my computer and removed the side panel. I went ahead and removed the Processor, Memory, Video Card and all plugs from the motherboard. I then broke out my trusty vacuum cleaner and began the cleaning. I made sure the processor heat sink and fan were clean plus all other case fans.

I plugged everything back in and it has been running like a charm since!

Cheers

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Tags: Computer Randomly Freezes

Computer Freezes – The Top 3 Reasons That Cause Computer Freezes

February 5th, 2010 21 Comments

You have experienced it before and you will experience it again in the future. You computer freezes at certain times. It could freeze at startup, while surfing the net, or while playing your favorite video game. There are 3 main areas that you should focus on if your computer is experiencing any form of these symptoms.

Overheating) One of the biggest reasons why a computer will freeze and turn off is because there is a hardware component that is getting too hot and causing a failure. This can result in your computer instantly shutting off. Overall, this is very hard on the computer and if this happens over and over again, could lead to damage to your hard drive and could lead to major data loss.

Virus/Spyware) Viruses and spyware are more complex today than they ever have been, and can find a way around the best antivirus software on the market. You need to be smart about what emails you open and what popups you click on. Some of the spyware programs that are infecting computers look so legitimate that you, the user, would not think twice about clicking on it. All it takes is one click and your computer could start freezing up, run really slow, or just not boot at all.

Drivers) Having a driver compatibility issue is another reason that could cause your computer to experience these symptoms. If you are a gamer, then there are specific video and audio drivers that are recommended for certain games. Having the wrong version of these drivers could lead to your computer freezing and even shutting down.

There are many things you should be doing as a computer user to protect against computer freezes. Make sure that you have an antivirus program installed and that it is being updated regularly. If you computer is older than 3 months, then it would be recommended to run a reputable registry cleaner or computer optimization program to make sure unwanted registry entries are being removed.

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Stop Computer Freezing – Things You Can Do To Stop or Prevent Your Computer From Freezing

February 1st, 2010 No Comments

It’s happened to us all before. Right when were in the middle of doing a mission critical task on the computer, it decides that it is going to freeze up and not allow you to do anything but hold in the power button and turn it off. If you’re lucky, there may have been an auto-save feature in whatever you were working on, but more likely than not you just lost all of your hard work and have to start back at square one. If proper up-keep on a computer is not done, then there is not much you can do to stop computer freezing.

It is estimated that Windows Vista has over 40 million lines of code. That is almost impossible to wrap your brain around. This statistic alone opens the door for causing there to be a glitch here and there when using a program that is so extensive and complex. This doesn’t take into account any 3^rd party software or hardware that can also contribute to a computer freezing up.

So what can you do if your computer is freezing up randomly or what can you do to make sure that it doesn’t eventually start freezing?

You need to understand that every time you turn your computer on, install a program or browse the internet that data is being written to your hard drive and system registry that will either never be used or is not needed for your computer to operate properly. This is a large part one of the biggest contributors to having yourself a slow computer.

Run Disk Cleanup: This option is largely overlooked, but if done on a regular basis, can be very helpful to your computer. The Disk Cleanup tool is built into windows and can usually be found here:

Start Menu
All Programs
Accessories
System Tools

I would recommend running this utility about once a month. No need to run it every day or even every week. It will go through and compress old files, delete temporary files and basically clean up any junk files that are no longer needed.

Use Disk Defragmenter: I usually consider this tool a bit overrated, but I would recommend using it once every 3 months. When a file is written to your hard drive, portions of that file may be written to several different locations on your hard drive. The disk defragmenter attempts to re-organize your hard drive and put the different file locations close together. This will help speed up your computer. Let’s be honest though, it probably won’t actually be noticeable.

Clean Your Registry: The computer registry is the equivalent of what the brain is to a human. The registry is where the most important information for your computer is held. The one problem with this, is that the computer registry can become large and filled with entries that are useless or no longer needed. Every time you install a program, run a windows update, or install the latest plugin for your internet browser, an entry is written to the registry. Get yourself a highly reliable registry cleaner such as Registry Easy and let it maintain the up-keep on your computer registry. This will help tremendously with the overall long-term health of your computer.

I hope these were some helpful tips that should and will stop computer freezing.

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Tags: Stop Computer Freezing