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.
Get more information by checking out Computer Freezes.
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
hey,
I have a laptop that keeps freezing on me but the weird thing is that it only freezes when I use the internet and I am at my house. I have used the laptop other places with interent and it has not once frozen on me. I checked to see if it was a virus thing but nothing showed.The other thing is that my sister has a laptop and uses it at the house all the time but it has not done this to her. Could it be an internet problem? or if it is a computer problem is there anyway I could fix it?
Definitely a very weird problem. I don’t believe there is any way for the ‘internet’ itself at your house to be causing this particular problem. However, it could be some weird issue with how your wireless network card in your laptop is communicating to your router at home. I have never actually seen this, but I guess it could be possible.
My advice would be to make sure the wireless network card drivers are up to date on your laptop, and run Malwarebytes on your laptop as well to make sure know malware or spyware is involved.
Hi my computer keeps constantly freezing whilst I’m on the internet or playing Sims 2. It’s NEVER done that before and it freezes to the point where I have to manually turn it off. It’s a lap top.
Tiana: This is a common problem that users have. The first think I would do would be to run disk cleanup on your computer. This would clean up your temp files and your temporary internet files. You may also want to make sure you have the latest browser installed, or try using an alternate browser. I would recommend using either Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.
When I submitted the last post your site added http:// to the first line itself but it was not in the ping command I entered.
Left out http:// and entered ‘ping http://www.google.com and got this:
Pinging www-tmmdi.l.google.com [66.102.9.99] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 66.102.9.99: bytes=32 time=66ms TTL=56
Reply from 66.102.9.99: bytes=32 time=66ms TTL=56
Reply from 66.102.9.99: bytes=32 time=66ms TTL=56
Reply from 66.102.9.99: bytes=32 time=65ms TTL=56
Ping statistics for 66.102.9.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 65ms, Maximum = 66ms, Average = 65ms
Just found the IP address for Google entered it into the ping command and got this:
Pinging 72.14.205.103 with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Ping statistics for 72.14.205.103:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),
Enter Google.com same result as before.
ipconfig /all for the PC:
Windows IP Configuration
Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : XXXXXXXXXX
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
Ethernet adapter Modem Connection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : GlobeSpan USB ADSL LAN Modem
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-11-F5-30-37-D2
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
PPP adapter DialBB:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-53-45-00-00-00
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 92.1.37.106
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 92.1.37.106
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 92.31.241.20
92.31.241.21
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled
The first thing that caught my eye is the last line, among the various Event Viewer items there have been a few referring to NetBIOS. To see what would happen I went into Properties\Networking\Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)\Properties\Advanced\Wins and changed the setting to Enable, I then rebooted and checked again, under the settings it is showing as Enabled, under ipconfig it is still showing as Disabled?
If I go into the same settings and open the DNS tab at the bottom are two boxes, one reads- Register this connection’s addresses in DNS, the other reads- Use this connection’s DNS suffix in DNS registration. Should these boxes be ticked or unticked as I have read opposing views?
Another thing that I noticed is that DHCP is shown as disabled on both DialBB and the modem, should it be, if not how do I enable it?
On the Modem adapter it was showing a fixed IP address but no DNS servers? I have just set both of these to automatic as I was told they should be, this has changed the ipconfig details to the following:
Windows IP Configuration
Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : XXXXXXXXXX
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
Ethernet adapter Modem Connection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : GlobeSpan USB ADSL LAN Modem
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-11-F5-30-37-D2
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration IP Address. . . : 169.254.96.237
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
PPP adapter DialBB:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-53-45-00-00-00
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 92.2.162.177
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 92.2.162.177
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 92.31.241.20
92.31.241.21
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled
I am not sure how relevant any of this might be to the overall problem as the DialBB adapter is only active using the modem while the problem exists with the router as well.
Hi, I just caught your last post before I shut down for the day. I have never even thought of guarantees, I just appreciate your suggestions. At least your suggestions follow some sort of logical progression, when I was just searching the web I was finding odd things all over the place. Not to mention the fact that in following your suggestions there have already been changes.
I saw both of your links last week but they never took me forward and I have no idea at all about the settings that RUPS mentions, not even where to find them.
My own view on the various error messages I have had is that they are not connected to whatever the underlying problem is. The reason I have mentioned them is in case they mean more to you than they do to me. Even Event ID 31008 is only appearing intermittently and does not seem to coincide with noticeable events.
I normally have ICS set up on a VPN but since this started I have moved it a couple of times and even turned it off. None of these things made any difference to the problem of not being able to access websites. On the PC all my connection settings have been set up using the OS, I only manually inputted what was needed for specific connections, the rest was automatic.
I think your comments earlier today got the problem in a nutshell, that the PC is not converting domain names into IP addresses, at least not all the time, which is why I mentioned the contradictions as there are some instances where it seems it is doing so.
By the time I first posted on here I had already tried everything that I could think of, as you said in your first reply ‘I seemed to have covered all the bases’. However as far as I am concerned there is a solution to this, it is just a question of finding it. As long as you are willing to offer suggestions I will try them and I will also continue seeing what I can turn up myself.
I’ll try to post the PC’s ipconfig details tomorrow.
I will not be using the PC today but in the meantime I tried what you suggested on the Netbook. Bear in mind that the only problems I have had with the Netbook was early on when I had it connected through the PC, problems which have now cleared. At the moment the Netbook is online using the router without any connection problems.
When I run the ping command I am getting the same response that I do on the PC.
When I run ipconfig /all I get the following:
Windows IP Configuration
Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : XXXXXXXXXX
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Mixed
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
Ethernet adapter {CBBF42A3-23BD-4F43-9C1A-6B157B22017B}:
Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Anchorfree HSS Adapter – Packet Scheduler Miniport
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-FF-CB-BF-42-A3
Ethernet adapter Wireless Connection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-24-2C-7D-88-BB
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.2
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 14 February 2010 13:30:09
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 15 February 2010 13:30:09
If I have a VPN running something similar to the following is added at the bottom, the adapter name and the DNS Servers shown obviously change depending on which VPN I am using:
PPP adapter XXXXXX-VPN-XX:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-53-45-00-00-00
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.45
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.45
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 96.75.220.1
96.75.220.3
When I checked with my ISP the other day they told me that the DNS Servers should be set to Automatic, they were on the modem and having just checked they are on the router.
I will run ipconfig /all on the PC the next time I use it, probably tomorrow, and post the results.
I noticed yesterday that Event ID 31008 is still appearing from time to time, and there is an occasional warning message to the effect that Windows has reset the Physical Address of the modem, although it always seems to be the same address. The IP address has definitely not changed.
You are into areas that I understand very little about but it seems to me that there are a number of contradictions in this matter:
Using the same connection settings on both computers the Netbook has no problems, the PC does?
If the PC is not converting Domain Names to IP addresses when the browsers are running normally how is IE7 working at all even without add-ons?
If it is critical to be able to get a reply to a ping command how is it that I am not able to on either computer yet one has no problems while the other does?
Please do not think that I am questioning what you have said I do not know enough to presume to do so and from what little I do know I am sure that you are right. As much as I want a solution to this is issue I am also trying to understand what is causing it. The previous paragraph was simply to set out some of my thoughts on the subject.
Please be aware that I am only giving suggestions based on the information I am receiving from you. These are only suggestions, not any guarantee that they will correct your issue.
BTW.
A great website to check out event log errors is http://www.eventid.net.
When I lookup event 31008, I see that it is a DNS issue. Here is the link:
http://eventid.net/display.asp?eventid=31008&eventno=539&source=ipnathlp&phase=1
It seems that your problems could be related to the Internet Connection Sharing or maybe some settings for it. You may want to try some of the things that are listed in link above….take a look at the comments from RUPS.
I have an 8MB broadband connection using a BT Voyager 105 modem. The actual speed is usually between 7&7.2Mbps.
As I said earlier I have also used a router to connect with and had the same results in terms of both speed and problems.
One thing that I have noticed has altered since I changed the setting you suggested the other day is the download speed.
Although it still varies widely from site to site, until the other day I had never seen a speed above about 480kbps. After my post on the 10th I downloaded the latest version of Open Office using the Netbook on the LAN and got speeds up to 620kbps, and the day after while using IE7 on the PC, without add-ons, inside a sandbox, and through a VPN, I saw speeds in excess of 2Mbps.
I do not know if this is related to the changed setting or not but it is new.
I have looked into the Event ID 32&59 error messages and do not think they are part of the connection problems. I downloaded and reinstalled C++2005 and C++2008 from MS and they seem to have gone.
The ping command is still showing the same result.
On a different subject, the other day out of curiosity I looked at the ‘ABOUT’ page on this site, it never told me much but I think you might want to edit the last line to include the word ‘not’.
I hope you do not mind me pointing it out.
Pilgrim: I don’t mind at all that you pointed out a change needed to be made on the About page.
I am glad to hear that at least your speeds have seemed to increase. I really think the problems you are having are all being caused by DNS issues. It is absolutely critical that when you ping http://www.google.com that you get replies. The fact that you are not getting replies indicates that you machine is not able to convert the domain name i.e. http://www.google.com to an IP address.
We can go through a series of checks to see if we can get this working.
First, are you able to login to your modem/router and see if there are DNS settings? You should be able to see these on the connection status page when logged into the modem. Also, you may want to open a command prompt like you did to run the ping command and type this: ipconfig /all
What are the results? Is there 2 DNS server settings?
Let me know what you find out.
I have checked again with my ISP and they tell me that the actual connection and all the settings are correct.
Do you ever feel like screaming?
I am now on the Netbook using the modem internet connection through the PC.
All the browsers on the Netbook are now working over the LAN.
The only browser working on the PC is still IE7 without add-ons, try anything else and it freezes. I cannot try Firefox without add-ons as that option disappeared when I installed FF3 while leaving FF2 in place. That was back when the final edition of FF3 came out, although they have both worked without problems since.
None of the add-ons that are common to IE and FF have updated in the last couple of weeks as far as I can recall.
When I rebooted the PC it loaded at its normal speed, first I tried IE7 without add-ons again and it worked, then I tried with them and it froze. Restarted and tried FF2, once again it froze. Both times I had to reset the connection password to get online, that was not happening before. Also it is now freezing before the browser window opens, not after like it was.
There are now three error messages in the Event Viewer under System, they are all showing the source as SideBySide and are as follows:
Event ID 32, Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC90.MFC could not be found and Last Error was: The referenced assembly is not installed on your system.
Which is strange because as far as I can see it is.
Event ID 59, Resolve Partial Assembly failed for Microsoft.VC90.MFC. Reference error message: The referenced assembly is not installed on your system.
Event ID 59, General Activation Context failed for C:\WINDOWS\system32\erasext.dll. Reference error message: The operation completed successfully.
None of which do I understand especially the last one. If the operation completed successfully why am I getting an error message?
I just tried pinging Google on the PC again and got the same response as before.
After the last sentence I broke off to try something else:
I have just downloaded an updated version of a program I have on the PC, as I was about to move it there from the Netbook the PC crashed although given what has happened in the past that might well be because of the latest MS Updates, on restarting I found more system error messages, the three above were repeated twice and I have the Event ID 31008 I told you about before and also:
Source NetBT, Event ID 4307. Initialization failed because the transport refused to open initial Addresses.
After I restarted the PC the file transferred across without a problem.
So some things have changed but I do not know if the above gives you any more ideas about a complete solution. Anyway I appreciate your help this far, thank you.
Do you have high-speed internet or are you using an actual 56k modem?
Well something sure as hell has changed!
I am writing this on the PC using IE7 without add-ons, when I am finished I will check out what is actually working and post again, in the meantime I will fill you in on how I got this far.
Taking your suggestions from yesterday:
First:
What I got was this:
Ping request could not find host http://www.google.com. Please check the name and try again.
Second:
Both boxes were unchecked, so as you suggested I checked the first after which I rebooted.
The computer loaded exceptionally slowly and did not seem as if it was going to get there so after several minutes I turned off manually and restarted, the second time it was still very slow loading but finally made it.
I connected to the internet, which I always do manually, and as it has continued working throughout the problems I ran Mailwasher Pro, this too was exceptionally slow and the first time round never managed to access all my accounts, whether this is connected to the changed setting or not I do not know.
Following your suggestion again I decided to try IE, only without the add-ons, it opened on a page which offered me an option of Windows Updates, as I knew from my Netbook yesterday that there were a lot of updates this month I took it and was able to access the site and download without any problems although I have yet to reboot which I shall do next.
I then opened my Home Page typed your website name into the search box and got to here.
I will now reboot, check out all the browsers and network connections and let you know what happens.
Great! It sounds like your making some progress. I would also try doing the ping command again. Make sure you type it in as
ping http://www.google.com
You should be getting replies. If you are not, then you will need to check with your ISP to make sure you have the correct DNS servers set.
But let me know what you find out!
Hi, tried Safe Mode, no difference. Looked up the error code and found that most of the information on it is several years old, also found that the people who resolved the issue did so more by luck than judgement and not all of them were lucky. Some of the suggestions I had already tried, so I tried the others and none of them made any difference. Also since the other day the error code has not appeared.
I am a practical person by nature but somehow I cannot seem to pin this problem down. As far as I can see the situation is this:
Provided I do not try to load a website all my browsers work, I can open HTML files from the hard drive and in the case of Firefox I can open CHM files.
My actual connection to the internet and all network connections are working on everything except websites in the browsers.
My understanding is that when you enter the name of a website into a browser the name is converted to an IP address, it seems to me that is not happening.
Question: What is it that actually makes that conversion and where exactly is it located on the hard drive either as a file or in the registry?
Ok. So it sounds to me like you are having problems with DNS. Let me have you try a few things out that will also give us some more information.
First:
- Go To Start > Run and type in CMD
- Type in ping http://www.google.com
Do you get replies or timeouts?
Second:
- Open up Internet Explorer
- Go To Tool > Internet Options
- Select the Connections Tab
- Click the Lan Settings… button
- Make sure that Automatically Detect Settings is checked
- Make sure that Use A Proxy Server… is unchecked.
Test it out and report back with your findings.
We will fix this:)
Hi, Thanks for the reply. Before I try what you suggest I have found something that may point to the cause of the problem but I have not had a chance to check it out.
Earlier today after trying my browsers again and getting the same result I restarted the PC and had another look at the event viewer where I found an entry that turned up a couple of days ago but not since. It is showing Event I.D. 31008. I’m afraid that I never copied it completely but it referred to IPNATHLP and said something about DNS proxy not being able to contact or read Name Resolution Servers. This probably means more to you than it does to me but from what I have looked into so far it sounds like it might well be, if not the cause of the problem at least connected to it.
Going back to your reply, I will be very surprised if this is a hardware problem. All my other network connections, local and VPN are working as they should and accessing the internet using the modem or the router for everything except browsers is not a problem. The issue seems to be confined to actually connecting to websites, which is why the error message above caught my eye. As it affects all browsers it would seem unlikely to be a problem with the browser software itself, this seems to be confirmed by the fact that it affects the Netbook as well when it is connected to the internet through the PC but not when it is connected directly.
My thought is that it is probably registry related and if I can pinpoint it I can probably fix it. For one thing my Netbook has the same OS and except for direct connection to the modem has the same connections as the PC. If I knew which keys were missing/corrupted I might well be able to copy them from the Netbook.
I will get back to you when I have looked into this error message, in the meantime if you have any further thoughts I would be pleased to hear them.
Hi, I just discovered your site and I am wondering if you can help me with a problem that I have had for the last week?
My PC has XP-SP3 Home, every time I try to open any website in any browser (FF2,FF3,IE7) the browser window opens and then the computer freezes and I have to turn off manually. If I stop the browsers from loading any sites or if I am offline the browser windows will open normally. Internet connection with any other software is not affected.
If I connect my Netbook to my PC and use the PC’s internet connection I have the same trouble with the Netbook, (Opera10, FF3.5)once again all other software and file sharing are unaffected.
If I connect the Netbook directly to the internet it has no problems.
I have tried connecting the PC to the internet using a modem and a router at different times since this started, the problem remains the same.
Taking the three points you list above, the PC is definitely not overheating, nor are any individual components. I have run full scans with a range of software and found nothing. I have not updated any drivers for quite some time.
The hard drive and the registry are cleaned each day before I shut down and both are defragged regularly all using the same programs which I have used for a long time without any problems.
At one point I recovered a full backup made before the problem started, at first it seemed alright but the following day the problem came back.
I have run checkdisk and SFC. I have reset TCP/IP and Winsock.
I have flushed the DNS cache, re-registered DNS and refreshed DCHP.
Everything else on the PC is working without any problems.
I have found nothing in the Event Viewer to indicate what the problem might be.
I did check with my ISP and they assure me that from their point of view there is no problem with the actual connection.
The problem remains and I have run out of ideas.
Your thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.
Pilgrim: Wow it sounds like you have covered just about all of your bases on this issue. There is one thing I would recommend you try, and that is to start your computer in Safe Mode With Networking. You can do this by following these steps.
1. Restart your computer.
2. As soon as your monitor turns black and start to reboot, hit F8 repeatedly until the advanced windows screen comes up with a list of options to choose from.
3. Use your arrow keys to select Safe Mode With Networking
4. Hit Enter to Select
Let windows boot up and then test your browsers.
Definitely report back and let us know what the results are. If your still having this issue, you could be looking at either a bad Network/Modem card.