Computer Freezes

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.