How can I stop my computer from freezing up?

Question

I bought a new Dell Dimension E510 a few months ago. I am not at all computer literate, but, I'll try my best here. It has, I think, 1GB memory (maybe 2GB don't know how to check and can't remember). So far, I have 80% of it free to use. (I have three different accounts. I share with roommates, though I have not given them administrator authority.)
Anyways, my computer works fine, except when I get online (and that's mainly what I want it for). It keeps freezing up every few minutes. I tried uploading that new mycrosoft update (uh... uploading, downloading, which ever way the loading goes), and that made it worse, so I did one of those System Restore to put it back like it was a couple of days ago. My internet connection is 3GB at its lowest 4GB at its highest. There seems to be no virus present. What am I doing wrong? Why can't I keep a connection going for more than a few minutes at a time? (God forbid I want to use a messenger, listen to music, and watch a video at the same time!

Wow guys! Just a few minutes and more answers than I can understand lol. I'll have to get a techie just to translate ur guy's answers lmao. Anyways, thanks JOHNT, here's more info:

Windows XP
Dell Dimension DM, Intel Pentium D CPU 2.66GHz, 1.00 GB of RAM

Oh, and I do defrag and usually only run one or two programs at a time. Sometimes, rarely three.

Answer 1

1) Defrag-- speeds up the hard drive somewhat.
Although with about 80% free space your system will say you don't need to. Do it anyway, always good maintenance.

2) more RAM --get 512MB or more. Confirm this by going to
Start Menu - RIght-click on My Computer, and choosing Properties.
If it says less than the 1GB you said it has, then a RAM stick has become defective and must be replaced.

3) Make *sure* there is no virus or ADware by installing and running
a program like Ad-aware or Spybot Search and Destroy
(free programs, and highly recommended by experts)
and buying McAfee Antivirus (as long as you keep subscribing for updates). A sudden slowdown or cutting off of a connection suggests virus or other malicious software.

4) find out about how to use the msconfig utility and Task Manager

5) second-best thing: get a techie to run them for you and poke around for unnecessary processes that are eating up resources by running in the background.

I mainly suspect #3 and #1 because of the slowing down happening only online, or when you need more memory like for multimedia activites.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

Do you have a wireless internet connection? If so is it password protected? If not someone could be tapping into your connection so check your settings. If this does not work contact service provider.Or you could run a disk clean up (start>programs>accessories>system tools) and delete the temporary internet files/cookies. Try defragmenting the computer also. You may have a large amount of spyware so I suggest getting a spyware remover program like AdAware.

Answer 3

You probably have software running in the background which is slowing everything down.

I will let someone more qualified to give you actual steps to cure this, but as a rule of thumb the best way to prevent it is to download and activate software very very selectively. Computers these days are always offering you things you don't really need.

If you have a problem, the last people to look to for solutions are Microsoft. Generally all their software is very fickle with plenty of room for error, incompatibity and security breaches. That is because, all they are interested in doing is making money from you, they don't care about much about the quality of their products.

Answer 4

You may not have many obvious programs running but there are many that run from startup on, all the time that you don't realize. download tuneup utilities 2010 trial, it is free, and use it to check out your computer, it finds a lot of stuff that you don't need running and gives you the option of stopping it hope this helps, also check out how much space on your hard drive is being used, and consider checking how much RAM you have, even a few programs can use up a lot of RAM, maybe consider increasing it

Answer 5

First thing you should do is calm down, because i used to be like you i didn't know anything about computers then you should check how many program you are running most of the time you can do this by checking on the lower right conner of your screen most program put an icon if there is to many of them your virtual memory might be running low, you should also check what type of virus scanner you have and make sure you run a complete scan...finally you internet connect what service provider do you have? what type of connecting speed broadband or narrow band these are all thing you should find out before moving on. Finally if all the other roomates have different logins make sure they log out before you log in...this can be done by click start menue and clickin log off because when you share one computer it share memory

Answer 6

Do you have an unused network card installed on your computer? If so, disable it via device manager

Also reinstall an updated driver for your current NIC. Close some of the programs that you dont use to free some system resources. If you want to get over the problem once and for all, reinstall your OS.

Answer 7

You probably are running too many programs. first bring up msconfig and disable a bunch of the programs that run on start up that you don't need (i.e. stuff like adobe photoshop or something) and then download a spyware search program Spyware Search and Destroy is a good one--but I recommend two because not all of them have the same definitions as others. After that all you can do is really add more ram.

Answer 8

An internet connection can become slow or stop working due to a number of reasons depending on the type of the connection. Many of the problems can be solved by making software changes or small hardware corrections. Detailed instructions at http://tinyurl.com/yl62gz

Answer 9

Defrag

Answer 10

If your computer is not working properly while you are working on it, it could be a problem with device drivers, hardware or software.
Detailed instructions at http://tinyurl.com/yk5zpr