My pc freezes once or twice a day, please advise?

Question

I have webtroot spy sweeper already installed and free Zone alarm software installed too, which works good, I even have cccleaner to clean up and save more mb. But my pc freezes when I am on my hotmail emailing people, or other sites, it then freezes then I have to click exit browser, then it closes all the other browsers that are already open. What is wrong with it? I have done a disk cleanup and defrag, I do not go into porn sites or any harmful site with pop ups, I have pop blocker too. Thank you so much......

Answer 1

Can be many things but one thought is that you may simply have way to many processes running for your PC's capability. Check out my tips below and pay special attention to the section on the utility program "Autoruns".

Shut down all programs that you absolutely don't need to start up when you boot up your PC. Programs tend to put an "execute" (.exe) program in their software so the the programs open real fast when you click on the icon. If you can wait a second or two more for a program to open then stop it from booting up with Autoruns. Just leave anything that indicates it's from Microsoft; System32; system; etc. alone. Just concentrate on the commercial programs you have. For example, I have Microsoft Office and it had a ".exe" file that was running at boot up. I stopped it and Word, Excel, etc. open up in about 3 seconds anyway. I also found Acrobat Reader was running. I shut it down. Use those as examples and make your decisions appropriately.

Here are the tips:

A major cause of slow PC's is fragmentation of the hard drive.
You need to defragment the HD at least once a week if not more depending on how much you use your computer, and what you do with it.

One way is to use the defragment utility built into Windows XP. It is slow but does the job rather well. Go to:
Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools and then click on System Defrag to run the tool. It may take several hours, so let it run overnight or simply walk away from your PC for a few hours.

A great program for defragging automatically is Diskeeper. It costs $30 but is well worth it. Go to http://www.download.com and search for Diskeeper. Read the Publishers Description and the Editor and User reviews. It can be scheduled to run automatically as the program deems necessary, and if you are using your PC and the program launches itself, it will take a backseat to whatever you are doing and give you the priority for CPU usage. I think you'll agree it's a good program to have. It precludes your needing to remember to defrag at regular intervals.

Another major cause of a slow PC is programs that are running in the background. Here's another really good Microsoft tool. It’s called Autoruns and it was written by SysInternals who were recently bought up by Microsoft.

Before you download the program create a folder under program files called Autoruns. Leave Windows Explore open.

Launch Internet Explored and go to the following Microsoft web page.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/autoruns.mspx

Go to the bottom of the page and download the Autoruns program. After it downloads open the file. It is a Zip file. Unzip the file and you will see 4 files. Drag and drop those 4 files to the Autoruns folder you created under Program Files.

Once you have the 4 files in the C:\Program Files\Autoruns folder you can double click on the file titled “autoruns”.

This will bring up a window with several tabs at the top. Click on the “Logon” tab. It will list the programs that are running on your PC and eating up resources. Look them over carefully and turn off any that don’t absolutely have to be running. Simply click on the “check mark” in the little box beside the program name. Clicking on it will remove the check mark. Once you have edited the Startup list, click on Apply and then on OK.
NOTE: Leave items that show Windows; System 32; Program Files; etc. alone. Shutting them off may cause some things not to work.

Once you have exited the window, reboot your PC for the settings to take effect.

WARNING: Don’t go into the other tabs and start deleting things. You will probably give yourself major headaches if you do that. Stay focused on the “Logon” List only.

Another good thing to have is a little program called FreeRAM XP Pro. It is free and is available from http://www.download.com This program puts a little RAM meter on the System Tray and shows how much RAM you have remaining that you are not using at any given time. I think you may be surprised at how little RAM you have to run other programs. Also, once it is installed you can right click on the little meter, then click on RESTORE and it will open the RAM display window. You can tweak the settings so it will display your CPU usage also. Then just click “Minimize” and then “To System Tray” to return to the Task Bar.

What happens when you run out of or run real low on RAM is that the OS recognizes the low or no RAM situation and starts using a section of your hard drive as memory. This is called virtual memory, or a swap file. The PC is constantly writing and reading from your HD. Comparitively, it is a very slow process. Check your motherboard manual and determine how much RAM each slot can hold. It will also tell you what type of RAM you need. You can also go to http://www.crucial.com or http://www.4allmemory.com and run their analysis utility to determine what kind and how much RAM is installed in your PC. Depend on your MoBo manual to determine the RAM limits of each slot though.

Hope this helps

Answer 2

no no no dont install new software and dont do anything you shouldnt do i think the problem is with that the computer is doing too many task at once if you are running ms windows xp and your ram is less than half of what it needs (512 mb) to run you computer is saying too much work too much work and it cant process things fast enough. since u have a zone alarm and a good virus protection you have those two applications running at once and add that to you running hotmail and what not i am surprised that it even opens up ( no offense ) but try running hotmail when your computer is not doing updates and trying to finish up a virus scan if all else fails e-mail i will tell you further information (if you can ;-p lol) my email is the same as my s/n

Answer 3

Yes mine does, it has been increasing over the last couple of weeks. I'm on my third machine after the first 2 did it so often I nearly threw them out of the window. My 360 is well ventilated and i have an extra fan attachment on it. I dont think it relates to a particular game. It annoys me that it freezes while i am playing online and often cant get back to the game i was in. What can we do?

Answer 4

Two possibilities....

Your computer is soo badly infected the only real solution is to Re-Install windows, regardless of how many virus/spyware cleaners you have, it sounds like some core files were corrupted or damaged, the fastest and most reliable solution is to backup all your data and RE-INSTALL WINDOWS, it takes about 40 min, but it saves you countless hours of aggravation.

Another possibility but less so is if you recently installed some hardware, hardware requires drivers, which may not be working properly., try removing or updating the hardware drivers

Answer 5

If your Web Browser is the only program freezing try reinstalling your internet browser. If your using IE6 go to IE7. Some computers have a hard time runing IE7 if thats the case try using IE6 just to see if it works properly

Answer 6

Hey J,,

Try this free software

Advanced WindowsCare v2 Personal

http://solutionheaven.com/freeware/?p=234

Answer 7

What operating system are you running? That's a key thing to look at, in addtion to standard spyware/virus scans. Also, do you get any error messages when the machine freezes?

Answer 8

Try scaning your computer with AVG and add details to your Question about the Configuration of your PC
This has happened to my self because i have a low config PC

Answer 9

I guess maybe you should lower the space used that's what i did when i had the same problem.