Article by George Norman

On 01 Sep 2009

Having your computer freeze up on you is something that every computer user has experienced at least once in his life. It can be a very frustrating experience, especially if it happens at a moment when you don’t have a lot of time to waste – you need to get things done, get them done quickly and a computer freezing up on you is the last thing you want to happen. Here are a few simple tips that you can employ the next time your computer freezes up.

Step 1. First look at the HDD light. If it is blinking away, then the hard drive is busy doing something. When it stops blinking the computer should become responsive again. If the light does not blink at all and the computer does not respond, something has gone wrong.


Step 2. Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to access Windows Task Manager and see the status of a running app. If an app is not running properly, the Not Responding message is displayed next to the app’s name. If that is the case, select the unresponsive app and click End Task.

Step 3. If the unresponsive app is not the culprit for your frozen computer, click the Processes tab in the Windows Task Manager. Locate the process that is using up all your processor power and click End Process.

Step 4. Take some time to answer a couple of questions. Have you installed any new software recently? Have you installed new hardware recently? If you have answered “Yes” to any of these questions, then you might want to uninstall the software and/or remove the hardware as they may be responsible for your computer freezing up.

Step 5. Malware may be the cause of all your problems. Get a good antivirus software and scan your system.

Step 6. If nothing works, if your computer is still frozen, then you might want to consider performing a manual shutdown: press the power button and hold it pressed for a couple of seconds until the computer shuts down. You could also perform a reset - just hit the reset button, underneath the power button.

Tips and warnings
If your computer freezes up on a constant manner, you might want to seek out professional help. The problem might stem from defective hardware, or some other problem you cannot identify.
Keep in mind that if you have a less than extraordinary computer, launching a power hungry application will eat up system resources like crazy and will definitely cause your computer to become unresponsive for a little while.
Do not attempt Step 6 from the tutorial presented above unless you really, really have no other alternative. Manually powering down the computer may lead to data loss, cause damage to the operating system or the hard disk.
Sometimes your computer freezes up because you have too many apps running at the same time and there are not enough resources to go around. Close any unnecessary apps.



Tags: Microsoft, Windows, Operating system, OS, Computer, Frozen, Fix

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