My Computer Keeps Freezing - Even Hubby Is Stumped!

[belle&sebastiansmom]

My Dell computer keeps freezing. While online or even doing document work in Word, the mouse just stops. Control-Alt-Del doesn't work. Neither does Esc. DH has run a system clutter check, a virus scan, nothing.

I know someone on the Dis has something else we can check for or try. It's quite annoying. The only way to unfreeze is to turn off the computer manually.

At first I thought it was our wi-fi modem, possibly blinking on/off, losing the connection (if this is possible, I don't know much about computers), but then it started happening while offline as well.

So, what to do know! Help me so I can surf the Dis longer than 10 minutes!

 

[agnes!]

I don't have much but have you tried a different mouse? And whenever I have a computer issue, I always run it through Google to see if others have complained about it online...there could be some kind of known Dell bug.

agnes!

 

[SpecialK]

My old laptop was a Dell and it drove me crazy doing freezing up like that. Could just be a Dell problem.

 

[belle&sebastiansmom]

Thanks agnes, I'll try a new mouse. DH said he browsed online for related issues (though who knows who thoroughly.) I may take a look, though I don't understand half of what is said on those sites. Just posting here hoping someone knew a quick fix, insignificant problem.

 

[dawson5]

My Dell computer keeps freezing. While online or even doing document work in Word, the mouse just stops. Control-Alt-Del doesn't work. Neither does Esc. DH has run a system clutter check, a virus scan, nothing.

I know someone on the Dis has something else we can check for or try. It's quite annoying. The only way to unfreeze is to turn off the computer manually.

At first I thought it was our wi-fi modem, possibly blinking on/off, losing the connection (if this is possible, I don't know much about computers), but then it started happening while offline as well.

So, what to do know! Help me so I can surf the Dis longer than 10 minutes!

I am wondering if you updated something and it doesn't like the update.

 

[mom of 3G's]

I have a Dell desktop that is 7 years old and freezes up all the time. It is slow to load from the websites, and if it is taking a long time and I click again I will get a rectangular box on the upper left of my screen that says "not responding." I would say about 99% of the time it will unfreeze on its own but there have been times when I have to restart it. It also does when I am trying to print out any documents from Wordperfect. It is VERY frustrating. I even took it to a computer repair shop over a year ago thinking I had a virus. No virus, but because it's old it's slower. He did upgrade something (something to do with more memory???? -- please forgive me, I'm just able to turn it on and off and read the Dis boards). There are times when it is so slow that DH and I just walk away from it. I know we need a new computer, but DH is a tight-wad and thinks we've spent enough money this year on entertainment with the purchase of 2 TVs. So we just have to live with it for now. Somedays I swear I'm going to beat the thing with a baseball bat, though.

 

[OceanAnnie]

Mine freezes up when there is a virus scan.

 

[goofyfatherof2]

You may have spyware. Go to download.com, download malwarebytes (free), and see if it finds anything. It could be you don't have enough memory,another program doing updates, or virus checks. Try malwarebytes first, and post what you find.

 

[agnes!]

Hey, how old is your Dell? Could it be that you don't have enough memory to crawl the Web? On my old PC (I now have an iMac ) things got very slow towards the end, especially when websites started using a lot of image and memory-rich content.

agnes!

 

[surfergirl602]

is it over heating? When is the last time you cleaned out the fan? My dell does that if I don't keep it super clean.

 

[mickilee]

surfer girl is right. tear the puter apart and give it a good cleaning. Use rubbing alcohol with q tips on the fan carefully. Vacuum carefully! in the inside and make sure the memory is still in tight.

run a defrag see if that speeds it up.

check your power supply cord is in tight.

get rid of any junk programs you dont use and pics.

basically spring clean the puter.

 

[Imzadi]

Is it freezing or shutting down? There is a difference. If it's shutting down then, yes, I agree with Surfergirl. Do you hear the fan going into full speed mode before it shuts down? For that matter, do you hear the fan on at ALL, at various times. If it's broken, your theromstat will shut down your computer without warning.

If it is simply the mouse freezing, get a new mouse and check for updated mouse drivers, if it has any. Is it a corded mouse or a cordLESS mouse? I heard the cordless ones are prone to freezing. You may have to change the battery.

 

[jsmith]

Getting a new mouse will only solve the problem if its the mouse thats freezing or the operating system stops detecting it. If the mouse is freezing others are right-you may need a new one-however this could be a symptom of other problems-if you are using windows XP your operating system may be corrupting-reloading it will solve the problem but you will need to back up data first. Your hard drive may be going bad-the system will freeze when it accesses a bad sector. diagnostics will usually not detect just a few bad sectors. as somoeone else mentioned you could have spyware that is locking th system up. If you leave it online constantly-as in booted up and using dsl or broadband and not suspending or sleeping it when your not using it-you may have pirate processes running that use all the machines resourses. Its very hard to diagnose computer issues with out seeing the machine.

 

[Imzadi]

if you are using windows XP your operating system may be corrupting-reloading it will solve the problem but you will need to back up data first. .

I would try a System Restore to several days ago, first, before going that drastic. It's my favorite "go to" tool on Win XP. Works nearly every time.

 

[belle&sebastiansmom]

Is it freezing or shutting down? There is a difference. If it's shutting down then, yes, I agree with Surfergirl. Do you hear the fan going into full speed mode before it shuts down? For that matter, do you hear the fan on at ALL, at various times. If it's broken, your theromstat will shut down your computer without warning.

If it is simply the mouse freezing, get a new mouse and check for updated mouse drivers, if it has any. Is it a corded mouse or a cordLESS mouse? I heard the cordless ones are prone to freezing. You may have to change the battery.

Just freezes. No sound of any fans coming on before it happens, I'll just be moving the corded mouse and then it won't move anymore. I have to pay attention and see if it happens when I'm typing or only when using the mouse. Yesterday when it froze, while on the dis, at the bottom bar it said it was "waiting to connect" to somewhere on skype.com. I've never been there and wasn't trying to get there.

 

[Imzadi]

Yesterday when it froze, while on the dis, at the bottom bar it said it was "waiting to connect" to somewhere on skype.com. I've never been there and wasn't trying to get there.

You might have a computer virus or spyware, if it's trying to connect elsewhere. Did the mouse happen to be on one of the ads on the Dis page? The address for those ads usually show up in that bar, but I just checked, there was no connecting going on.

As someone else mentioned, download Malwarebytes and run a scan. It's free, and that baby saved my computer!

 

[chloelovesdisney]

This happened to my Dell a couple of months ago. I had caught a virus from Facebook that was going around that was not being detected by any anti-viral software at that time. I ended up having to restore my computer to the factory settings, such a pain.

 

[Arielle22]

I agree with the posters for Malwarebytes. I was using our daughter's laptop the other night and it was really slow. DH is an IT Administrator so I turned it over to him.

One thing he did was go to the taskmanager and see how much CPU was being used with all know programs shut down. It was almost 100% which told him that there was spyware.

It took 2 days for him to complete everything. He found 14 different spywares plus 204 other items (not spyware but things which made the computer run slow).

 

[Imzadi]

Here are a couple threads to FULL directions to doing a Malwarebyte scan.

Follow my directions there. Do NOT skip over any directions, thinking you do not need to do them in that order or do not need to do them ALL. You will just have to go back & start over again and do the processes properly. Computers work in a certain way, and VIRUSES work in a certain way. Following a certain order gets rid of them. When I say, "DO a System restore FIRST, do the System Restore FIRST."

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2422025

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2377365&highlight=malwarebytes

 

[jsmith]

System Restore will ONLY recover you if you can restore to a point BEFORE you were infected by a virus or spyware-it will NOT recover you from a corrupting operating system. It is of course a first option.