What Causes a Computer to Freeze Up and How Can You Fix It?

It feels similar your computer only freezes in the middle of the about of import tasks, doesn't it? If your computer has slowed to a most-crawl—or become unresponsive entirely—hither's how to recover from the problem, and prevent it from happening in the future.

Give It a Minute to Catch Upwards

If you lot're performing a especially CPU-intensive job, sometimes things will hang for a moment, making you retrieve your laptop is permanently frozen even if information technology's not. If it seems like your calculator has completely locked up, give information technology a few minutes to grab upwardly and cease what it's doing.

You'd be surprised how many times this actually works, particularly if it'due south a random occurrence (and not a chronic problem). Similarly, brand certain your mouse is working properly—it could be that your mouse just got disconnected or ran out of batteries, which can give the illusion of your estimator freezing.

Kill the Offending Program

If Windows doesn't recover (or it starts freezing again subsequently it recovers), it'southward time to pause out old faithful: Ctrl + Alt + Delete. Strike this combo on your keyboard and choose the Task Manager option from the resulting screen to see a list of running programs. Mac users can utilise Command + Option + Escape to open a similar menu.

If any of them are not responding, select them and click the Stop Job button. If you're dealing with an isolated incident, that should be all you lot demand. Your OS should snap dorsum to attention as soon as you've closed the programme, and you can restart it to continue your piece of work.

If your computer always seems to freeze when that program is running, though, you may need to uninstall it and discover an alternative. If the plan is so intensive that it'southward running out of resources, yous may even need to upgrade your hardware.

Check Your Browser's Chore Manager

Sometimes, your computer is running fine, but your browser gets stuck on a certain page. And when so much of what we do on computers is bars to the browser, this feels like your whole computer is freezing, when information technology might just be the folio you're on. In those scenarios, Windows' Task Manager might tell yous your browser isn't responding, but if yous want more info on why, yous have to dig deeper.

In Chrome and Edge, press Shift + Esc to run into the browser's Chore Manager. In Firefox, you can click the menu button and go to More Tools > Job Manager. This will bear witness you the different processes running within your browser, potentially giving yous some information on what page or extension might be frozen, or using lots of CPU and memory.

You may also have a run-of-the-factory disharmonize with an extension—for example, I recently had issues with the Grammarly extension freezing Google Docs all the fourth dimension—and then try disabling any browser extensions to meet if that solves the problem. Hopefully, the developers will issue a ready, as Grammarly seems to have done.

Reboot and Try Once again

If you lot can't fifty-fifty open up the Task Managing director, then your computer is truly locked upwardly and the merely way to get it moving again is a difficult reset. Press and hold down on the power button until your calculator turns off, then printing the power button once more to kicking back up from scratch.

If you were working on something important when the freeze happened, yous may exist able to recover information technology, depending on the program and how it handles unsaved documents. For example, Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint motorcar-save backups as y'all work, and yous can oft recover them the side by side fourth dimension you open the program. You can too navigate to File > Info > Manage Document(s) > Recover Unsaved Certificate.

Information technology won't necessarily work every time, but information technology's worth a shot—do some earthworks on whatsoever program crashed to see if it has a similar feature. If it doesn't, yous might be unfortunately stuck doing some of that work again.

Bank check the Reliability Monitor

If yous nonetheless can't pinpoint the cause of your lockups, you'll have to do some extra troubleshooting. In these situations, I recommend checking Windows' Reliability Monitor—information technology's a bottom-known, error-reporting tool buried in Windows' settings. Open the Start menu, search for "reliability," and click the View reliability history choice that appears.

You'll encounter a graph of your PC's reliability over time, with crash logs and other issues aslope updates and newly installed applications. If you can find an error listed effectually the same time as your freezing problem began, Reliability Monitor will give you the option to view technical details or check Microsoft's database for a solution to the trouble. These details may take some mistake codes you tin can look upwards for more information. Microsoft's database, meanwhile, rarely e'er works, but it's something to attempt.

If those don't assist, yous might also use the graph to notice out what applications or updates were installed earlier the freezing started happening. If a new programme or update looks to be the cause, effort using System Restore to revert your calculator to a state earlier it was installed.

Learn More than Nigh Your Bluish Screen of Death

If your computer's freezing is eventually followed by a crash and the sad-face Blue Screen of Death, you lot may be able to find more information nearly the cause of your issues. The QR code and "Terminate Code" on the blue screen are decent starting points for your research, just they rarely tell you everything.

That's why I recommend also checking BlueScreenView, a complimentary tool that reads the "dump file" your figurer creates during a crash and presents it in a slightly more than user-friendly fashion. (Download links are at the lesser of that page; they're a fleck tough to find). It's still adequately technical, only you can curl horizontally to see what commuter or device caused the crash, as well equally other codes yous can look up to effort and discover the culprit.

The makers of BlueScreenView take a number of other freeze- and crash-diagnosing tools as well, similar WhatIsHang and AppCrashView, which might be worth trying. Over again, System Restore may be helpful here in attempting to solve the problem.

Reinstall Whatever Recent Drivers

While Arrangement Restore should exist able to prepare a lot of issues, I've found it isn't ever able to repair certain quirks that may exist harder to pin downward. For example, my computer recently started freezing constantly after I upgraded my graphics menu. It turned out it was likely due to some leftover components from the old driver that were conflicting, and running Brandish Commuter Uninstaller (DDU) in safe style was enough to clean up the problem.

If you installed whatsoever new hardware recently, attempt uninstalling its drivers—or uninstalling the drivers from the old hardware y'all just replaced—and encounter if y'all tin't ready the trouble. DDU in particular is a great tool for graphics and audio drivers that are interfering with each other.

Do a Malware Scan

Every bit with all computer glitches, information technology never hurts to do a malware browse and run into if something nefarious is causing your problems—especially if you lot haven't washed so in a while. Grab a free scanner like Malwarebytes, let information technology comb through your hard drive, and see if annihilation pops up. If y'all run into trouble, check out our guide to ridding your calculator of malware.

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Give Your Hard Drive a Checkup

A failing hard bulldoze could crusade hangups and other similar issues, and so while you're running scans, check your difficult drive's health, also. You can do this by running wmic diskdrive become model,status in the Command Prompt, but for more detailed wellness data, I recommend running CrystalDiskInfo for Windows (free) or DriveDx for macOS ($twenty with a gratuitous trial). If that tool shows your bulldoze as annihilation other than "OK," information technology could be the cause of your problems, and you'll want to replace that bulldoze posthaste.

Lookout for Overheating

Excess rut can oftentimes crusade your calculator to—ironically—freeze, so if y'all see this problem popular up again and once more, maybe your cooling is to arraign. Install a temperature monitor like Core Temp, configure its options to show temperature in the Notification Expanse, and elevate that icon out of the pop-up tray and onto the taskbar so information technology's ever visible.

The next time your computer freezes, you tin accept a quick glance at the Core Temp icon to see if heat might be your trouble. If the temperature is 90 degrees Celsius or higher up, information technology's most certain your reckoner is overheating.

Watch out for a loud fan, which could tell yous your computer is overheating. Clean any dust out of the reckoner with a high-force per unit area duster. Make sure your fan is actually working—if whatsoever of them aren't spinning, you may have a failed bearing and need to replace the fan.

Test Your RAM

Bad retention can besides exist a culprit of locked-up machines, so if you suspect you might accept a failing RAM stick, it'due south fourth dimension to run some tests. Pop open the Commencement menu and search for the "Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool." It will reboot your computer and test your memory, notifying y'all if it finds any issues. You might also attempt Memtest86+, an open-source boot disk that performs more thorough testing.

If all the tests come out okay, it may just be that you don't have enough RAM. Printing Ctrl + Shift + Esc to bring up the Task Manager the next fourth dimension you experience problems, and click the Performance tab. If your memory is maxed out, information technology may be time to upgrade.

Google your model of laptop to figure out what kind of RAM you lot take, what you demand to buy, and how to supplant information technology. (If your RAM is soldered onto the motherboard—every bit is the example with Apple's laptops and many new thin and lite laptops—you lot may accept to purchase a new laptop altogether.)

If All Else Fails, Call in the Pros

If nothing else seems to solve the problem, you may have a hardware problem not so easily stock-still on your ain. If your laptop is still nether warranty, contact the manufacturer for service. If your motherboard (or some other part) is indeed failing, they'll likely replace information technology for gratuitous.

If your warranty has long expired, find a skilful repair shop in your area and meet if they tin can diagnose the problem further. Yous may have to pay for that repair, or—if it'south also costly—replace the laptop entirely. It'south a bummer, just at least you'll be able to get work done over again.

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Source: https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/what-to-do-if-your-laptop-freezes