Computer Freezing - You Can Fix it and Prevent It

Windows PC users often experience freezing problems and must know how to handle this. Freezing may even happen when you are not working on your computer. It can take place during an antivirus scan, while watching videos, listening to audio material or working with the word processor.

Usually, to recover from system freezing you can press the Ctrl+Alt+Delete key combination. With Windows 95, 98, and ME, this will give you the option of rebooting your computer. With Windows NT, 2000, and XP when you press the Ctrl+Alt+Delete key combination this will open the Task Manager window. You may then browse through the running programs listed in Task Manager, pick the program that is not responding, then click the End Task button to close the program. When the program is closed, your system should be running normally.

You can experience system freezing if you run an application which is not compatible with your system. Quite obviously you need to remove the application to correct this problem. If there is a compatible version of the application you should obtain this and install it instead.

If you install a Windows operating system that requires more resources than your PC has, this will result in freezing. The minimum system requirements for Windows XP is a 300 MHz processor, 1.5 GB disk space, SVGA (800x600) resolution monitor, and CD-ROM or DVD Drive for installation. If the processor, disk space, and memory does not meet these requirements, you may experience frequent system freezing.

Freezing may result if any hardware such as the keyboard or mouse are not compatible with the operating system on your PC. Any program which needs a lot of memory can cause freezing due to possible memory conflicts with other programs and even with the operating system. This type of conflict will markedly slow down your computer and can be the cause of frequent freezing. To eliminate these problems, you should only install hardware and programs which are compatible with your computer.

Some applications like Internet Explorer and some third-party software, will store information in the Temp folder of your system. If your hard disk capacity is small you may not have the space to store these temporary files, and you will as a result experience freezing. To avoid this you can use utilities, for example Disk Cleanup, to remove unnecessary files and data from your hard drive and thus to free up considerable disk space. By using Disk cleanup you may remove temporary internet files, unwanted files, program files, web pages and various other data. Disk Cleanup will empty your Recycle Bin and compress files. With Windows XP, You can find Disk Cleanup by clicking on Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tool -> Disk Cleanup.

Errors and bad sectors will develop on your hard drive over a period of use. Your computer will freeze when you attempt to access information stored in the bad sectors. The hard disk must be kept in good condition by regularly using Windows XP maintenance applications such as Chkdsk and Disk Defragmenter.

To open Disk Defragmenter go to the System Tools menu. You can then defragment drives which are identified by the letters C:, D:, etc. You can run ChkDsk from Start -> Run or from the command prompt. Chkdsk volume:/f will repair disk errors without scanning for bad sectors, and chkdsk volume:/r commands will repair errors and will identify bad sectors on the hard drive and mark them.

Windows registry may also cause system errors and freezing if it is corrupted or damaged. Correction of this problem is obtained by scanning the registry for errors and removing all unwanted and outdated material. The best way to handle this is by downloading a quality registry cleaner tool from the internet. Registry cleaner applications are designed to be easy to use and will correct registry problems safely and quickly. We tested several of the most popular registry cleaners and found that there is considerable difference in performance, ease of use and features available. We found that one registry cleaner was able to find as much as 50% more errors than some others and was a superior application.

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