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Computer Freezing--You Can Fix It And Prevent It

By John Mowatt

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 27Jul2009 Word count: 697 Viewed: 605 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

System freezing is a common problem which all Windows PC users must deal with quite frequently. A system freeze can happen even when you are not working on the PC. A freeze may happen when you are running an antivirus scan, listening to an audio file, viewing a video or just working on your 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. To correct this obviously you must remove the application. 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. Programs which use a lot of memory may cause freezing, since the chance of a memory conflict between programs and even with the operating system is increased. 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 uneccessary files and data from your hard drive and thus to free up considerable disk space. With Disk Cleanup, you can remove uneccessary files, program files, temporary Internet files, Web pages and more. 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. When you or a program try to get information stored in the bad sectors, your system will freeze. The hard drive must be maintained in good working order by regular use of Windows XP system maintenance tools for example Disk Defragmenter and Chkdsk.

You can open Disk Defragmenter from the System Tools menu and use it to defragment drives identified by 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. To correct this problem, you must scan the registry for errors and remove all uneccessary and obsolete entries. The simplest way to do this is to download a good registry cleaner from the Internet. Registry cleaners are designed for ease of use and will repair registry errors 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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