Computer help

I'm sure this sounds selfish but I need computer help.

My computer freezes and is unusable every 10 minutes or so. I restart but it happens again. I let it rest by turning it off but it still happens.

How can I fix this?

Under what conditions is this happening? Browsing? Running a program? Game? Idle operation?

What operating system do you use?

I use Vista. It'll happen running any program or even when idle. I can not change OS's due to having none of the disks to change OS.

Dude go buy windows 7, Vista sucks.

Aside from that. Have you run a virus scan, a malware/adware scan, an anti-Trojan scan, a spybot scan, and a rootkit scan? (Make sure to do those from safe mode)

Additionally, you should use a process watcher program to find out what is running on your computer, you'll need a 3rd party program because Task Manager does not display processes running under DOS command.

What noises do you hear from your computer before it freezes? How old is your hard drive?

Also, is your back up up to date? Transfer any important files to an external hard drive.

Computer makes no noise. I got this computer 1 year ago. I have scanned multiple times.

Yes I know I should get 7. Working on getting that soon.

Have you tried starting it in safe mode?

And then do what?

Run virus scans and stuff. It'll also tell you if there's a program that's causing the restart.

I'm the one restarting it. I have to due to the freezing. Also for some reason Safe Mode didn't start.

That sounds really really bad. Have you tried a system restore?

You mean use a backup? If so yes I have.

How long ago? Also, run a hardware scan, if you've got one.

A week or two ago. I did a comprehensive scan.

I meant from the BIOS. You might have a hardware failure somewhere. Do you have access to another computer and a several gigabyte flash drive? If so, I'd also recommend getting an installer for Linux and trying to see if that will work.

Yea, if safe mode won't start you're either having a hardware failure or your computer is seriously corrupted and virus scans will do nothing. You should have that looked at by a professional service.

Either that, or you need to reinstall the OS (just install 7)

edited 12th Dec '10 2:52:35 PM by CommandoDude

Did you back up your data to another drive?

I don't think it was from the BIOS. May be wrong though.

I also have Vista and had some serious computer problems a while ago. I used a combination of task manager, effective file search, and spy sweeper to find and remove the offending program. I took it to the university computer security and they said someone was hacking my laptop to get the bandwidth on my network account (250 GB/month @ 3 mbps). I had to reload the OS on both my P Cs, which sucks.

But it sure feels good to have kicked a hacker's butt at his own game, even though it turned out to be a rather sophisticated zombie program rather than a human.

If you have Comcast, I recommend Norton for Comcast over standard Norton.

Something like this happened to me a few months ago. It was under XP, but I don't think it makes any difference, since it was a HW failure.

The symptoms were the same as yours: random freezing after 10 minutes, after 1 hour, after 2 hours, after 10 seconds... I initially suspected overheating issues, but checking the temperature monitor, I found nothing unusual.

Then, I suspected my system HDD to fail, and copied every important data to my other HDD. I was on the verge of format and reinstall, when I suddenly decided to try disconnecting my slave HDD and running the system with only the system HDD. And guess what: no freezing at all.

So... even the fault of your non-system HDD can cause these freak freezes. I recommend scanning every HDD you have in your computer with HD Sentinel or other diagnostic software to determine if they fail or not. Provided the computer doesn't freeze before completion... And in this case you can always take the HDD out and give it to a friend to test it in their computers...

I once had a recurring computer freeze due to my harddrive switching off randomly. The last image was still inside the memory, so it would still be displayed.

I'll try the harddrive idea.

Get back to us with the results, I'm curious about what caused your problem!

Only thing I know is that whenever I restart it Norton thinks it was unactivated and it does a consistency check for C:.

Oh yeah Frodo I do have Norton for Comcast.

edited 13th Dec '10 8:57:04 AM by Fusionman

That actually adds credibility to the thesis of your problem being harddisk-related.