Is your PC re-booting itself after it begins to load? Or maybe it locks up (hangs up) making its all accessories like mouse, keyboards unresponsive and applications hang. Sometimes, you may even get a Blue screen spontaneously, while working making you to restart it manually which again lands you in the same screen. All these are the signs of indicating that your PC is freezing up. It is of extreme annoying situation when your PC freezes at the mid of your important work. If your computer freezes regularly, then it is advisable to fix it at the earliest before it causes a serious issue.
To fix your PC, you need to identify the cause behind this freezing and troubleshoot accordingly. The most common factors are incompatible hardware or software applications, low disk space, too many programs running at PC startup, virus and spyware issues etc. Each of these can be solved by different ways. Some of the common causes and solution to fix them yourself you are as listed below:
1. Check for Virus or spyware infection:
Even virus infection or spyware attack is also a major cause for your PC freezing. Hence, first install the anti-virus software and get some spyware tools, scan the entire thoroughly and remove the potential threats. Keep updating the software to prevent it in future.
2. Registry file corruption
Sometimes, when you install, update or uninstall programs on your OS, your registry file will be loaded with some junk and corrupt data commonly referred as clutter. This may be incompatible with your OS and also slows down your PC.
The only solution for this is to clean the registry. Registry cleaner is the best way to get away from this clutter; this frees up the memory of your system to run smoother and faster and also repairs system errors.
3. Low hard disk space:
Some programs need large amount of memory run smoothly. If there is no sufficient space on the hard disk then, your PC will freeze. In such cases cleanup your disk by removing some unwanted software and if possible compress your files. Also, clear all the temporary files on your PC to do this follow: Click Start > Type %temp% > Select and Delete files.
4. File fragmentation:
If the files are fragmented, it takes huge amount of time to search and locate each components of the file when you access a file. This makes your system slow and in turn freezes. The best way to get rid of this is to defragment your hard drive. You can achieve this by running Disk Defragmenter located in Start Menu > Programs > Accessories > System Tools, to optimize data placement on the hard disk for increased performance and reliability.
5. Hard drive issues:
Overheating crashed hard drives all leads to freezing up of your PC. In order to get rid of over hating make sure your fans are working properly and there is no dirt accumulation on these fans. check for your hard drive errors as follows: right-click on the disk C: icon in "My Computer", select the "Tools" tab, check all check boxes in the "Check disk options" field, and press the "Check now" button.
6. Damaged OS files or outdated OS and Drivers:
Some of the common reasons for locking up of your PC are outdated OS or drivers, hence, always keep updating your OS and drives or re-install it if necessary. One other reason is due to missing or damaged OS files. Repairing the OS replaces these important files without removing any other personal files form the system. In Windows 7 and Vista, it is referred as Startup Repair and in Windows XP it is Repair Installation.
These are the common factors and situations that will make your PC freeze up and the simple ways that could fix your PC. Yes, these steps help you to fix your hanged PCs by yourself, but they also come with their own disadvantages. As you could see each of these steps deal with hard drives, OS, disk clean up. A small mistake can lead you to huge data loss situations, which is the most unbearable situation.
Also, while cleaning the disk and running virus scan will land you in data loss scenarios in one or the other way. But, these are the only ways to fix your PC when it freezes up. You cannot fix your PC without these. Hence, while doing these always be cautious and careful. In case, even if you lose your data use Remo Recover tool to recover files from your hard drive.
