Vista freezes

[thomasr1950]

i'm running Vista Home Premium on my laptop, 2 gb ram & it freezes. It
freezes more often when left alone for 10-20min. Sometimes when moving the
mouse it freezes. Task mgr. will not open so i have to shut down system. At
times i get a error message & my hd is being scanned.
thomasr

 

[Mick Murphy]

1 What is the error message?
2 What program is scanning your HD?

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Do you use a laptop cooler? It may be overheating.

 

[thomasr1950]

Thanks for your reply. The message i get if i get 1 is that there was an
unepected shut down of Windows. To help prevent damage the system is scanning
your hd for errors. The the message comes up that the pc will now restart or
it is safe to restart pc. The only programs i'm running are Trend Micro a/v &
WebRoot spyware. I did stop webroot but that did not stop pc from freezing.
As long as i'm usingpc it seems like it works fine until like the mouse goes
to the side of the screen, or i leave pc unattended for 10-15 min. then it
will lock up for sure.

 

[solon fox]

i'm running Vista Home Premium on my laptop, 2 gb ram & it freezes. It
freezes more often when left alone for 10-20min. Sometimes when  moving the
mouse it freezes. Task mgr. will not open so i have to shut down system. At
times i get a error message & my hd is being scanned.
thomasr

Even though (or maybe since) it is a new computer, there could be
malware or adware that is running.

First, do a full antivirus scan.

Even though you have 2GB RAM, you did not mention how much memory is
on your video graphics card - I recommend a minimum of 256MB. I would
suggest disbling Aero and see if this makes a difference.

New machines come with a lot of junk/malware go through your installed
programs and see what you don't need and uninstall the junk.

Either through Windows Defender or Start, msconfig.exe, Startup tab
look through the programs that run at Startup and get rid of the junk.

Go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer -> Custom
Views -> Administrative Events. Look for errors around the time of the
freeze to see if you can glean anything there.

-solon fox

 

[thomasr1950]

For Solon, that is an issue. I can't get Trend Micro to do a complete scan it
will scan 64% in 45 min. then freeze up.

 

[solon fox]

Well, I will let someone else recommend one, but there are several
freeware antivirus that you might try. I don't recommend stuff that I
don't use.

Another product that I haven't used, but has had good reviews is 'PC
Decrapifier' http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/. It is free for personal
use - again, I'm not recommending it, just letting you know that it
exists to remove all the junk software that comes preloaded on so many
machines.

I guess, what I am recommending is to remove as much of the junk as
you can. Note - preloaded versions of Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet
Security 14 are considered by some to be junk too. Perhaps, after
removing the junk and limiting the stuff that you allow to start using
msconfig.exe, the antivirus may have enough to actually finish.

I hope this helps.

-solon fox