ItsGeekToMe.co

Q: Recently everything on my computer will halt for a few seconds as it’s Not Responding. It used to happen only occasionally, but now every few minutes no matter what I am doing: word processing, surfing the web, e-mailing, playing games.  What could cause this and how can I get rid of it?  I have Kaspersky Pure 3 installed and running. 

– Nancy L.
Shalimar, Florida

A: This problem I more common than most people probably think.  Perhaps one reason for that is that it can be caused by so many different things, and can manifest itself in so many different ways.  Oftentimes, people are simply content that their system is running at all, so they’re willing to accept slowdowns and freezes as an annoying but tolerable situation.  That’s unfortunate, because people should really be more interested in wringing every last bit of performance out of their systems.

So let’s divide and conquer.  There are two broad categories into which the problem must fall: either hardware (that part of your computer that can be physically seen or touched), or software (which includes the operating system, all applications, their configurations, and relevant data files they generate).  We’ll cover these two categories one at a time.

Hardware problems can include bad failing hard drives or RAM chips, drives that need to be defragmented, hardware “seating” problems, meaning something that sits in a socket or slot inside your computer (CPU, memory chip, expansion card, etc.) isn’t properly or fully inserted, or there is dirt or corrosion on one or more of the contact points.  Another hardware problem that is often overlooked is temperature, which I think may be your problem, Nancy.  But I’ll get to that in a minute.

Software problems can include bloated or corrupted Windows registry, damaged or missing .DLL files, malware infection, and program mutual-incompatibility (two or more programs that don’t run well together on the same computer).  One bane of the modern operating system is keeping up on updates and security patches, so make sure you’ve got the latest of everything.

As you can see, there are a whole host of potential causes for a problem like this, and without hands-on the machine, it’s just about impossible for someone to take even an educated guess at what might be the affecting you.  However, I noted in your question that you said “It used to happen only occasionally, but now every few minutes”.  That statement narrows the playing field considerably, and makes me lean toward one of two things.  One is imminent hardware failure, which would most likely a RAM chip, but I don’t think that’s your problem.  As I said above, I think your problem is heat-related.  If you had said your computer runs fine for a while after you first turn it on, THEN begins to freeze every few seconds, I’d be absolutely certain it was heat.  You see, the faster a CPU runs, the more heat it generates.  Your computer has built-in stuff like fans and cooling fins to remove that heat.  When the CPU is generating more heat than the computer can remove, the temperature goes up.  All modern computers monitor the temperature of the CPU, and when the temperature gets too high, the computer throttles back the CPU to balance out the heat load.  My suspicion is that your computer is running on the razor’s edge at the point where the CPU is overheating.  I further suspect that the reason why it didn’t used to do that is because over time, dust has built-up inside your computer’s case.  The thicker the coating of dust, the better it holds in the heat, and the slower your computer runs until it reaches that critical point.  So grab your vacuum cleaner, dissipate any static charge you have by touching something metal, unplug everything and crack open your computer’s case.  Remove all the dirt you can, paying special attention to fan blades and cooling fins.  By the way, dust is also responsible for most noise complaints people have about their computers too.  So, whether you’re noticing problems or not, this is a good periodic maintenance practice for just about any computer, although it can be quite difficult to do on a laptop.  If you’re not comfortable doing it yourself, your local computer shop will be thrilled to charge you a reasonable fee to do it for you.