Computers Freezing Up

For the past few weeks, my computer has been having horrible freezing up episodes every now and then. Sometimes, the ctrl-alt-delete button in order to restart the computer doesn't work and yesterday, the only way to shut the computer down was to unplug it. I found out that freezing happens most commonly when I am typing on microsoft word and am listening to songs on my Winamp media player/realplayer one. It never happened until I downloaded ICQ messenger and Kazaa off the internet. I readily want to blame those two, except I am using them quite a bit and really don't want to do without just yet. Besides, I figured I should ask here. It's almost certainly going to happen again in the future. What should I do?

 

First:

Find drivers online for your soundcard/videocard. Update your current ones.

Second:

Go increase your virtual memory size to a set amount, exactly double your current RAM. (in Win9x, right click My Computer, hit Properties, choose Performance, hit 'Virtual Memory', and choose to set your own virtual memory, and set both the minimum and maximum to 2x your ram.)

Third:

Go to www.windowsupdate.com, update everything you can.

Fourth:

Go to www.microsoft.com, find the latest DirectX version, and use that to update your current DirectX.

Fifth:

Hit Start-Run, type in 'msconfig', choose 'startup' from the tabs, and take the checkmarks out of everything you don't recognize.

If these steps don't work, you're gonna have to start uninstalling the stuff you recently installed, to see if that stops it. If THAT doesn't work, you're screwed. Reformat, reload, and pray that it's just a screwy windows error. If it STILL does it, try replacing your ram and video card.

Most likely though, taking the steps I described should resolve it.

If you need any clarification on those, just ask.

- Ark

 

The Windows update package I try installing keeps on giving me an error message. It will not download.

 

i use kazaalite, but my pc freezes up sometimes to. it sucks. my neighbor told me about arcs method, but by time i got to my pc i i forgot how to do it. he was a super smart guy. it was hard understanding him, since he was a chinese immigrant and all, but he was still pretty cool and new mass about pcs. im not trying to sound mean or anything, just tellin it how it is

 

right, I understand the point between the min/max being the same size.. but i have a question about setting it to 2x your ram?

isn't that a little excessive? depending on how much ram you have (going to take a minimum of 256 megs here, barebones) that's at least 500 megs of HD space gone straight away! and if they have 512 megs of ram.. it's a whole gig. now I know windows is a resource wh0re but still, when would it ever need 1.5 gigs of ram/swap?

 

Not really. It can be adjusted based on what you're using the PC for, if you're rarely running low on resources, then no, you do not need to have a huge swap file. However, if you plan on using many applications simultaneously, the PC is almost never gonna have the ram to keep everything queued. By keeping the ram dumps in a set location, the PC won't have to seek for the info it's dumping every time you switch apps. More than 2x is usually unnecessary, but 2x is good for most users. Less than that, and yes, you might be saving some hard drive space, but you're costing yourself some usability, and with 40+ GB drives, what's 500 megs~1GB to increase stability and speed?

- Ark

 

it's about 2 bloody divx's is what it is

 

So buy a bigger hard drive if you really need the space badly enough to sacrifice the performance ;P

- Ark

 

pfft
just buy more ram
it's cheaper

unless you're using win98, which iirc starts to fall over if you have 512+ megs..

 

i dont think 1 gig is that big of a loss to me. i mean, im only runnin 60, but i can spare a little bit