Why does my laptop keep "freezing" - Completed thanks to all who helped me.

[LizzieW]

greenrig - No the whole PC freezes.  Since it started I've never been able to use CTRL-ALT-DEL keys.  I'm going to ring the man who cleaned the laptop yesterday to see what he thinks.  As you say, it's not worth paying out for more repairs if the laptop is at the end of its life.  I've had it since 2008 and do use it a lot, for transcribing, and of course doing family history research.  The first problem is that because of the transcribing I do, I need a 17.3" laptop and, of course, they are more expensive than smaller ones.  My OH has a PC with a 23" screen but, of course, he uses that quite a lot so it's not available when I need to do the transcribing.  The second problem is that unless I find a laptop on line, they are all Windows 8 now, which I think will need quite a steep learning curve.

[greenrig]

I agree - if it's the whole PC that locks up by all means try your PC man again - it's good to have someone who you can TRUST to look at a PC rather than the cowboys.

If it were ME, the next action would be a complete reinstall of Windows (no need to lose any data). This assumes you have the restore/recovery media (could be a DVD or CD, could be on the hard disk in a hidden partition).  Ask your PC man for his opinion on this....

If, after that, it still locks up then it's time to say goodbye - and look for a good buy!   Good Luck!

[LizzieW]

I spoke to the PC guy, he said it could be Windows that's causing the problem  He reckoned about £85-90 for the work.  That's £55 for him to come to look at it - minimum charge, then charged by quarter hour.  He also said the RAM might need changing.

My OH says we've got a CD of Windows Vista as when I first got the laptop we were told to make a copy of it, in case of future problems.  If we try to re-install ourselves, how do I not lose all my data, word documents, Legacy, Roboform where I have 100s of passwords stored (slight exaggeration but at least 200 as every website I use has a separate password) etc. etc.  I can copy them to a hard disk, but I've done that in the past when my old laptop packed up and it was a pain copying everything back, in that I had to download again, Legacy, Roboform and other software I use.

[Redroger]

One belated word Lizzie, after my experience with this machine; all documented on a much earlier thread I would never ever touch PC World again not even with a 50 foot pole and a clothese peg on my nose!

[LizzieW]

Roger - I wouldn't ever get anything from PC world either.  The staff don't know anything, I feel sorry for the people who don't use computers very often who go there when they have a problem, because they think it's the only place to go. 

[silvery]

They only sell stuff don't they.   I wouldn't think any of them are any good with after sales. 

I got my netbook from 'em last December when I was having my laptop fixed (but being fixed by my pc bloke).  I got it with fifty quid off because they were more interested in selling tablets and it had been on display and wasn't absolutely pristine.   But it was the exact one I wanted. 

My first laptop, a medion, had also been on display in Staples, got a massive reduction on it, and lasted ten years.  I was sorry to see it go.

[Redroger]

Roger - I wouldn't ever get anything from PC world either.  The staff don't know anything, I feel sorry for the people who don't use computers very often who go there when they have a problem, because they think it's the only place to go.

At least they manage to get their vests on with "Tech Guys" on the front, looks good if nothing else!

[mothball]

I know this is a bit late, but I had exact same problem running Windows 7, Firefox and IE10.

1.  I uninstalled IE10 - made my machine go a little slower, but less freezing.

2.  I followed this link to make sure Firefox had correct permissions to access machine.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/configure-windows-firewall-allow-firefox-access#w_configuring-windows-7-firewall

3. and last thing was to re-install Firefox.   That fixed it weeks ago and is still working fine.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/forum-response-clean-reinstall 

[LizzieW]

Having now bought a new laptop - well my other one was 5 years old - I've now found out that the possible culprit was Foxit PDF reader, which I've now uninstalled from my old laptop and not installed on my new laptop.