Hi, in the last few days i've had this really annoying problem. It started around the time when i uninstalled firefox and installed google chrome along with a game as well as a huge list of updates. It is as if like my screen freezes while playing games or watching movies or simply typing in word, however my sounds are just fine and not interupted at all. I've tried to look for new drivers and new updates to solve this problem, and i have also looked on google without much results. I've been thinking of maybe reformating my laptop. but im in the middle of my semester at uni and so i cant really be without the laptop for maybe maximum of two days. I am not a wizard at computers, i know how to find drivers and do a simple clean up, but nothing advanced like run cmds and the sort - so if anyone have any idea what it might be it would be really appreciaed.
I've also checked if my process or ram spikes during these freezes but they dont, they stay perfectly normal so i dont really have any idea what might be causing it.
You don't give any details, but I know games can be huge installs, and if that's the case try uninstalling the game.
Along with what the guys say above, it's a process of elimination with the most recent changes you've made software wise to your computer.
If it's a big game, make sure you remove it via "Add/Remove Programs", and if you're doubtful, tell us what it is as there may be a dedicated removal tool available for it.
problems began occuring i think it was around the 14th or 15th of february which is the date where i got this massive amount of updates from the windows update fuction in the controlpanel. At the same time i uninstalled Guild Wars which had been saved to my C: drive and installed it onto my D: drive as it is bigger and which is where i install just abou everything. I also uninstalled Firefox and installed google chrome which is when i really began to notice these freezes as they began to happen more frequently so i immediatly uninstalled it and reinstalled Firefox again.
Since my initial post i've tried to recover a past point, like sending the comp back in time - which seemed to work for about 10 minutes till the freezes came back. I've also tried to reinstall Guild Wars as well. the freezes happen still, but only during certain 'periods' like when i play a game or a film or have parts of the memory in use. I tried using the resource surveiliance or what it is called where you can see the graphs for processes, RAM, drives and nettwork etc and whenever i get these freezes i can see my Drive spike all the way to max and beyond and then go back down to normal.
I've been considering trying to format my computer but im not sure about it as i have never formated a computer before and i am afraid that something will go wrong, ending up with just a computer which is sort of useless in the middle of my university term :/
Question. You mention it mostly freezes under load. Have you checked the dust on the fans lately?
Dust on processor/power supply/video card fans can cause heat buildup & cause a system to slow or lockup badly.
Also, how much RAM do you have in comparison to what you need, IE, what is in use via task manager as opposed to what is installed via right-click My Compter & Properties?
Sadly i have no idea how to check the fan at all and im no IT techie so i have no idea how to actually check/clean the fans myself :/ But im assuming it might be one of the factors as when i got the computer i used it quite alot on my bed so it is probably a bit dusty xD
Also, i have 6gb of ram and usually it only uses up to 2.9 during gaming of games like bf3 and the rest of the ram is lying in wait. I used to have an issue with the computer going extremely warm, but when i changed my cable - the one going from the wall into the black little box, it all became better and now i can sit on it for several hours playing games and it will never run warm :/
I've reinstalled another game yesterday because it was acting up really bad - League of Legends and since then it also seems like the freezes have diminshed somewhat and are not so frequent. Also another funny thing is that when im in a word document, i get loads of those freezes, but when im typing this i havent had a single one, which is sort of wierd in my opinion.