While browsing emails or listening to music, you’re enjoying your day when all of a sudden, your laptop stops working. Your laptop is not responding at all. You click and drag your mouse anxiously, hoping to see some indication that something is moving, but nothing happens.
Don’t lose your temper just yet! Here is a guide that contains everything you need to know about causes and what to do if your laptop freezes or crashes.
Give It a Minute to Catch Up
Occasionally, if you are undertaking a CPU-intensive operation, your laptop may appear to be frozen or start running slow. If your laptop appears to be entirely frozen, give it a few moments to speed up and complete its task. It might get back to life.
You’d be shocked at how often this works, particularly if it happens by chance (and not a chronic problem). You just have to keep calm and give some time to your frozen computer to settle down.
Is The Computer Deadlocked?
Check to verify if the laptop is active by clicking the Caps Lock key on the keyboard and seeing the Caps Lock LED (light) if it flashes on and off. This should indicate that the computer is active.
If nothing changes, there are chances that your computer froze and needed to be restarted. You might need to take the laptop or computer’s power plug to force shutdown.
End Task The Not Responding Program
If you can set Caps Lock on and off, this indicates that Windows is still functional. However, it is possible that another program is not responding, which is causing the laptop to freeze.
Ctrl+Alt+Del will open Windows Task Manager. If the Task Manager is accessible, highlight the unresponsive program and click End Task to unfreeze the computer.
Possible Causes
If your laptop randomly freezes when using different software applications, there could be a number of causes. Here are the most frequent causes of a laptop’s random freezing.
Not enough processing power
Mostly, this is because you are using applications like video editing or 3D rendering that require a lot of power from your computer processor. When utilizing CPU-intensive applications, try to restrict the number of concurrently running processes.
Using heavy software without proper management can cause consistent computer freeze problems.
Not Enough Hard-Disk Space
It is always a good idea to maintain the required free hard disk space for the best laptop performance. Regular usage of a disk cleaner to delete unneeded or unnecessary files is the most effective method.
Overheating
Excessive heat can slow down a laptop to the point that it freezes. In extreme cases, the integrated circuit of your system CPU can be damaged and rendered unusable by excessive heat. To avoid this, ensure that your laptop has adequate ventilation. In tough conditions, computer casing should be employed.
Corrupted Drivers or Errors
The operating system and hardware devices communicate with each other through drivers. It’s possible that your computer freezing issue will continue because it’s using drivers that are either damaged or out of date. Consequently, you must ensure that your drives are always up-to-date.
Power Issues
Your laptop’s power source must be capable of delivering adequate voltage to the system. Even if you have a powerful laptop with the most up-to-date processor, ample RAM, GPU, and a sophisticated motherboard, a failing power supply or unexpected power shock can be the cause of a frozen computer.
BIOS Settings
Modifying the settings in the BIOS might result in major problems and may even send the laptop into a frozen state in some circumstances. Processor or RAM overclocking causes instability issues.
If this is the case, which is causing the system to freeze, resetting the BIOS settings to their default values can solve the problem. This can be performed by deleting CMOS and reinstalling it a few minutes later.
What To Do If Your Laptop Freezes – Solutions
1. Try Restarting Your Computer
Okay, this is an obvious step. However, some users believe they must unplug the laptop or change the power strip’s switch. There’s no need to worry about an outage if you just hold down your computer’s power button for 5 to 10 seconds, and it will restart.
2. Close Unwanted Apps & Services Running In The Background
This should be the first thing you attempt the next time your computer freezes. You may open Task Manager on your laptop by simultaneously pressing the keyboard shortcut Ctrl Alt Delete keys. This will bring up the window.
You only need to check which programs and hidden software are using the most CPU and RAM resources in order to determine what steps to take next. The ‘End Task’ button can be used to terminate any undesirable programs that are taking up a lot of your laptop’s computer resources.
3. Update Your Drivers
This issue may arise if you are running incompatible or obsolete device drivers. Therefore, you should update your drivers to see if this resolves the issue. Device Manager can be accessed via the taskbar or the Start menu.
- Right-click the drivers and choose the option to look for updated driver software automatically.
- You may now upgrade driver software
- You can also uninstall and reinstall the drivers automatically if the following doesn’t work for you. This will resolve any issues caused by a recent driver installation.
- Run Device Manager.
- Right-click the relevant driver and select Uninstall.
- Restarting your laptop will cause Windows to reinstall the driver automatically.
4. Change the Settings for Your Hard Drive’s Power Plan
According to user input, you should always have your HDD powered on if you possess one. This is how:
- Fix Press the Windows logo key and the letter R on your keyboard simultaneously. Next, move to the box that appears and type powercfg.cpl before pressing the Enter key.
- Within your chosen (preferred) energy plan, tap Settings plan settings.
- Select Advanced power settings (Change)
- Double click on the Hard drive option, then select the Turn off hard disk after option. Then, set the Setting (Minutes) value to Never (using the down arrow) and click the OK button.
- Determine whether the laptop freezing issue has been resolved. If yes, congratulations! If the problem remains, try the Solution below.
5. Check for Changes in Windows 10
If a Windows 10 laptop suddenly stops functioning for no apparent reason, it is typically because something on the system has been updated. There are a few things to check before we go into troubleshooting.
Have you installed a new application? Are you using any new antivirus or security software? Recently secure your hard disk. Other important modifications? If so, you should start there.
If a change you made caused your Windows 10 laptop to freeze, undo the change or uninstall the program. If your computer freezes again, restart it. Let the system restore its internal components. If this doesn’t solve the issue, your laptop might have a hardware problem or need operating system updates.
6. Modify Virtual Memory
Mostly, when you start to notice that your apps are beginning to slow down before finally freezing and being nonresponsive, it is because Windows has run out of Random Access Memory (RAM) on your laptop.
There will be no issues if you use at least 8-16 GB of RAM, but if you just have very low RAM capacity and are trying to execute basic resource operations like photo editing, graphics, playing games, or employing RAM-intensive software like Maya or Unity, Windows will likely freeze frequently.
If the above scenario is appropriate, you may be able to resolve the issue by increasing the amount of virtualized memory (vRAM) rather than physically adding extra RAM to your computer system.
7. Running a Memory Check
Whenever Windows 10 freezes unexpectedly, you should conduct a memory check on your laptop. RAM failure will result in Windows 10 freezing issues. You do not want to purchase a new laptop if replacing the RAM will solve your problem.
8. Running a Disk Check
If your Windows 10 computer continues to freeze randomly, you should run a disk check. This will scan your hard drive and fix the majority of faulty system files and driver software issues. If the computer starts fine after running a disk check, you should know that the problem is with the hard drive.
9. Free Up Disk Space
If you are using Windows, check the available space on local drive C; if you are using a Mac, examine the startup disk. If storage space is limited, remove unnecessary files and applications. Make sure you don’t accidentally delete any system files.
If you are not able to start Windows in normal mode, try to open the safe mode. You can do the disk clean-up in this way.
10. Remove Malware
Your laptop may be frozen due to harmful software. There are free virus scanners available, such as Malwarebytes. Follow this instruction to delete malware from your laptop if you find it. You can also use these software in safe mode.
Conclusion
This article provides suggestions on what to do if your laptop freezes, deadlocks, or becomes unresponsive. There can be several reasons for this issue, such as problematic power supply, hard drive error, or outdated drivers.
If the solutions presented above are unsuccessful, we suggest taking your laptop to a laptop repair shop and contacting a laptop specialist to identify the issue and provide a solution for it.
Let us know in the comments if you are able to solve the issue.
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