Computer Freezes or Locks up

This description has recommendations on what to do if the computer freezes or locks up. Follow the below procedure to stop your computer from freezing and attempt to become the computer unfreeze.

Tip:  Some programs contain AutoSave option. While you were editing a document for that situation lock up, you might capable of recovering a recent version of the document after restarting. If your program does not contain an AutoSave feature or capable of recovering a recent version of a document, you might lose the data which is not saved because of freeze or deadlock. It is significant to save your data frequently to avoid this possibility.

Give some time for the computer

Wait for few minutes to process the computer. Sometimes a Computer might appear to be frozen, but actually, it is busy in processing a tough task.

 Computer deadlocked or not?

Check whether your computer responding to anything by pressing  the Caps Lock  Key on the Keyboard and see the Caps lock LED (light) is turning into on or off. If the light is turning on and off of your Caps Lock key, continue to the further step. If it is not happening like that then the computer is deadlocked and you must reboot your computer.

End Task the Not Responding program

If the Caps Lock turns on and off, that means windows are still working but other programs might not respond and cause the computer for freezing. Press Ctrl+Alt+D to open the windows Task manager. If the Task Manger opens show up the program which is not responding and choose End Task, which will unfreeze the computer.

Note: It will take ten to twenty seconds for the unresponsive program to be ended after you are selecting End Task.

Restart a frozen computer

If the given above steps are useless, you have to Reboot your computer. To restart a frozen computer, press and hold down the power button until the computer turns off. After the system is off, wait for some time then turn the computer return on and allow it to start as normal.

Note: While the computer start-up process, you might be seen that a screen asking normally. Select the start windows normally option and check windows are starting correctly without error.

Determine Hardware or Device Driver issue

After trying all of the above procedure also if it is still frozen or continues to freeze after rebooting, there might be defective hardware or a device driver which will not work properly. A defective hard drive, stick of video card, RAM, or other hardware can do computer to freeze. A device driver also causes the computer to freeze if its date has expired, variance with another driver, or simply not working correctly.

You should replace the hardware aside to avoid further damage to the computer if you resolve that a defective piece of hardware is causing freezes. If a device driver having the fault, then download updated driver from the manufacturer’s website and install that before the computer gets the freeze.

You have another option if you unable to install the latest driver before the computer gets the freeze that is to start the computer in Safe Mode.

Once it gets into safe mode then you can access Device Manger and uninstall the hardware device equivalent to the device driver which doesn’t work properly. Then restart the computer normally into windows. Windows resolves the hardware which you uninstalled and try reinstalling device driver again. This procedure is sufficient to fix the problem and disable further freezes from taking place. You can install updated Driver at this point, to confirm your computer should be up-to-date for that device driver.

You can also try accessing the computer BIOS and be halting any hardware which will not work properly, to check if it stops the freezes from occurring. Though, you should still restore that hardware, because you are not able to use your computer fully if the hardware stops running.

Other possible causes for computer being frozen

There are so many reasons for a computer to stop working and freeze up. Please view our page on Windows freezes or stops responding frequently for other possible causes and ways to troubleshoot.

Take PC to Repair Shop

If nothing worked in the above options then better to take your computer to a computer shop and ask the computer technician to diagnose and fix the computer freezes or locks up the problem.

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