Steps To Prevent Computer Freezes

Computer freezes usually occur due to problems that may not actually be visible. But these hidden problems can play a major role in the deterioration of your computer's performance. If you are frequently haunted by unexpected computer freezes, then you must perform the following steps in order to resolve some of the problems that might be occurring in the background:

Step 1: Disable unwanted startup programs.

Startup programs, as the name suggests, are programs that load at system startup. Although, there are several startup programs and services essential for your Windows computer to function, there are some that are usually set to load at startup when you install certain software applications. These programs are usually not required until you actually use the application they belong to, and the rest of the time they unnecessarily run in the background eating up precious system resources.

To prevent these undesirable programs to load at startup, go to the Start menu, point to Startup and then delete the shortcuts of the programs you do not want to load at Startup.

Next, at Start > Run, type msconfig and then press Enter to open the System Configuration utility dialog box. Here, on the Services and Startup clear the check boxes of the services and processes you do not want to load at system startup. After you have specified your settings, restart your system to apply them.

Step 2: Remove unwanted information from the registry.

Accumulation of junk information such as outdated, empty, orphan, error and invalid entries, corrupt and fragment registry files and thereby slow it down. A slow registry takes a long time to fulfill requests sent to it by various programs and hardware devices and causes system freezes. This is the reason why, to fix Windows freeze problems, you need to regularly clean your registry and keep it free from this unwanted digital debris. You can do this easily with the help of a registry cleaner tool. Using a registry cleaner tool, you can perform several registry maintenance tasks, such as scan and remove unwanted registry entries, repair invalid and error entries, defrag the broken registry files, and backup the registry.

Step 3: Scan for malware programs.

Malware programs, such as viruses and spyware start filling up your hard disk with malicious files and programs as soon as they infiltrate your system. These malicious programs feed on your system resources and drastically bring down computer performance. This is the reason why when you are troubleshooting system freeze problems, you must run a full system scan using updated antivirus and antispyware tools to detect and remove any malware infections.

Note: For better results, it is recommended that you perform antivirus and antispyware scans in Safe mode. To start your system in Safe mode, restart your system, press F8 when the system is just starting up and then scroll down and select the Safe Mode option.

Step 4: Clean up and defrag the hard disk.

As your PC gets older, the hard disk gets filled up with loads of undesired programs, files, and folders. This unwanted stuff eats up a lot of space on the disk, causing clutter. Moreover, with too much information stored on the disk, new files cannot be stored in adjacent locations and are therefore, fragmented and stored wherever space is available on the disk. This clutter adds a lot of load on the hard disk's head and also slows down data access time.

Therefore, to prevent system freeze and also to repair system freeze problems, you must use the Disk Cleanup tool to first get rid of all unwanted files and programs from your computer. And then, use the Disk Defragmenter tool to consolidate the broken files, speed up data access, and as a result, enhance the performance of your computer.