Why does my computer keep freezing?

[Greatot]

My computer freezes 20-30 minutes after starting it, I can still move my cursor and pressing Num Lock will still turn the lights on.

It doesn't matter what I do, using Firefox, playing a game or not doing anything. It will say "not responding" for every program and I can't start or close anything.
Finally, if I right-click anywhere it will fully lock up, to the point where I have to reboot.

The problem started once I reset my BIOS to default. I tried scanning for viruses, cleaning the registry, cleaning cookies and deleting programs I don't use.

Also: Ctrl+alt+del doesn't do anything. I tried leaving it for 10-15 minutes, but it didn't unfreeze.

 

[clutchc]

What was the reason you reset your BIOS? Could you have left something unchanged after that... something you had changed before in BIOS?

Although, I have had that same situation happen myself on one or more of my other machines. After a long time, it finally will 'wake up'. It is almost like it is trying to do something that is not responding, and waiting. Does your screen grey-out while you wait?

 

[Greatot]

I reset my BIOS because I was getting BSoD at startup, I never really changed anything before that. The screen seems to keep it's normal color.

 

[clutchc]

Have you tested you memory? If not run memtest on each stick individually for at least one FULL pass.
http://www.memtest.org/

You download the ISO file and use it to burn a bootable CD. Just boot to that disk and it will take over.

 

[Greatot]

I don't have any empty CD's at the moment, I will buy a few tomorrow and see how it goes.

 

[clutchc]

Do you have a lot of other stuff running in the background? Check your System Configuration/Start Up and see how many boxes are checked. It could be a conflict between TSRs and your regular programs. Do you have a lot of things in your TRAY?
I presume you already ran something like CCleaner to clean your registry.

 

[Greatot]

Not many, mostly only anti-viruses. I have a few of them running at the same time. I did use CCleaner, it found around 120 errors but still didn't fix anything.

 

[clutchc]

120 errors! You must mean junk files. Could you really have had that many registry errors? If you have a lot of reg errors, run it more than once. It may find more.

Running more than one virus pgm at a time is asking for trouble. And unnecessary. Not to mention slowing down the PC. What do you have running?

 

[Greatot]

I didn't even have that many programs running. Now I've deleted/disabled a few of the programs and anti-viruses that I don't use, it sadly still freezes. At this point I think it can only be my memory, but I have no idea how to use memtest the right way.

 

[clutchc]

On the memtest site, click on Download (Pre-built & ISOs). Then under ** Memtest86+ V5.01 (27/09/2013)** click on Download - Pre-Compiled Bootable ISO (.zip).

Unzip that file to produce an .ISO file. Burn that file to a CD.
Put just 1 stick of RAM in the 1st slot of your PC, and boot to that CD. Memtest will start automatically and begin checking memory. The display will look intimidating, but don't worry. There's only two things you need to watch; PASS and ERROR. Just watch for when it finally completes 1 pass. If there are 0 errors after one full pass, you can ESC and quit. Repeat for all sticks of RAM. If it finds even 1 error, the RAM needs to be replaced.

 

[Greatot]

0 errors, and my RAM seems to be fully fine. Now I'm really out of ideas.

 

[Greatot]

I've talked to my friend about this, he said the best I can do is re-install windows. Would that fix anything?

 

[clutchc]

Hmmm... since the problem seemed to start when you reset the BIOS (to default?), maybe browse around in BIOS and see if there is anything that looks strange. Anything that looks like it needs 'enabling' or 'disabling'.

You could try a Windows repair with the installation disk before having to do a clean install. Or try a recovery to a date before this started happening.

Have you checked Device Manager for any yellow exclamation marks?
Do you have a network hard drive on your router?
Can you disable your internet connection for a test and see if the problem still is present?

 

[Greatot]

No yellow exclamation marks.
I've tried disabling my internet connection, it didn't help.

I did a few more things than setting my BIOS to default before the problem was there. I've also updated avast, and installed a new game. Avast is the only program I didn't try to disable (I don't want to take the risk of getting a virus), I also sometimes get a blank screen when trying to log into windows. I fixed that problem in the past by uninstalling Avast because something went wrong with having Avast and Malwarebytes running at the same time. Could Avast anti-virus really be the problem here?

 

[clutchc]

I used to use Avast myself until it started giving me problems. I can no longer remember what the problems actually were, but I switched to Microsoft Securities Essentials and never had the issue again. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-download
It works seamlessly with Windows and works great with Malwarebytes. If you decide to try MSE, don't run Avast at the same time. As soon as MSE is installed and working, uninstall Avast.

One other crazy notion came to mind. I live in an area that is quite cold in winter months. My furnace humidifier can't keep up during those months. The environment gets quite dry. As a result, I get a lot of ESD issues. Constantly getting zapped touching things. If I forget to ground myself before I insert a flash drive, there's a good chance an ESD discharge will freeze my PC. A hard reset is the only way out. Just thought I'd mention that in case you think it might have a bearing on your situation.

 

[Greatot]

Unbelievable, I uninstalled Avast and replaced it with MSE and poof! no more freezing. Thankfully I didn't uninstall windows.
Thank you so much for recommending me MSE, I never thought Avast could do any damage.

 

[clutchc]

Let's keep our fingers crossed a little while longer before we celebrate ;-)
But if all goes well, I'd run CCleaner again and clean out any registry items Avast may have overlooked removing. Good luck.

 

[clutchc]

Btw, after the last few versions of MSE, it no longer seems to auto update. You have to do the update through Windows Updates when you do the regular ones. Or just do it manually from inside the program like I do. That's the only drawback I've found so far.